He knew his own melon patch well enough, having worked in it at times all the summer; but he had never climbed over the fence and approached it from the rear before, so it took on a new aspect to him from this point of view, and moreover the night was dark enough to deceive anybody.
If he came across an especially big melon McNutt would lug it to the carriage and dump it in.

And so angry and energetic was the little man that in a brief space the melon patch was a scene of awful devastation, and the surrey contained all the fruit that survived the massacre.
Beth unhitched the horse and they all took their places in the carriage again, having some difficulty to find places for their feet on account of the cargo of melons.

McNutt was stowed away inside, with Louise, and they drove away up the lane.

The agent was jubilant and triumphant, and chuckled in gleeful tones that thrilled the girls with remorse as they remembered the annihilation of McNutt's cherished melons.
"Ol' Dan usu'lly has a dorg," said Peggy, between his fits of laughter; "but I guess he had him chained up ternight." "I'm not positively sure that was Brayley's place," remarked Beth; "it's so very dark." "Oh, it were Brayley's, all right," McNutt retorted.

"I could tell by the second-class taste o' them mellings, an' their measley little size.
Them things ain't a circumstance to the kind I raise." "Are you sure ?" asked Louise.
"Sure's shootln'.