The Watermelon Garden

About the story

A story for the dog days of summer

On the last hot days of August, when the watermelons come ripe, Early and his grandfather sit on the porch and let the afternoon go slow. Then Grandfather points to a strange patch at the far side of the garden. “You leave those be,” he says, quiet and serious. “I don’t know what they are. But they are not for us.”

But Early is a curious boy. And inside one forbidden melon, something small and blue and wonderful is waiting to be held. It sits in his palm and turns, slow and gentle, all on its own — oceans, and drifting clouds, the whole wide world, small enough to hold. He has never seen anything so wonderful. What he does with it is the heart of the story.

It’s a tender, true tale dreamed up on a porch in the slow heat of a Southeastern North Carolina summer — sweet tea sweating in the glass, a little dog asleep at your feet. It never tells you what to do. It just sets something impossibly precious in your hands and asks, quietly, whether you’ll be careful with it.