His name was Rufus Benedict.

Rufus was about my age, maybe 15, when he worked for my Uncle Jim, the owner of a dairy farm in Nova Scotia. It was 1938, my third summer in Nova Scotia working on the farm and I think of it as a trip back into the 19th century.

I worked hard without the benefit of electric motors, tractors or hay bailers: horsepower or manpower was it.

I believe Rufus came from a family farm with a surplus of young men, not unusual for the time, and was given the opportunity to work for another farmer with a scarcity of potential farm hands. Rufus and I got along very well together, but my Aunt Eva, my mother’s sister, kept, I suspect, a watchful eye on us – two 15-year-old boys who were clever at thinking up devious pranks.

Saturday night was party night, which usually involved going to Windsor, the county seat, where the only movie theater was located. The main highway between Windsor and Truro ran right through Sweets Corner. Let me define highway — it was a gravel road. The farm across the highway was owned by a bachelor named Clark Mean.

One Saturday night during the summer, Clark rounded up all the girls in our village and drove them off to a dance in another village, leaving Rufus and me, and a few other boys, destitute. We didn’t even go to Windsor – we sat around stewing over our plight and heaping the whole blame on Clark.

Maybe I got the idea from watching too many Laurel and Hardy movies, but the old full water bucket over the door popped into my head, and when I ran that idea by Rufus, the main event was on. We found a wooden bucket and, after filling it with water, propped it over the back screen door of Clark’s house and laid in wait in our bedroom with window open. Our viewing perch was ideal.

Sure enough, Clark returned and performed perfectly according to our plan. The air was blue with Clark’s language while we managed to stifle our mirth. Ah — sweet revenge. 

Word spread quickly about Clark and the bucket but Rufus and I had made a solemn pledge not to confess any knowledge of this foul deed. We were prime suspects but the case against us never got any further than that.

I have returned to Nova Scotia several times for brief visits, and on every visit, the subject of the bucket comes up. I have not seen Rufus in years, but it is apparent that he and I have kept our pledge to admit nothing – but — we are still prime suspects.

Come to think of it, I’m breaking that pledge right now. Please — keep the lid on.

Walter “Scottie” Scott is a World War II veteran who wrote the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club column for this newspaper for over 25 years. He now splits his time between his beloved home in Sprucewold and with his daughter, Ellen, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.