little Mississippi town where I lived. The population was only about
twenty million. You may not believe it, but I was the best boy in that
State–and in the United States, for that matter.
But I don’t know why I never heard any one say that but myself. I always
recognized it. But even those nearest and dearest to me couldn’t seem to
see it. My mother, especially, seemed to think there was something wrong
with that estimate. And she never got over that prejudice.
Now, when my mother got to be eighty-five years old her memory failed
her. She forgot little threads that hold life’s patches of meaning
together. She was living out West then, and I went on to visit her.
I hadn’t seen my mother in a year or so. And when I got there she knew
my face; knew I was married; knew I had a family, and that I was living
with them. But she couldn’t, for the life of her, tell my name or who I
was. So I told her I was her boy.
“But you don’t live with me,” she said.
“No,” said I, “I’m living in Rochester.”
“What are you doing there?”
“Going to school.”
“Large school?”
“Very large.”
“All boys?”
“All boys.”
“And how do you stand?” said my mother.
“I’m the best boy in that school,” I answered.
“Well,” said my mother, with a return of her old fire, “I’d like to know
what the other boys are like.”
Now, one point in this story is the fact that my mother’s mind went back
to my school days, and remembered my little youthful self-prejudice when
she’d forgotten everything else about me.
The other point is the moral. There’s one there that you will find if
you search for it.
Now, here’s something else I remember. It’s about the first time I ever
stole a watermelon. “Stole” is a strong word. Stole? Stole? No, I
don’t mean that. It was the first time I ever withdrew a watermelon.
It was the first time I ever extracted a watermelon. That is exactly the
word I want– “extracted.” It is definite. It is precise. It perfectly
conveys my idea. Its use in dentistry connotes the delicate shade of
meaning I am looking for. You know we never extract our own teeth.
And it was not my watermelon that I extracted. I extracted that
watermelon from a farmer’s wagon while he was inside negotiating with an
other customer. I carried that watermelon to one of the secluded
recesses of the lumber-yard, and there I broke it open.
It was a green watermelon.
Well, do you know when I saw that I began to feel sorry–sorry–sorry.
It seemed to me that I had done wrong. I reflected deeply. I reflected
that I was young–I think I was just eleven. But I knew that though
immature I did not lack moral advancement. I knew what a boy ought to do
who had extracted a watermelon–like that.
I considered George Washington, and what action he would have taken under
similar circumstances. Then I knew there was just one thing to make me
feel right inside, and that was–Restitution.
So I said to myself: “I will do that. I will take that green watermelon
back where I got it from.” And the minute I had said it I felt that
great moral uplift that comes to you when you’ve made a noble resolution.
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.