Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 20, 2025
"Do you know what this is?" I told him I didn't. "It's dogfennel seed." I laughed, and asked him what kind of apples it bore. Johnny Appleseed smiled at me again. "It's a flower. I'm spreading it over the whole of Ohio and Indiana! It'll come up like the stars for abundance, and fill the land with rankness, and fever and ague will flee away!" "But how about the rankness?"
For De Chaumont would know it, and Skenedonk would find it out." I stooped for the padlock, hooked it in place, and locked the book again. "Is the message to you alone?" inquired Johnny Appleseed. "Did you ever care for a woman?" I asked him. Restless misery came into his eyes, and I noticed for the first time that he was not an old man; he could not have been above thirty-five.
I was running blindly around in a circle to find relief from the news he dealt me, when the absurdity of such news overtook me. I stood and laughed. "Who were the prisoners?" "I don't know," answered Johnny Appleseed. "How do you know the Indians killed them?" "The one that gave me this book told me so." "There are plenty of padlocked books in the world," I said jauntily.
"If other men have no seeds to plant, how does he get them?" "He makes journeys to the old settlements, where many orchards have grown, and brings the seeds from ciderpresses. He carries them from Pennsylvania on his back, in leather bags, a bag for each kind of seed." "Doesn't he ever sell them?" "Not often. Johnny Appleseed cares nothing for money. I believe he is under a vow of poverty.
"Oh, yes," Skenedonk said. "He goes to all the settlements. I have often seen him when I was hunting on these grounds. He came to our camp. He loves to sleep outdoors better than in a cabin." "Why does he shout at us like a prophet?" "To warn us that Indians are on the warpath." "He might have thought we were on the warpath ourselves." "Johnny Appleseed knows Shawanoes and Tecumseh's men."
The speaker sat down, and one of the men remarked: "So that's the way the battle of Tippecanoe looked to Johnny Appleseed." But the smallest boy thoughtfully inquired: "Say, Johnny, haven't the Indians any angels?" "You'll wish they was with the angels if they ever get you by the hair," laughed one of the men.
"It's Johnny Appleseed," a man at my side told me, as if the name explained anything he might do. When Johnny Appleseed finished reading the leaves he put them back in his bag, and took his kettle to the well for water. He then brought some meal from the cook-house and made mush in his hat.
Thrice he floated his canoe laden with seeds down the Ohio to the settlers in Kentucky. To this brave man, called by our Congressional Record "Johnny Appleseed," whole states owe their wealth and treasure of vineyards and orchards. This intrepid man is a beautiful type of all those who, passing through life's wastes, sow the land with God's eternal truths, whose leaves and fruits heal nations.
Soldiers began moving their single cannon, a six-pounder, from one blockhouse to another. All the men jumped up to help, as at the raising of a home, and put themselves in the way so ardently that they had to be ordered back. When everybody but ourselves had left the starlit open place, Johnny Appleseed lay down and stretched his heels to the blaze.
I said. "Let me try," said Johnny Appleseed. "No! You might break my key in a strange padlock! Hold it still, Johnny. Please don't shake it." "I'm not shaking it," Johnny Appleseed answered tenderly. "There's only one way of proving that my key doesn't fit," I said, and thrust it in. The ward turned easily, and the padlock came away in my hand. I dropped it and opened the book.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking