A Deal’s A Deal

Mark Twain once said, “The way it is now, asylums can hold all the sane people, but if we try to shut up all the insane we’d run out of building materials.”

Henry “Hitch” Henderson wasn’t insane, but he wasn’t feeling overly sane either, after pulling a less than sane prank on his son, Horace, known as “Skitch.” For years Hitch earned a living from his spread in the Mississippi Delta. A parsimonious old farmer, he raised cotton and watermelons, and by watching every nickel, he saved enough for his only child’s college education. Hitch dreamed of Skitch running the farm someday. But the lad wasn’t blessed with a full deck, much to his father’s chagrin. Not only was he dense and slow to catch on, but he also had another frailty: Skitch was as skittish as a fainting goat.

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One July morning, when Skitch was tending his dad’s roadside watermelon stand, Hitch said to him, “They’s two hundred of my biggest, sweetest melons in that pile, which’ll brang $5.00 apiece. However many you sell, I’ll split the money with you.” Later that day, Hitch was eating lunch with his pals at Oma Lou’s One-Stop when state trooper Travis Throckmorton walked in. One thing led to another, and Travis agreed to participate in a practical joke. “Skitch is selling watermelons at my roadside stand,” Hitch told him. “Ask to see his license to sell produce … then come back and tell us how he reacts.” Smirking, Travis fired up his cruiser. “Skitch, them’s mighty fine lookin’ melons, but before I buy one I need to see yo’ license to sell produce,” Travis said. Turning chalk white, a wild-eyed look of outright panic spread across Skitch’s face, and he nearly did what fainting goats do when suddenly beset upon. “L-license to sell…?” he sputtered, twitching, breaking into a sweat. “I ain’t selling ’em, Travis,” he quavered. “They’s free! T-take one … heck, t-take two.” When Travis walked into Oma Lou’s a little later, Hitch was already laughing. He wouldn’t laugh long. The trooper had scared Skitch so badly that he gave melons to anybody who stopped. Word spread quickly, and the pile disappeared in no time. “You mean to tell me that fool boy give away my five-dollar watermelons!” Out the door he flew. In a little while, he returned. Wearing the hangdog expression of a man who had just learned a very expensive lesson, he plopped a wad of bills on the counter. “Ain’t but $200 … that all Skitch brought in?” Oma Lou asked. “Humph … far cry from the grand you bragged about makin’.” Looking around at the calamitous caper’s collaborators, Hitch croaked, “Skitch ain’t near dumb’s we thought. He peddled eighty melons before Travis pulled up, and since he didn’t have no license to sell, he give the rest away! When I demanded the $400 for the 80 he sold, he handed me half that much — and said what any smart businessman would: “A deal’s a deal.”