Smyrna times., 1900-08-22

"YOu have all seen those jumping
beans the fakirs are selling" re-
marked the visiting citizens of Slow
brook. 'Now have you ever seen wat
ermelons act that way? Never heard
of them? Why the story of Old Man
Johnson's melons is family history
down our way.
johnson wasn't much of farmer,
but he did know how to raise melons.
and his melons were known to every
darkey for fifty miles around. He took
uncommon pride in his melons, too.
and when he read in one of the New
YOrks papers about being able to flavor
a melon by drawing one end of a
string through the stem and allowing
the other end to remain in bottle
filled with the desired flavor, he Just
chuckled with happiness, and went
down to the station and bought up all
the papers containing the story. That
spring johnson spent more time and
care than ever on his melon patch,
and he got mighty mysterious over it,
too.
Zone evening just about the season
that melons began to ripen, the crowd
around the Post Office were startled
by most unearthly cries and yells, and
great big darky came tearing down
the road running like mad, his eyes
sticking out, and his color about three
shades lighter than natural. We cor
rallied him all right as he went to dash
past, but it was about forty minutes
before we could get anything but
TOans from him. We then learned
hat he had been out to Johnson's s
melon patch, and according to his
story, the melons we're all alive and
tried to catch him. We thought right
off that Johnson had rugged up some
kind of a contrivance to scare off
negroes, and as we were all planters,
We started out to see the thing work.
We hadn't gone 100 yards before an
other scared darkey came down the
road, and then another, and another,
until five had passed us going about
as fast as the Lord allowed, and a lit
tie extra.
"And them melons! Well, by all the
rattlers and kings of moccasins. we
could hardly believe our eyes. There
was a field of about six acres, just
covered with masked and broken
melons, while in the centre was the
most monstrous big melon that ever
was. And that melon was going
around like drunken man; it would
90 up on one end, wabbIe little and
go over; it would roll two or three
times, go up ON the other end and re-
peat the performance. That melon
was, as we afterward found out, 4
feet 8 inches long and 3 feet inches
round. 1t had rolled around until the
ground for half an acre was as smooth
and hard as a stone, while the vine
upon which it grew was all twisted
up like rope aud was as big as your
arm, while every other melon in in its
path vas busted wide open. That did
look like spirits, sure and we just stood
and looked at that thing go bounc-
ing over the ground about half an
hour.
''Then Harvey, he's the blacksmith,
proposes seeing what moved her. Well
1t rolled SIX of us about considerably
before we at last got her quiet, and
Just as we were about to cut into it,
up comes Johnson crying like mad,
and threatening to shoot every one of
us II we didn't let go his big melon. OF
course we let go, and then watched
johnson. He wouldn't have it, though
and was going to have all kinds of law
and buckshot on us if we didn't move
off.
I'VE smelled mouse right off when
he tore about that way, so we pre-
tended to go home, but after going
down the road about mile we came
Daek through the woods, and getting
on tne edge of the clearing, watched
tne OLD man. He must have expected
some such move for he walked all
around his patch twice before any.
tnlng occurred. Then I'm blessed il
!ne OLD fellow didn't bring out demi
Ionn OF whiskey and going to til
pan nslf buried in the ground, hi
poured about auart into it. NJ
sooner mad this been done than tina
Dlg melon began to topple towarr
'na' pan, and never came to rest unit
one end was directly over it wheu