Stolen Melons
~ by Jeff Tryon
Driving through Bean Blossom the other day, I saw Bud Smith sitting out there with his wagon full of watermelons and cantaloupes, so I stopped by and bought one.
These melons are grown right down the hill in the Bean Blossom Creek bottom, and were probably picked today or yesterday. A lady at the roadside tent assured me she had just sampled one and they were“ sweet as sugar.” And it was. I asked Bud,“ Do the kids ever steal watermelons out of your patch?” honestly wondering if kids today still had the energy and initiative.
“ Yeah, they steal’ em sometimes,” he said, more sad than angry.
Bud told me,“ A few months ago, a fella came up to me at Brownies Restaurant and said,‘ Are you Bud Smith?’ I said‘ Yeah.’ He says,‘ Back in 1989 a friend and I came and stole some cantaloupes out of your field and we sat on the schoolhouse steps and ate them. I never did feel right about that, and it still bothers me every time I drive past there.’ And he put a five dollar bill down on the table. I said,‘ It’ s OK. You don’ t need to pay me,’ but he said he’ d feel better if he did.”
It reminded me of a story dad used to tell about him and some of the boys stealing watermelons around this time of year.
They were poor as Abe Martin and twice as ornery. Dad was a twin, so double dose of hijinks was involved. He and his brother tended to have big ideas and get into things.
56 Our Brown County • July / August 2015
They weren’ t thieves or criminal in any sense of the word, they were raised by a very strict moral example. Except for this particular vice, actually more of a sport, of sneaking into a local farmer’ s watermelon patch in late summer and snagging a few ripe beauties for a watermelon feast at the old barn later.
They would slip down the dark lane, trying not to alert the farm dogs, climb through the barbed wire fence and into Farmer McGreggor’ s capacious field of juicy, sweet melons. About the time they had selected a nice ripe specimen, snipping it from its umbilical vine with their ever-present“ Old Timer” pocket knives, the old hound dogs would start barking and raising the alarm up at the farmhouse.
Often, as the little bandits scurried away, each clutching their purloined prize, the old farmer would come out on the porch and fire off the 12-guage a few times but, luckily for me, he never managed to kill dad.
Now, they were young kids, maybe eight or nine years old. They already worked in the fields for their father, who would make a contract to raise tomatoes for the canning factory. That was an all-hands-on-deck, family survival type thing.
But by the time they were teenagers, they were seeking additional work— paying work— outside the family to buy their own shoes and school clothes. The family was large and desperately poor.
And, of course, one of the places they worked was for old farmer McGreggor, who had a big spread with a little bit of everything and hired help for planting, haying, and harvesting from among the local youth.
One day, while they were working with him in the spring, planting gardens for produce, the famer told