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“Well, well,” said Grandma one evening when Bobby and Alice and Pink asked for a story. “I wonder if I can think of anything tonight.” She found her knitting and went on in a puzzled tone. “I thought of something today to tell you about. Let me see, what was it? Oh, I remember now. It was the pumpkin pie at dinner that set me thinking about the pumpkin seed that Father gave brother Charlie and me to plant.”
“It was in the spring. The fish were biting fine, and one afternoon Charlie and I were all ready to go down to the deep hole under the willows to fish. Charlie had cut new poles and hunted up hooks and lines, and I had packed a lunch, for you do get awfully hungry sitting on the creek bank all afternoon. We were out behind the barn digging bait when Father came around the corner and saw us.
“‘I’ve just been looking for you children,’ he said. ‘I want you to take these pumpkin seeds down to the cornfield in the bottom and plant them.’ Then, seeing our fishing tackle, he added, ‘It won’t take long, and when you finish you may go fishing.’
“Of course Charlie and I were disappointed. We hadn’t been fishing that year yet. It had been a late spring, with lots of rain, and on the bright days there had been so many things that we could do around the house and garden that we couldn’t be spared to go fishing. And now, with everything all ready, to give it up even for an hour or two was a trial.
“We started for the cornfield, Charlie carrying the poles and the can of bait and I the lunch and the paper sack of pumpkin seed. The pumpkins we were to plant were to be used to feed the stock—cow pumpkins they were called, and they were big and coarse-grained and not good for pies.
“Well, Charlie and I started down at the lower end of the field and we planted a few seeds. But there was such a lot of the seed and the field was so big and the lure of the creek with the shade under the willows and the fish biting was so great that we could think of nothing else. We stopped to examine our bait to see if the worms were still living. When we went back to work Charlie wondered what was the use of planting so many old pumpkins, anyhow, when Father had already planted as many as usual in the upper cornfield.
“‘We might plant a whole lot of seed at once,’ he said, ‘but still it would take us a long time.’
“‘I know what to do!’ I cried, ‘Let’s hide the sack of seed in this old stump and come back tomorrow and plant them.’ After a few half-hearted protests from Charlie, this was what we did. We buried the sack of seed in an old, rotten stump, covered it deep with the soft, rich loam, and away we went to the creek to fish.
“Charlie baited both our hooks with the fishworms, and we would spit on our bait each time for luck. The charm must have worked, for when it was time to go home we had caught a nice lot of sunfish, tobacco boxes, silversides, and suckers. Truman cleaned them for us, and Mother dipped them in corn meal and fried them a golden brown. We had them for supper, and every one said how good they were and no one thought to ask us anything about the pumpkin seeds.
“I thought about them that night after I had gone to bed and wished that we had stayed and planted them as Father had told us to. But then Charlie and I would go down first thing in the morning, dig the sack out of the stump, plant the seeds, and everything would be all right.
“But it began to rain in the night, and it rained all the next day. The day after, it was too wet, and the day after that Charlie was busy. Then it rained again, and after a while I forgot all about the pumpkin seeds. It was several weeks before I thought of them again. You couldn’t guess what made me think of them then, so I will tell you.
“When we went to meeting on Sundays, Charlie and I always tried to remember the text of the sermon to say when we got home, for Mother was almost sure to ask us what it was. One Sunday I was saying it over and over to myself so that I could remember it, when suddenly the meaning of it came to me and I was surprised to find that it had something to do with me. The text was ‘Be sure your sin will find you out,’ and in a flash I knew it meant that if you did anything wrong you couldn’t keep people from knowing about it. Then I thought of the buried pumpkin seed which Charlie and I had meant to go back and plant.
“Father had never said a word about the pumpkins not coming up, though he must surely have noticed it long before this. Perhaps he thought the seed had been bad, but still it was queer he had never mentioned it.
“That night I couldn’t sleep for thinking how wrong it had been for Charlie and me to deceive Father about the pumpkin seed. Even the fact that we had meant to go back and plant them didn’t make me feel any less guilty. When I did fall asleep, I dreamed that the room was full of pumpkins with ugly grinning faces like jack-o’-lanterns. They laughed and mocked at me and pressed closer and closer until I wakened with a frightened cry, and when Mother asked me what had scared me I couldn’t tell her.
“In the morning I talked it over with Charlie. We agreed to go to Father immediately and tell him that we had not planted the pumpkin seeds.
I dreamed the room was full of pumpkins with ugly grinning faces
“But Father had gone to Clayville on business for a couple of days. When he came back, before we had a chance to see him alone he told us at dinner before all the others that the pumpkin crop in the bottom cornfield was to be Charlie’s and mine. He said that we could keep as many as we wanted to for jack-o’-lanterns on Hallowe’en and he would pay us ten cents apiece for all the rest. Think of that! Ten cents apiece for all the pumpkins we raised, and we knew that there wouldn’t be any pumpkins! I looked across the table at Charlie, and his face was very red. I couldn’t say a word, but when Father left the table we both followed him and told him all about the pumpkin seeds, and how the text had started us thinking, and everything. Father listened without a word till we had finished. Then much to our surprise he said, ‘I’ve known for a good while what you did with the pumpkin seed. When I saw the number of fish you caught that afternoon, I wondered how you had planted the pumpkin seed so quickly. I had told Mother they were to belong to you two to do with as you pleased, but I did not intend to tell you until later. Then when I found out that you had not planted the seeds I waited for you to come to me. I believe you have learned a lesson from this experience which you will not forget. Come along with me. I want to show you something.’
“Wonderingly, without a word, we followed Father to the cornfield and straight to where the old rotten stump in the lower end of the field had been. But when we got there we could not see the stump, for coming out of it and all over it and completely covering it, were myriads of pumpkin vines—not big strong vines like the ones that grew in the fields, but thin, sickly vines crowding each other for space.
“The soil in the stump had been so rich and light that, though the sack of seeds had been deeply covered, when soaked with rain the seeds had sprouted and forced their way through the sack and up to the light and air. The vines told Father where the pumpkin seeds were as plainly as if they could have spoken.
“And now, good night, my dears, and don’t forget to say your prayers, and I’ll try to think up a good story for next time.”