4. THE HEART OF THE TREE HENRY CUYLER BUNNER The prose selections in "Saving and Conserving" have been saying don't; now we come to two poems which say do. What does he plant who plants a tree? And years that fade and flush again; He plants the forest's heritage; What do we plant, when we plant the tree? What do we plant, when we plant the tree? We plant the rafters, the shingles, the floors, What do we plant, when we plant the tree? CLASS ACTIVITIES 1. Explain how, by merely planting a tree, we plant all the things named. Do we destroy all of these when we cut down a tree? 2. Each stanza begins with a question which the rest of the stanza answers. Select from each stanza the most important item in the answer. 3. Why is the word ship very important in the first stanza of the second poem? What word is in a similar position of importance in the second stanza? What in the third? Are there similar key words in the first poem? 4. Explain these terms and phrases: "We plant the ship"; "We plant the house"; "forest heritage"; "far-cast thought of civic good"; "in the hollow of His hand." 5. Find and read poems about trees. Of those that you read select the two you like best to read to the class. Include the tree poems in Book One, pp. 278–281, and some of these if you can. 6. JOHNNY APPLESEED ELIZABETH HARRISON Johnny Appleseed, whose real name was John Chapman, was born in New England in 1775. He was less than thirty years of age when he began the work that is described in the following selection. For forty-six years he walked barefoot and unarmed through what was then the western wilderness of the United States, never molested by the Indians or by the wild beasts: Determine how the man in this story obtained his queer name. Many years ago on the sparsely settled prairies of America, there lived an old man known by the queer name of "Johnny Appleseed." His wife had died long before and his children had grown up and scattered to the corners of the earth. He had not even a home that he could call his own, but wandered about from place to place, with only few friends and little or no money. His face was wrinkled, his hair was thin and gray, and his shoulders stooped. His clothes were old and ragged and his hat was old, too, and shabby. Yet inside of him was a heart that was brave and true, and he felt that even he, old and poor as he was, could be of use in the world, because he loved his fellow men, and love always finds something to do. As he trudged along the lonely road from town to town, or made for himself a path through the unbroken forest, he often thought of the good God, and of how all men were children of the one Father. Sometimes he would burst out singing the words of a song which he had learned when he was a young man: "Millions loving, I embrace you, Dwells a God whose love is true!" The old man wandered about from village to village, which in those days were scattered far apart, with miles and miles of prairie-land stretching between them; sometimes woodland and rivers, too, separated one village from the next. At night he usually earned his crust of bread and lodgings by mending the teakettle or washboiler of a farmer's wife, or by soldering on the handle of her tin cup or the knob to her teapot, as he always carried in one of his coat-pockets a small charcoal stove and a bit of solder. He always carried under his arm or over his shoulder a green baize bag, and when the mending was done he would oftentimes draw out of his green bag an old violin and begin to play, and the farmer, as well as his wife and the children, would gather around him and listen to his strange music. Sometimes his music was gay and sometimes it was sad, but always sweet. Sometimes he sang words that he himself had written; sometimes the songs which had been written by the great masters. But mending broken tinware and playing an old violin were not the only things he did to help the world along. As he wandered from place to place he often noticed how rich the soil was, and he would say to himself: "Some day this will be a great country with thousands of people living on this land, and though I shall never see them, they may never read my verses or hear my name, still I can help them and add something to their lives." So whenever a farmer's wife gave him an apple to eat he carefully saved every seed, and next day as he trudged along he would stoop down every now and then and plant a few of the seeds and carefully cover them with the rich black soil of the prairie. Then he would look up reverently to the sky and say: "I can but plant the seed, dear Lord, and thy clouds may water them, but thou alone can give the increase. Thou only can cause this tiny seed to grow into a tree whose fruit shall feed my fellow men." When the cold winters came and the ground was frozen too hard for him to plant his apple-seeds, he still saved them, and would often have a small bag full of them by the time that spring returned again. Thus he came to be called "Johnny Appleseed." Though nobody took very much notice of what he was doing, he still continued each day to plant apple-seeds and each evening to play on his violin. By and by his step grew slower and his shoulders drooped lower until at last his soul, always strong and beautiful, passed out of his worn old body into the life beyond, and the cast-off body was buried by some villagers who felt kindly toward the old man, but who never dreamed that he had ever done any real service for them or their children. Soon his very name was forgotten. But the tiny apple-seeds took root and began to grow; each summer the young saplings grew taller and each winter they grew stronger, until at last they were young trees, and then they were old enough to bear apples. As people moved from the East out to the wild Western prairies they naturally enough selected sites for building their homes near the fruitful apple-trees; in the springtime the young men gathered the blossoms for the young maidens to wear in their hair; in the autumn the fathers gathered the ripe red and yellow apples to store away in their cellars for winter use, and the mothers made apple-sauce and apple-pies and apple-dumplings of them. All the year round the little children played under the apple-trees, but none of them ever once thought of the old man who had planted for people he did not know and who could never even thank him for his loving services. CLASS ACTIVITIES 1. Tell the story of Johnny Appleseed in your own words. 2. Describe his appearance; his qualities of mind and heart. 3. Compare his services with those of the man and his wife in "An Idyl of the North Sea," p. 552. 4. Name other men and women whose work has lived long after them. 5. Volunteer work: Read Vachel Lindsay's poem "In Praise of Johnny Appleseed," in The Century Magazine, 80: 545-552, and see whether the present selection and the poem agree as to the facts of his life. CLASS-LIBRARY READINGS CONSERVING FORESTS AND SOIL. 1. "The Story of the Big Redwood Trees," Book of Knowledge, 304-306. 2. "With a Forestry Crew," J. C. Minot, in A Vocational Reader, 43-48. 3. "Forestry Pursuits," S. T. Dana, in Opportunities of To-day, 67-78. 4. "A First Talk About Trees," Book of Knowledge, 10: 3177-3192. “A Second Talk About Trees," ibid., 11: 3439–3454. 5. 6. "A Tree and the World's Life," ibid., 12: 3649-3658. 7. "Forests and Their Wealth," ibid., 12: 3783-3787. 8. "Making the Desert Blossom," ibid., 17: 5399–5410. |