Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1882-05-25
BURDETTE'S ORCHARD.

BURDETTE'S ORCHARD.
The Fatal Effects Wrought by his
Deadly Plums.
Burlington Hawkeye.
While the Jester was travelling recent
ly. a nurseryman got on the train. Why
he should have selected the Jester as a
man pining away for Norwegian stock
pear-tree 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.
81 have tried this pear" the Jester said,
his sad face lighting up with look of
pleased recognition as the tree man
showed him acolored Autograph OF
pear as big as a football, with neck like
Il champagne bottle, golden yellow on
one side, scarlet-streaked on the other.
Il have tried this pear. / planted four
of these Hibernian Dutch-cheeked mon
golia tricolors ten years ago.
"She's the daisy" the tree man said;
"didn't they do splendidly?"
Beautifully" said the Jester. .."All
died the first year, and | never had
particle of trouble with them"
Then the tree man showed him picture
of an Oliver .Gilsey ,open.stone hybrid
peach (Americanus brandifcariusl. 1t
| nip, with down on it like the mustache of
q college boy in the junior year, and it
was rose-tinted like the deep-set heart of
| sad-sounding curled sea-shell. On the
opposite page picture of the tree showed
up like century-old oak, gnarled, and
rugged, and hardy as the granite cliff that
from the mountain side frowned on the
shadowy vale below.
Loud cheers from the man on the
| wood-box, and cries from the passengers
of go .on!' and ''More."l
"Oh, yes" the Jester said, "I know
that fruit. l have tried that brand of
| peach. 1t would have done well, no
doubt, had we not planted the trees in
| the onion bed The onions came up
| and choked all the trees but one. It
came up and bore peaches, two of them.
| Not just exactly like that picture. One of
log, only it was harder, and the hair
stuck out like bristles and quilts The
other would have been 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 see a 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 l made with plums. l owned a
beautiful home surrounded with charm
ing grounds, and fruit trees was one of
my pastimes. A tree man came along
one year, and sold me 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
du Belvidere, or Light of the Harem-
scarum. 1 bought the tree. 1t grew as
never plum tree grew before; great
swelling mass of foliage that wooed the
sunbeams to play with its dancing shad-
ows. And fruit! Everybody that went
by the homestead swore 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 spring-time
snow bank, and then in the season of its
fruit it shone and gloried like a royal
purple sunset in the back garden. One
day Smith praised the tree, and gave
him of its fruit He bit piece out of the
plum, and then started home for his gun
1t was only a few steps, but twice before
started after. He climbed over into the
foundation of new house and tried to
die. Then he stopped in vacant lot
and ate the tops off the tar-weeds, to take
the taste out of his mouth. When he GOT
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 mortem
statement.
'But he lived, and forgave the man
who had filled his young life with bitter.
ness, and one day, standing under the
swaying boughs of this deadly upas plum
tree, told him all its woef1l history
How at night the long-drawn howls and
| walls of terror-stricken boys, lying in the
dew-sprinkled grass of the COW pasture
had filled the night with weird ,uncanny
horror, and scared all of the neighbors
would 60 around, under barn in the
, tree-bordered hollow. How thievish anc
road-weary tramps had eaten of this
fruit, had gone off down street shouting
''freW and had never been seen again
How one day sandy pig, three and :
} half feet long, had eaten couple of these
, plums that somebody had thrown ove1
) the fence, and then sat down in the dus
of the street, and cried and sobbed will
, pain and modification, until tn.
golden sun went down il
) in sea of roseatc splendor in the distan
Z west. How visitors, friends of the family
and guests of the home, had plucked ane
: bitten plum before they could be warn
5 ed, and then, with CHASTITY countenances
tried to look as though they liked it. The
robins shun that tree. The curculie
) never went near it. The wonderin.
| crows ofthe air wouldn't look at it. Moth
, ing ever touched it except the Englisl
sparrows. They liked it, and grew ia
| upon it. Nothing" added the Jester
nothing that ever grew can kill the En-
; glish sparrow"
, But the passengers knew that if hi
wandered off on that topic he could never
, be silenced, and the man on the woodbo1
, besouth him to tell the rest about the
plum tree, while the tree man gathered
: his Autographs, and got off at a cross-road
|