“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,” Mark Twain once said.
Henry “Hitch” Henderson wasn’t insane, but he didn’t feel overly sane either, especially after pulling a less than sane prank on his son, Horace, known as “Skitch.”
Many a year, Hitch scratched a living from the land out west of Lubbock, Texas. He was a parsimonious old cowboy, and still had the first dollar he ever made. By raising cotton and watermelons and 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 skittish as a fainting goat.
One July day, Skitch was tending the farm’s roadside watermelon stand.
“They’s two hundred of my biggest, sweetest melons in that pile, which’ll brang $5.00 apiece,” Hitch said. “However many you sell, I’ll split the money with you.”
The next 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.
With a chalk white, wild-eyed look of outright panic on his face, Skitch nearly did what fainting goats do when they are suddenly beset upon.
“L-license to sell…?” he sputtered, twitching, breaking into a sweat. “I ain’t selling ’em,” he quavered. “They’s free! T-take one … heck, 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 is giving away my five-dollar watermelons!”
Out the door Hitch 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 said. “Humph … far cry from the grand he coulda made.”
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, he handed me half that much — and said what any smart businessman would: “Deal’s-a-deal.”
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
