Tesak Pascola's Watermelons

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Tesak Pascola's Watermelons

WELL, GENTLEMEN, this horse of mine became very old. I let him out for a few days so that he might rest. But one day I saddled him again, to take a little turn through the monte. I traveled almost a whole day, and in the afternoon I took off the saddle. I noticed that he had a sore on his back. I turned him out. On the following day I went in search of him. I found him, lassoed him and, after cutting myself a ripe watermelon, I jumped on his back, opened the melon and rode along eating my watermelon. I came to the river and let him drink and bathed the sore on his back. I got on again and commenced eating watermelon and throwing the seeds away. Soon we came to a well and I got down. I took a little fine dirt and put it on my horse's wound, then set him free in my pasture. I went back to my house and forgot about my horse.

About four or five months later, I went in search of him. The pasture wasn't very big and didn't have much underbrush in it. It is well

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fenced. My horse had no means of getting out, no place to hide. Nevertheless, I could not find him. I was there an entire week without once seeing him. The following week I went in search again. One day I passed near a forest I had not seen before and stopped to contemplate the branches. It was not mesquite, nor batamote. As I looked, I heard a horse sneeze--brr--burr.

I went up to those branches and saw that it was a watermelon vine. I looked again and saw that the vine had grown out of the sore on my horse, aided by the dirt which I had placed on it. Some watermelon seeds had fallen into the wound.

Well, I took my horse to my house and cut many watermelons, good-sized and ripe, off of him. I sold them, and gave them to my neighbors. Later, I cut the trunk of the watermelon vine off and cured my horse.

When he died, I gave him a fiesta and did mourning for six months.

There you have it, Señores.