University of Virginia Library

MELONS.

As I do not suppose the most gentle of readers
will believe that anybody's sponsors in baptism ever
willfully assumed the responsibility of such a name,
I may as well state that I have reason to infer that
Melons was simply the nick-name of a small boy I
once knew. If he had any other, I never knew it.

Various theories were often projected by me, to
account for this strange cognomen. His head, which
was covered with a transparent down, like that
which clothes very small chickens, plainly permitting
the scalp to show through, to an imaginative
mind might have suggested that succulent vegetable.
That his parents, recognizing some poetical significance
in the fruits of the season, might have given
this name to an August child, was an Oriental explanation.
That from his infancy, he was fond of indulging
in melons, seemed on the whole the most
likely, particularly as Fancy was not bred in
McGinnis's Court. He dawned upon me as melons.
His proximity was indicated by shrill, youthful
voices, as “Ah, Melons!”—or playfully, “Hi,
Melons!” or authoritatively, “You, Melons!”

McGinnis's Court was a democratic expression of
some obstinate and radical property-holder. Occupying
a limited space between two fashionable thoroughfares,
it refused to conform to circumstances, but sturdily
paraded its umkempt glories, and frequently asserted
itself in ungrammatical language. My window—a
rear room on the ground floor—in this way derived
blended light and shadow from the Court. So
low was the window-sill, that had I been the
least predisposed to somnambulism, it would have
broken out under such favorable auspices, and I
should have haunted McGinnis's Court. My speculations
as to the origin of the Court were not altogether
gratuitous, for by means of this window I
once saw the Past, as through a glass darkly. It was
a Celtic shadow that early one morning obstructed
my ancient lights. It seemed to belong to an individual
with a pea-coat, a stubby pipe and bristling
beard. He was gazing intently at the Court, resting
on a heavy cane, somewhat in the way that heroes
dramatically visit the scenes of their boyhood.
As there was little of architectural beauty in the
Court, I came to the conclusion that it was McGinnis
looking after his property. The fact that he carefully
kicked a broken bottle out of the road, somewhat
strengthened me in the opinion. But he presently
walked away, and the Court knew him no
more. He probably collected his rents by proxy—if
he collected them at all.

Beyond Melons, of whom all this is purely introductory,
there was little to interest the most sanguine

and hopeful nature. In common with all such localities,
a great deal of washing was done, in comparison
with the visible results.—There was always something
whisking on the line, and always something
whisking through the Court, that looked as if it
ought to be there. A fish geranium—of all plants
kept for the recreation of mankind, certainly the
greatest allusion—straggled under the window.
Through its dusty leaves I caught the first glance of
Melons.

His age was about seven. He looked older, from
the venerable whiteness of his head, and it was
impossible to conjecture his size, as he always wore
clothes apparently belonging to some shapely youth
of nineteen. A pair of pantaloons, that, when sustained
by a single suspender, completely equipped
him—formed his every-day suit. How, with this
lavish superfluity of clothing, he managed to perform
the surprising gymnastic feats it has been my privilege
to witness, I have never been able to tell. His
“turning the crab,” and other minor dislocations, were
always attended with success. It was not an unusual
sight at any hour of the day to find Melons suspended
on a line, or to see his venerable head appearing
above the roofs of the outhouses. Melons knew the
exact height of every fence in the vicinity, its facilities
for scaling, and the possibility of seizure on the
other side. His more peaceful and quieter amusments
consisted in dragging a disused boiler by a
large string, with hideous outcries, to imaginary fires.

Melons was not gregarious in his habits. A few

youth of his own age sometimes called upon him, but
they eventually became abusive, and their visits
were more strictly predatory incursions for old bottles
and junk which formed the staple of McGinnis's
Court. Overcome by loneliness one day, Melons
inveigled a blind harper into the Court. For two
hours did that wretched man prosecute his unhallowed
calling, unrecompensed, and going round and
round the Court, apparently under the impression
that it was some other place, while Melons surveyed
him fron an adjoining fence with calm satisfaction.
It was this absence of conscientious motives that
brought Melons into disrepute with his aristocratic
neighbors. Orders were issued that no child of
wealthy and pious parentage should play with him.
This mandate, as a matter of course, invested Melons
with a fascinating interest to them. Admiring glances
were cast at Melons from nursery windows. Baby
fingers beckoned to him. Invitations to tea (on wood
and pewter) were lisped to him from aristocratic
back-yards. It was evident he was looked upon as a
pure and noble being, untrammeled by the conventionalities
of parentage, and physically as well as
mentally exalted above them. One afternoon an unusual
commotion prevailed in the vicinity of McGinnis's
Court. Looking from my window I saw Melons
perched on the roof of a stable, pulling up a rope by
which one “Tommy,” an infant scion of an adjacent
and wealthy house, was suspended in mid-air. In
vain the female relatives of Tommy, congregated in
the back-yard, expostulated with Melons; in vain
the unhappy father shook his fist at him. Secure in
his position, Melons redoubled his exertions and at last
landed Tommy on the roof. Then it was that the
humiliating fact was disclosed that Tommy had been
acting in collusion with Melons. He grinned delightedly
back at his parents, as if “by merit raised
to that bad eminence.” Long before the ladder
arrived that was to succor him, he became the sworn
ally of Melons, and I regret to say, incited by the same
audacious boy, “chaffed” his own flesh and blood
below him. He was eventually taken, though—of
course—Melons escaped. But Tommy was restricted
to the window after that, and the companionship
was limited to “Hi, Melons!” and “You Tommy!”
and Melons, to all practical purposes, lost him forever.
I looked afterward to see some signs of sorrow on
Melon's part, but in vain; he buried his grief, if he
had any, somewhere in his one voluminous garment.

At about this time my opportunities of knowing Melons
became more extended. I was engaged in filling
a void in the Literature of the Pacific Coast. As this
void was a pretty large one, and as I was informed
that the Pacific Coast languished under it, I set apart
two hours each day to this work of filling in. It
was necessary that I should adopt a methodical system,
so I retired from the world and locked myself
in my room at a certain hour each day, after coming
from my office. I then carefully drew out my portfolio
and read what I had written the day before.
This would suggest some alteration, and I would
carefully re-write it. During this operation I would

turn to consult a book of reference, which invariably
proved extremely interesting and attractive. It
would generally suggest another and better method
of “filling in.” Turning this method over reflectively
in my mind, I would finally commence the
new method which I eventually abandoned for the
original plan. At this time I would become convinced
that my exhausted faculties demanded a cigar.
The operation of lighting a cigar usually suggested
that a little quiet reflection and meditation would be
of service to me, and I always allowed myself to be
guided by prudential instincts. Eventually, seated
by my window, as before stated, Melons asserted
himself. Though our conversation rarely went further
than “Hello, Mister!” and “Ah, Melons!” a vagabond
instinct we felt in common implied a communion
deeper than words. In this spiritual commingling
the time passed, often beguiled by gymnastics on the
fence or line (always with an eye to my window) until
dinner was announced, and I found a more practical
void required my attention. An unlooked for incident
drew us in closer relation.

A sea-faring friend just from a tropical voyage had
presented me with a bunch of bananas. They were
not quite ripe, and I hung them before my window
to mature in the sun of McGinnis's Court, whose foreing
qualities were remarkable. In the mysteriously
mingled odors of ship and shore which they diffused
throughout my room, there was a lingering reminiscence
of low latitudes. But even that joy was fleeting
and evanescent: they never reached maturity.

Coming home one day as I turned the corner of
that fashionable thoroughfare before alluded to, I
met a small boy eating a banana. There was nothing
remarkable in that, but as I neared McGinnis's
Court I presently met another small boy, also eating
a banana. A third small boy engaged in a like occupation
obtruded a painful coincidence upon my
mind. I leave the psychological reader to determine
the exact co-relation between this circumstance and
the sickening sense of loss that overcame me on witnessing
it. I reached my room—and found the
bunch of bananas were gone.

There was but one who knew of their existence,
but one who frequented my window, but one capable
of the gymnastic effort to procure them, and that
was—I blush to say it—Melons. Melons the depredator—Melons,
despoiled by larger boys of his ill-gotten
booty, or reckless and indiscreetly liberal;
Melons—now a fugitive on some neighboring house-top.
I lit a cigar and drawing my chair to the window
sought surcrease of sorrow in the contemplation
of the fish geranium. In a few moments something
white passed my window at about the level of
the edge. There was no mistaking that hoary head,
which now represented to me only aged iniquity.
It was Melons, that venerable, juvenile hypocrite.

He affected not to observe me, and would have
withdrawn quietly, but that horrible fascination which
causes the murderer to revisit the scene of his crime,
impelled him toward my window. I smoked calmly
and gazed at him without speaking. He walked

several times up and down the Court with a half
rigid, half belligerent expression of eye and shoulder,
intended to represent the carelessness of innocence.

Once or twice he stopped, and putting his arms
their whole length into his capacious trowsers, gazed
with some interest at the additional width they thus
acquired. Then he whistled. The singular conflicting
conditions of John Brown's body and soul were
at that time beginning to attract the attention of
youth, and Melons's performance of that melody was
always remarkable. But to-day he whistled falsely
and shrilly between his teeth. At last he met my
eye. He winced slightly, but recovered himself, and
going to the fence, stood for a few moments on his
hands, with his bare feet quivering in the air. Then
he turned toward me and threw out a conversational
preliminary.

“They is a cirkis”—said Melons gravely, hanging
with his back to the fence and his arms twisted
around the palings—“a cirkis over yonder!”—indicating
the locality with his foot—“with hosses, and
hossback riders. They is a man wot rides six hosses
to onct—six hosses to onct—and nary saddle”—and
he paused in expectation.

Even this equestrian novelty did not affect me. I
still kept a fixed gaze on Melons's eye, and he began
to tremble and visibly shrink in his capacious garment.
Some other desperate means—conversation
with Melons was always a desperate means—must be
resorted to. He recommenced more artfully.

“Do you know Carrots?”

I had a faint remembrance of a boy of that euphonious
name, with scarlet hair, who was a playmate
and persecuter of Melons. But I said nothing.

“Carrots is a bad boy. Killed a policeman onct.
Wears a dirk knife in his boots, saw him to-day looking
in your windy.”

I felt that this must end here. I rose sternly and
addressed Melons.

“Melons, this is all irrelevant and impertinent to
the case. You took those bananas. Your proposition
regarding Carrots, even if I were inclined to accept
it as credible information, does not alter the material
issue. You took those bananas. The offence
under the statutes of California is felony. How far
Carrots may have been accessory to the fact either
before or after, is not my intention at present to discuss.
The act is complete. Your present conduct
shows the animo furandi to have been equally
clear.”

By the time I had finished this exordium, Melons
had disappeared, as I fully expected.

He never re-appeared. The remorse that I have
experienced for the part I had taken in what I fear
may have resulted in his utter and complete extermination,
alas, he may not know, except through these
pages. For I have never seen him since. Whether
he ran away and went to sea to re-appear at some
future day as the most ancient of mariners, or whether
he buried himself completely in his trousers, I never
shall know. I have read the papers anxiously for

accounts of him. I have gone to the Police Office in
the vain attempt of identifying him as a lost child.
But I never saw or heard of him since. Strange
fears have sometimes crossed my mind that his venerable
appearance may have been actually the result
of senility, and that he may have been gathered
peacefully to his fathers in a green old age. I have
even had doubts of his existence, and have sometimes
thought that he was providentially and mysteriously
offered to fill the void I have before alluded
to. In that hope I have written these pages.