“But it began to rain in the night, and it rained all the next day. The day after, it was too wet, and the day after that Charlie was busy. Then it rained again, and after a while I forgot all about the pumpkin seeds. It was several weeks before I thought of them again. You couldn’t guess what made me think of them then, so I will tell you.
“When we went to meeting on Sundays, Charlie and I always tried to remember the text of the sermon to say when we got home, for Mother was almost sure to ask us what it was. One Sunday I was saying it over and over to myself so that I could remember it, when suddenly the meaning of it came to me and I was surprised to find that it had something to do with me. The text was ‘Be sure your sin will find you out,’ and in a flash I knew it meant that if you did anything wrong you couldn’t keep people from knowing about it. Then I thought of the buried pumpkin seed which Charlie and I had meant to go back and plant.
“Father had never said a word about the pumpkins not coming up, though he must surely have noticed it long before this. Perhaps he thought the seed had been bad, but still it was queer he had never mentioned it.
“That night I couldn’t sleep for thinking how wrong it had been for Charlie and me to deceive Father about the pumpkin seed. Even the fact that we had meant to go back and plant them didn’t make me feel any less guilty. When I did fall asleep, I dreamed that the room was full of pumpkins with ugly grinning faces like jack-o’-lanterns. They laughed and mocked at me and pressed closer and closer until I wakened with a frightened cry, and when Mother asked me what had scared me I couldn’t tell her.
“In the morning I talked it over with Charlie. We agreed to go to Father immediately and tell him that we had not planted the pumpkin seeds.
I dreamed the room was full of pumpkins with ugly grinning faces
“But Father had gone to Clayville on business for a couple of days. When he came back, before we had a chance to see him alone he told us at dinner before all the others that the pumpkin crop in the bottom cornfield was to be Charlie’s and mine. He said that we could keep as many as we wanted to for jack-o’-lanterns on Hallowe’en and he would pay us ten cents apiece for all the rest. Think of that! Ten cents apiece for all the pumpkins we raised, and we knew that there wouldn’t be any pumpkins! I looked across the table at Charlie, and his face was very red. I couldn’t say a word, but when Father left the table we both followed him and told him all about the pumpkin seeds, and how the text had started us thinking, and everything. Father listened without a word till we had finished. Then much to our surprise he said, ‘I’ve known for a good while what you did with the pumpkin seed. When I saw the number of fish you caught that afternoon, I wondered how you had planted the pumpkin seed so quickly. I had told Mother they were to belong to you two to do with as you pleased, but I did not intend to tell you until later. Then when I found out that you had not planted the seeds I waited for you to come to me. I believe you have learned a lesson from this experience which you will not forget. Come along with me. I want to show you something.’
“Wonderingly, without a word, we followed Father to the cornfield and straight to where the old rotten stump in the lower end of the field had been. But when we got there we could not see the stump, for coming out of it and all over it and completely covering it, were myriads of pumpkin vines—not big strong vines like the ones that grew in the fields, but thin, sickly vines crowding each other for space.