Bean picker

(1980 memoir)
The trouble [with Henry Clapp's bargain] was that Henry was tight and somewhat dishonest.  "An old skinflint," my father called him.  Many times when my father would get up early and go to the garden to work, he would find Henry had gotten up still earlier, and here he was picking my dad's beans to sell for himself.  "What are you doing in my bean patch?" my father would say.  "Why -- why -- I wanted to surprise you!  Yes -- yes -- look at all I have picked for you already."  That story and many like it circulated around our family circles and made us all laugh our heads off.