The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I | Page 9

of loss
that overcame me on witnessing it. I reached my room--the bananas
were gone.
There was but one that knew of their existence, but one who frequented
my window, but one capable of 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 neighborhood
house-top. I lit a cigar, and, drawing my chair to the window, sought
surcease 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He affected not to observe me, and would have withdrawn quietly, but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 trousers, 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 persecutor 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 offense 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 reappeared. 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
reappear 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 him 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.

THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE
OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY"

A Logical Story
BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, That was built in such
a logical way It ran a hundred years to a day, And then, of a