s always considered guilty of
contributory negligence," and the old man laughed and winked at the
boys. "But a house is no place to eat a melon in, and a knife is not
good enough to cut a melon. Now, you fetch that melon out in the garden,
by the cucumber vines, and I will show you the conditions that should
surround a melon barbecue," and the old man led the way to the garden,
followed by the boys, and he got them seated around in the dirt, with
the growing corn on one side, a patch of sunflowers on another, a
crabapple tree on one side, giving a little shade where they sat, and
the alley fence on the other. The boys were anxious to begin, and each
produced a toad-stabber, but Uncle Ike told them to put away the knives,
and said:

"The only way to eat a melon is to break it by putting your knee on it,
and taking the chunks and running your face right down into it. A nigger
is the only natural melon eater. There," said he, as he crushed the
brittle melon rind into a dozen pieces, and spread it open, red, and
juicy, and glorious. "Now 'fall in,' as we used to say in the army,"
and the boys each grabbed a piece and began to eat and drink out of the
rind, the juice smearing their faces and running down on their shirt
bosoms, and Uncle Ike taking a piece of the core in his hands and trying
to eat as fast as the boys did, the red and sticky juice trickling
through his fingers, and the pulp painting pictures around his dear old
mouth, and up his cheeks to his ears, while he tried to tell them of
a day during the war when he was on the skirmish line going through a
melon patch, and how the order came to lie down, and every last soldier
dropped beside a melon, broke it with his bayonet, and filled himself,
while the bullets whistled, and how they were all sick afterwards, and
had to go to the rear because the people who owned the melons had put
croton oil in them.

"Gosh, but this is great!" said the red-headed boy, as he stopped eating
long enough to loosen his belt.

"You bet!" said one of the other boys; "Uncle Ike is a James dandy,"
and he looked up and bowed to a boy with an apron on, who came into the
garden with a piece of paper in his hand, which he handed to Uncle Ike.

"What is this, a telegram?" says Uncle Ike, as he takes it with his
sticky fingers and feels for his glasses.

"No, it is the bill for the melon----50 cents," said the grocer's boy.

"Bunkoed, by gosh!" says Uncle Ike, as he looks around at the la