So I gathered up the biggest fragments, and I carried them back to the farmer’s wagon, and I restored the watermelon—­what was left of it.  And I made him give me a good one in place of it, too.

And I told him he ought to be ashamed of himself going around working off his worthless, old, green watermelons on trusting purchasers who had to rely on him.  How could they tell from the outside whither the melons were good or not?  That was his business.  Arid if he didn’t reform, I told him I’d see that he didn’t get any more of my trade—­nor anybody, else’s I knew, if I could help it.

You know that man was as contrite as a revivalist’s last convert.  He said he was all broken up to think I’d gotten a green watermelon.  He promised the he would never carry another green watermelon if he starved for it.  And he drove off—­a better man.

Now, do you see what I did for that man?  He was on a downward path, and I rescued him.  But all I got out of it was a watermelon.

Yet I’d rather have that memory—­just that memory of the good I did for that depraved farmer—­than all the material gain you can think of.  Look at the lesson he got!  I never got anything like that from it.  But I ought to be satisfied:  I was only eleven years old, but I secured everlasting benefit to other people.

The moral in this is perfectly clear, and I think there’s one in they next memory I’m going to tell you about.

To go back to my childhood, there’s another little incident that comes to me from which you can draw even another moral.  It’s about one of the times I went fishing.  You see, in our house there was a sort of family prejudice against going fishing if you hadn’t permission.  But it would frequently be bad judgment to ask.  So I went fishing secretly, as it were—­way up the Mississippi.  It was an exquisitely happy trip, I recall, with a very pleasant sensation.

Well, while I was away there was a tragedy in our town.  A stranger, stopping over on his way East from California; was stabbed to death in an unseemly brawl.

Now; my father was justice of the peace, and because he was justice of the peace he was coroner; and since he was coroner he was also constable; and being constable he vas sheriff; and out of consideration for his holding the office of sheriff he was likewise county clerk and a dozen other officials I don’t think of just this minute.

I thought he had power of life or death, only he didn’t use it over other boys.  He was sort of an austere man.  Somehow I didn’t like being round him when I’d done anything he, disapproved of.  So that’s the reason I wasn’t often around.

Well, when this gentleman got knifed they communicated with the proper authority; the coroner, and they laid, the corpse out in the coroner’s office—­our front sitting-room—­in preparation for the inquest the next morning.

About 9 or 10 o’clock I got back from fishing.  It was a little too late for me to be received by my folks, so I took my shoes off and slipped noiselessly up the back way to the sitting-room.  I was very tired, and I didn’t wish to disturb my people.  So I groped my way to the sofa and lay down.