I was still crying when she took me to her trunk, and offered the
grateful assuagement of candy and a belt, all embroidered with blue and
white beads.

"Now you see, Bart, how low and mean anybody is that takes what don't
belong to 'em--ayes! They're snakes! Everybody hates 'em an' stamps on
'em when they come in sight--ayes!"

The abomination of the Lord was in her look and manner. How it shook my
soul! He who had taken the watermelon had also taken from me something I
was never to have again, and a very wonderful thing it was--faith in
the goodness of men. My eyes had seen evil. The world had committed its
first offense against me and my spirit was no longer the white and
beautiful thing it had been. Still, therein is the beginning of wisdom
and, looking down the long vista of the years, I thank God for the great
harvest of the lost watermelon. Better things had come in its
place--understanding and what more, often I have vainly tried to
estimate. For one thing that sudden revelation of the heart of childhood
had lifted my aunt's out of the cold storage of a puritanic spirit, and
warmed it into new life and opened its door for me.

In the afternoon she sent me over to Wills' to borrow a little tea. I
stopped for a few minutes to play with Henry Wills--a boy not quite a
year older than I. While playing there I discovered a piece of the rind
of my melon in the dooryard. On that piece of rind I saw the cross which
I had made one day with my thumb-nail. It was intended to indicate that
the melon was solely and wholly mine. I felt a flush of anger.

"I hate you," I said as I approached him.