The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-11-14

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ago, there lived a man called Uncle
Johnny AppIeseed.
All the little children who knew him
loved him very much indeed-and when
1 tell you the story of the many kind
things that he did to make the little
folks happy, you also viii love him,
and think Of him very often.
His real name was John Chapman.
I can not tell you in what year he
was born, for the first record that we
have of him was when he began his
work for the little children, and that
was in the year 1889, more than a
hundred years ago.
For those of you who study
geography, and who think of the Uni
ted States as they now are, all one
civilized country from Boston to San
Francisco, with railroads over which
people are carried so quickly and easily
and comfortably, from the Atlantic
Ocean straight across the continent to
the Pacific Ocean, in less than week s
time, with beautiful big cities all along
the way; and with wide fine roads over
which one may drive in automobiles, 1t
will be very difficult for you to realize
that when Johnny Appleseed began his
work in 1889, that there were no cities
west of Philadelphia, and that beyond
Harrisburg there were no good roads
only an old trail that led to the pass
over the mountains beyond which was
Fort Pitt, which is now the city of
Pittsburg.
Al 30
the new country, which was then only
wilderness, used pack-animals to carry
most of their freight; the mothers and
little children drove in big covered
wagons, called Conestogawagons; the
body of these wagons was shaped like
boat; and so, when the people came
to a deep stream, the horses were de-
tached from the wagon, and it was
floated across, and the horses were
made to swim.
You little children who receive a let
ter from little friend in New York,
two weeks after it was written, can
not imagine how the pioneers sent let
tiers in those times. The mail-box was
hole in a tree; the tree was marked,
so that everybody should know that it
was mail-box; letters without stamps
were dropped into the tree-hole, and
when some settler came along who was
going east, he would gather up the let
| tiers along the way, and then mail them
at the first real postofice that he reach
ed, and the friends in the east who re-
ceived them were only too happy to
pay for the stamps.
| And so, in October, 1889, John Chap
4 yn1
| in western Pennsylvania. And what,
think you, had he decided to do? To
go on into the new west, and plant or
| chards; so that when the pioneer set
tiers with their families should come
and build their homes, they would find
fruit trees already growing.
| From the good Quaker people he got
two boatloads of appleseeds; with
| them he embarked from Pittsburg, and
drifted down the Ohio river. Every ten
miles he would land, search out sun
| ny sheltered glade, dig up the rich dark
soil and plant his appleseeds, then he
would weave a rude brush fence around
his little garden, so that the wild deer
could not destroy it; then he put up
a little sign, which said, "Take what
you WILL but guard the fence" When
this was all done, he would return to
| the boat, and drift on down the river
to his next landing-plaee. While he
| worked, the sun shone, and the rain
| fell upon the fertile soil, and the little
seeds sprouted, and very soon the apple
trees began to grow; strong and tall
they were-and when the brave settlers
came to.build their homes in the wilder
/ ho nc
waving in the summer wind, and their
| branches bent to offer food for hungry
| children.
And so for forty years did John
| Chapman continue to work for the peo-
| pie; he planted hundreds of little or
chards, not only of apples, but of
| peaches, pears and plums. As the years
passed by, all the settlers in the new
country knew Johnny Appleseed as they
called him. And wherever he appeared
he was very welcome.
One winter, he helped the fathers to
build a little log schoolhouse, where he
| taught the children. They did not have
all the convenienees that you children
have today in your schoolrooms. For
blackboard, they had a smoothed
plank, upon which the teacher wrote
with piece of yellow ochre, found on
the banks of the Ohio river.
Each scholar had a little box filed
with white sand, and with a stick he
would trace in the sand the word that
the teacher had written on the board
to erase the word. he rubbed a round
stick over the sand.
Paper was very scarce in those days;
and for pens, the children searched in
the forest for feathers dropped by some
wild fowl. For ink, they scraped the
SCOT from the cabin chimney, mixed that
SCOT with little water, and then boiled
it with the husk of the black walnut
and this made very good ink indeed.
: When the springtime would come
3 again, Uncle Johnny would fare forth
: to tend his orcards, Soon he began e
, think that although the settlers were
) comfortable enough in their rude
cabins, and had also plenty to eat. thai
their homes should be made more bean
tiful: and so he made another tri1
5 back to his Quaker friends IN Penn
i sylvania, and there he gathered fiowe
i seeds: mignonette, helotrope, ant
/ plnks, peoples and dahlias and asters
these all the people were so happy /,
s. help him to plant, and soon every Iittl,
cabin had gay posies growing in tn,