"Sell one?"

"N-nop, I reckon not. They ain't so many as they look."

"Heap o' cracked ones," said Peter Peer. "I'll trade yo' my play boat faw one."

"Eatin' the cracked ones," said Bascom, taking another mouthful; "they's mighty sweet."

"Yo' can'd eat dem _all_!" cried Peter Peer, his eyes rolling hungrily from side to side.

"Look a-here, kid," said Bascom; "if you want one so bad I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll let you pick figs for 'em. I was wantin' to pick 'em myse'f, but it looks like I got to stay and take charge of these. I'll give you a cracked melon for every basket of figs you pick."

"All right," said Peter Peer; "gimme de basket."

Bascom gave him a corner of melon to seal the bargain and keep the basket from looking too large, and Peter Peer was soon whistling in the trees behind the Captain's house. Bascom had scarcely settled himself under the live-oak when Sonny Ladnier and his younger brother came in sight with their red-sailed cat-boat, bent on an early trip to Potosi.

They saw the pile of melons, and it drew them like an undertow.

"Wheah yo' ged all dem melons?" they shouted.

"Growed 'em," replied Bascom; "do you want some?"

"Yo' bet yo'!" cried Sonny, tying up the boat. "Hand one ovah."

"What for?"

"W'at faw? W'y, to eat."

"I mean, what will you give me?" Bascom explained.

"Two bits faw two."

Bascom shook his head. There was only one way in which those melons could be had. After some argument Sonny and his little brother repaired to the fig-trees, each with a chunk of melon in one hand and a basket in the other. Sonny Ladnier was big enough to have tried to bully Bascom, but the people on the bay had a respectable fondness for him, not to mention his partner.

During the hour, Narcisse Fontaine, big Noel Roget, Rubier Peer, who came to look for Peter, and Patrice Rodriguez, with his pointed beard and his reputation for duelling, added themselves to Bascom's force behind the Captain's house, and the figs were fairly charmed from the trees. Bascom did not think it safe to leave the melon pile for more than a moment at a time, and he was sitting alone beside it, and had just cleaved open the crack of a long striped "rattlesnake," when a strange schooner pa.s.sed by a length or two, then came about, and anch.o.r.ed off the point. She was the _Luna May_, from Pa.s.s Christian, and he had never seen her before. As three men got down in her tender he could hear their voices as plainly as if they were talking to him.

"'Cose dey sell dem. Wat dey have dem faw?"

"Bud we got no money. We spen' it all las' night."

"We can trade 'im out of some. I give my knife faw one o' dem big ones.

It's a terrib' hot day. Dat little chap be mighty easy to bargain wid.

_Yo'_ see."

"You see," echoed Bascom, chuckling, as they left their skiff, and came sauntering up to him. "Somethin' I can do for you gentlemans to-day?" he inquired.

"Whose is dese melons?" asked the first schooner-man.

"Mine, jus' now," said Bascom.

"Aw, get away."

"Well, they is."

"Den I reckon yo' lookin' faw a chance to get rid o' some o' dem."

"Not as I knows on," Bascom said.

"Wat?" cried the second schooner-man. "I'll give yo' dis." He took out a big Spanish pocket-knife that opened with a spring. "Yo' can have it faw t'ree of dem."

"I don't reckon I need any knife," Bascom said.

"Aw," said the third schooner-man, impatiently, "a lot of dem is good faw not'ing. He got to give us some. If he ain't got de sense to trade faw dem we take dem."

He spread Bascom out swiftly with his hands, and sat down on him, directing his mates to pile melons in their skiff. After the first instant Bascom did not offer the slightest resistance. He lay gathering breath against the weight of the man on his chest, and when he was quite sure of himself he lit it out again in a terrific howl for help. The man clapped a hand on his mouth, but Bascom had no need to speak again. A posse of men and boys came dashing round the house, some of them putting down the baskets, and others brandishing sticks as they ran.

The schooner-men jumped into their skiff, but Patrice and Rubier and Noel and Sonny Ladnier rushed into the water after them, and brought them back. A dozen hands rescued the stolen melons, while with Irish expletives and Creole fierceness Patrice pounded the biggest man as a preparation to bidding them good-by. The crowd was following his example, and it would have gone hard with the strangers if Bascom had not had a different mind.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "MAKE 'EM PICK YOUR FIGS!" HE SHOUTED, "MAKE EM PICK YOUR FIGS!"]

"Make 'em pick your figs!" he shouted. "Make 'em pick your figs! They'll look handsome in the trees! Make 'em pick for you!"

The cry found favor, and the verdict became, "If yo' want to go free yo'

got to pick de figs!"

When Captain Tony and the boss of the big farm approached the point, and saw a strange schooner anch.o.r.ed there, the Captain felt anxious. "I hope de boys not havin' troubl'," he said. "I don' see w'at dat boat wan'

stop dere faw."

As they landed, Bascom met them and explained. "I've got the crew of that schooner pickin' figs for me, an' some of the boys from round here is watchin' that they do it lively. They was honin' for some cracked watermelons, an' I thought they'd better do a little work, seein' as they got out of temper."

The boss was a Northern man. He looked at Bascom's agile weather-beaten figure, and they all went round to see the force of overseers and the three men in the trees. "That's about the way I have to work it," he said. "More overseers than men; but how do yours manage to make the men work so lively?"

"Ho!" said Bascom, "easy enough. They're workin' by the job. Can't go till they're done."

But it was not until Patrice told why the strangers sat so glum and warm and active in the trees that the Captain and the boss understood.

"Yo' boy," said the Captain, as they went back to the melon-pile, "an'

yo' nevah picked a fig yo'se'f?"

"Not a one," said Bascom, candidly. "The boys came along at first an'

wanted to pick for cracked melons, an' then 'bout the time they was gettin' tired this schooner hove in sight. After I begun to have comp'ny, looked like it was best for me to watch the melons."

"And before?" laughed the boss.

"I'd had the misfortune to drop one," Bascom said. "It busted, and I was lookin' after the pieces."

The boss clapped Bascom on the shoulder. "You're the man I've been hunting for down here," he declared. "Don't you want to come up and help me run the farm?"

Bascom looked over at the little _Mystery_, the deep blue of the bay, and the tree fringe on Deer Island, beyond which lay the Gulf.