“Who? Old Peg-leg Weir?”
He nodded.
“Mrs. Clayton told me about it. And later on I got the full particulars from old Mr. Hartenbower.”
Mr. Silas Hartenbower, I might say, is a centenarian, or whatever you call it. Last June the whole county turned out to celebrate his one-hundred-and-second birthday. That was the afternoon Red Meyers and I made the bet to see who could eat the most pink ice cream. The big pig! He won.
“I didn’t take much stock in that pirate story when you first dished it out to me,” says Poppy. “For it sounded fishy. But when Mrs. Clayton told me about the pirate’s cucumbers—and when I heard about the iron mold from Mr. Hartenbower—oh, baby!”
Here a big yellow cat meandered around the furnace and took a curious squint at us. It strangely reminded me of Mr. Weckler’s cat. But when I reached down to pet it, it ran and jumped into an open window, the sill of which was on a level with the outside yard.
“It’s Mr. Hartenbower’s story,” says Poppy, “that old Peg-leg Weir covered up his unlawful river work for years by making a pretense of raising cucumbers for a living. Every summer he had a big bed of cucumbers back of his house—probably in the very same place where Mrs. O’Mally has her big patch. As he always had plenty of money, the neighbors got the idea that his cucumber seed brought a fabulous price. Hence the cucumbers were something extra-special, they thought. But the patch was left strictly alone when one farmer, who tried to snitch a peck or two of the cucumbers to get some of the seed for his own use, went home with a charge of bird shot in his legs. That was Mr. Hartenbower, himself, then only twenty-two years old. The next winter the truth came out about the pirate. A posse of angry farmers surrounded his house, determined to capture him, and it was then, I was told, that he was shot down. Some battle, I guess. Mr. Hartenbower searched the house for cucumber seed. Couldn’t find a one. He did find a queer iron mold, though. Out of curiosity he later filled it with melted lead. And when he took the lead piece out of the mold, what do you suppose it was?”
“Bullets?” says I, remembering stories I had heard about early pioneer days.
“No,” he shook his head, “it wasn’t bullets. It was a little cucumber, about an inch long.”
I stared at him. And I could feel my eyes growing as big as his.