The Indiana State Sentinel

The Death of the Apple-tree.

[H. H. McCartney.]

When a boy, we used to enjoy a frequent visit to the apple orchard of an uncle. Our favorite tree of fall eating apples was a gnarled, knotted old fellow, standing alone in a corner cut off from the orchard by a clear, pebbly brook. Oh, the generous feasts of juicy, luscious fruit the old apple-tree used to afford us, and how jealously we boys would guard the choice apples we had marked for our favorite girls, climbing into the tree and tying colored strings to the twigs for that purpose. But one fall the old tree surprised us. Loaded down with golden, yellow fruit as large and fine looking as the Belle de Fleur, the tree was an object of beauty that attracted many visitors, and all deformities of body were hidden in the bounteous store of fine fruit when suddenly, almost in a night, the branches became covered with snow-white bloom, and the old tree was a perfect physical emblem of a saint, giving, at the same time, abundant fruit for present use, and wonderful promise for the future. We children were at first awed, then delighted by the phenomenon, but uncle shook his head and said: "I am sorry to see it, boys; the faithful old tree, which has never yet missed a season since it commenced bearing, is dying. You will eat the last of its fruit this fall:" and so it proved to be. The next spring no buds swelled—no flowers bloomed on the old favorite—but a lifeless knotted trunk brought tears to the eyes of a boy visiting the old orchard. Then came a timid, sweet little maiden, and laid in the hand of the woman-hearted boy, whose peculiarities made other boys laugh and deride him, a little bunch of withered apple blossoms and two plump, dark-skinned apple seeds; "you gave me these, the first flowers plucked from the dear old tree last fall, and the seed from its finest apple; I saved the flowers in two bunches and two of the seeds for each of us; let us live as the old tree lived—useful till death comes and showing our greatest beauties in our dying moments. If you survive me, sprinkle the dust of the flowers and plant the seed over my grave; if I outlive you, your grave will receive those I keep. But neither shall ever forget the dear old tree and its life-lesson." Years after the grown-up boy sprinkled the flower dust over a newly made grave, and as the tears welled up from the inmost fountains of his soul, an angel spirit seemed to whisper, "weep not for me: live as the old tree lived—in usefulness; die as the old tree died—in beauty."