The Great Melon Caper

James Walden Lawton lived in Wisconsin in the 1890s, having been born there in 1860.  Prior to that he had married Sarah Saubert in 1883, and a son, Alvia Ray Lawton, was born unto them in 1884.  Alvia was always known as Ray, and during the 1960s he wrote a short history of the Lawton family as he knew it.

Ray was a genial sort of a fellow and loved to tell sort of humorous tales of the family.  One of them went like this:

It was during the Spanish-American War placing the event about 1898.  The Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad was drilling a tunnel through a small mountain near the Lawton home.  A representative of the railroad asked the Lawtons to house a work crew for the length of time required for the project.  The horse barn loft was converted into a bunkhouse of sorts for about twenty men, while the Superintendent named Smith, his time keeper a Swede named Lundgren, the foreman, and the powder monkey (dynamite man) slept in the Lawton home.

It seems that Smith, as well as James Lawton, were always up for a good practical joke.  One night Smith said, “Lawton, I think we ought to go out and hook a melon, if you know where there are any.”  James said, “Sure, my cousin has a dandy patch down the road about a mile.”  After the evening chores were done, James, Smith, the hired man, and Ray struck out for Jim Paul’s melon patch.  It was dark when they began thumping melons in the patch immediately outside Jim’s back door.  All of them knew how to thump a melon with the middle finger to determine their ripeness.  Right in the middle of their search for a nice ripe melon the house back door opened and Jim Paul and another man named Jim Deaver, one of the biggest, most powerful men in the entire valley came out.  Someone hissed “down” and all of the intruders flattened into the vines and weeds.  That’s one time that weeds were welcome in a melon patch.  The two Jims went around thumping melons in a search for a ripe one for their own use.  They found one that was suitable, went back in and closed the door.

The others continued on until they found a ripe one and then beat a hasty retreat.  After they had returned to the Lawton home and were eating the results of their night’s foray, Smith swore that Deaver had thumped his bald head and said, “It’s queer what an odd sound that green one’s got.”