Through the drifting clouds there was just enough light to enable them to perceive the dark forms of the melons lying side by side upon their vines. The agent took out his big clasp knife and recklessly slashed one of them open.
"Green's grass!" he grumbled, and slashed another.
Patsy giggled, and the others felt a sudden irresistible impulse to join her.
"Keep still!" cautioned McNutt. "Wouldn't ol' Dan be jest ravin' ef he knew this? Say—here's a ripe one. Hev a slice."
They all felt for the slices he offered and ate the fruit without being able to see it. But it really tasted delicious.
As the girls feasted they heard a crunching sound and inquired in low voices what it was.
McNutt was stumping over the patch and plumping his wooden foot into every melon he could find, smashing them wantonly against the ground. The discovery filled them with horror. They had thought inducing the agent to rob his own patch of a few melons, while under the delusion that they belonged to his enemy Brayley, a bit of harmless fun; but here was the vindictive fellow actually destroying his own property by the wholesale.
"Oh, don't! Please don't, Mr. McNutt!" pleaded Patsy, in frightened accents.
"Yes, I will," declared the agent, stubbornly. "I'll git even with Dan
Brayley fer once in my life, ef I never do another thing, by gum!"
"But it's wrong—it's wicked!" protested Beth.