Hooking Watermelons

Edward Bellamy is best remembered for the utopian novel Looking Backward, which had a profound cultural impact when it was published, inciting many readers to form organizations seeking to put the book's ideas into practice. The charming short story "Hooking Watermelons," chock-full of local color, illustrates how something as seemingly innocuous as a melon patch can actually be a symbol of intractable social divides.