The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1882-05-25

NO Ills tll8t Heaven HAY uCCIcC
Our knitted souls can separate,
0 heart, beloved! ~
BURDETTE'S ORCHARD.
The Fatal Effects Wrought by his
Deadly rlums.
Burlington Hawkcyc
While the Jester was travelling recent
ly. nurseryman got on the train. Why
he should have selected the jester as a
man pining away for Norwegian stock
pear-trec or an assortment of early green
Lombardy apple scions, no one can tell;
but he did; and he talked tree to that
patient child of sorrow for fifty two miles.
II have tried this pear" the Jester said,
his sal face lighting up with Il look of
pleased recognition as the tree man
showed him colorcd Autograph OF a
pear as big as football: with neck like
champagne bottle, golden yellow on
ono side, scarlet-strcaked on the other.
II have tried this pear. planted four
Of these Hibernian Dutch-cheeked mon
golla tricolors ten years ago."
"Shc's the daisy" the tree man said;
"didn't they do splcndidly?"
."Beautifully,' said the Jester. .."All
dled the first year, and l never had a
Then the tree man showed him picture
Of an Oliver Gilsey opcn-stone hybrid
peach (Americanus br,ndi1icarius). It
was largcr-in the litllograph-tllana tur-
nip, with down on it like the mustache of
Il college boy in the junior year, and it
was rosc-tintcd like the deep-set heart of
4 sad-sounding curlcd sea-sllell. On the
opposite page a picture of the tree showed
up like Il century -old oak, gnarlel, and
rugged, and hardy as the granite tfthat
from the mountain side trowned on the
SlladoWy vale below
Loud cheers from the man on the
wood-box, and cries from the passengers
Of $50 on!' and "Nlore"]
ooh, yes" the Jester said, II know
that fruit. l have tried that brand of
peach. 1t would have done we'll, no
doubt, had VIC not planted tho trees in
the onion bed. The onions came up
and chokcd all the trees but one. It
came up and bore peaches, two of them.
Not just exactly like that picture. One of
them looked like Il wart OH Il gum
10y, only it was harder, and the lair
stuck out like bristles and quilts. The
other would have been Il peach Just like
this, l suppose, only the stone grew on
the outside. don't want any fruit trees
this spring, anyhow"
"But~~" began the nursery man.
II never sec 4 beautiful Autograph of a
fruit tree, crowned and gemned with lus-
cious fruit the Jester went on, with
out being reminded Of an eminent sue
cess | made with pluns. I owned Il
beautiful home surrounded with charm
ing grounds, and fruit trees was one of
my pastimcs. A tree man came along
| one year, and sold me q plum tree. l
had had little success with plum trees. on
account Of the rapacious and never salts
fed curculio. But the tree man assured
me the curculio would never touch this
particularly beautiful variety; the Alonzo
du Bclvidcrc, or Light Of the Harem-
scarum. I bought the tree. It grew as
never plum tree grew before; great
swelling mass of foliage that wooed the
sunbeams to play with its dancing sl,ad-
ows: And fruit! Everybody that went
by the homestead sworc to himself there
weren't enough dogs in the com
monwealth to keep him on the road
| way side Of that fence week longer.
1t never failed, not one single
year. Season after season it put forth
! blooms until it looked like a spring-time
snow bank, and then in the season of it's
fruit it shonc and gloried like a royal
purple sunset in the back garden. One
| him Of its fruit He bit a piece out Of the
plum, and then started home for his gun.
It was only II few steps, but twice before
he got there he forgot what he had
started after. He climbed over into the
foundation ola new house and tried to
die: Then he stopped in Il vacant lot,
and ate the tops off the t;,r-wccds, to take
| the taste out of his mouth. When he cot
| home he sent for Doctor Miller, and told
him that Jester had poisoned him to Get
some money he owed him, and he want
| ed him to take down his ante mortcm
| statement.
'EBut he lived, and forgave the man
who had filled his young life with bitter
ness, and ono. day. standing under the
swaying boughs Of this deadly upas plum
| tree, told him all its wocful history.
How at night the ]ong-drawn howls and
walls of tcrror-stricken boys, lying in the
dcw-sprink1cd grass of the COW pasture,
had filed the light with a weird ,lincanny
| horror, and scared all of the neighbors'
dogs, or SO many of them as the walls
| would go around, under barn i'll the
! tree bordered hollow. How thicvish and
road-weary tramps had eaten of this
fruit, had gone off down street shouting
/ "firc" and had never been seen again.
How ono day a sandy pig, three and a
half feet long, had eaten 4 couple of these
| plums that somebody had thrown over
the fence, and then sat down in the dust
Of the street, and cried and sobbed with
pain and modification, until the
golden sun went down in
| in q sea of roscate splel,dor in the distant
| west. How visitors, friends of the family.
and guests Of the home, had pluckcd and
bitten i plum before they could be warm
cd, and then, with CHASTITY countcna,,ces,
| tried to look us thong h they liked it. The
robins s'lln that tree. The curc;,lio
never went near it. The wondering
Crows oftl,c air wouldn't look at it. Moth
ing ever touched it except the English
sparrows. They liked it, and grew fat
upon it. Nothing" added the Jester,
nothing that ever grew can kill the En-
glish sparrow"
But the passengers knew that if he
wandered off on that topic he could never
be silcnced, and the man on the woodbox
besoutt him to tell the rest about the
plum tree, while the tree man gathered
his Autographs, and got off at IL cross-road
He Got What He Wanted.