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You did get more land, but if you left no place for the birds, the worms and insects devoured your crops, and you didn't raise half so much as if you furnished the birds shelter and food. So he left mulberries in the fields and fence corners and wild cherries, raspberries, grapes, and every little scrub apple tree from seeds sown by Johnny Appleseed when he crossed our land.
We said in whispered chorus: "Johnny Appleseed!" A tapping, light and regular, on the window, followed. The man was on the floor in a breath. I heard the mother groping among the children, and whispering: "Don't wake the baby!" The fire had died upon the hearth, and they lighted no candle.
It was not likely that any person about Mont-Louis had stolen the book, and wandered so far. Small as the volume was, the boards indented my breast and made me increasingly conscious of its presence. I waked in the night and held it. Next morning Johnny Appleseed was gone from the fort, unafraid of war, bent only on carrying the apple of civilization into the wilderness.
When Johnny Appleseed gave his warning cry in the clearing, and his cautious tap on the window, and was instantly gone to other clearings and other windows, it meant that the Indians were near. Skenedonk and I, used to the night alarm and boots and saddle in a hurry, put ourselves in readiness to help the family. I groped for clothing, and shoved small legs and arms into it.
Hallowe'en, for instance, lasts a whole week now, with mummers on the streets every night, October 25-31. Who do we mean by The Prophet-Wizard? We mean not only artists, such as are named in this chapter, but dreamers and workers like Johnny Appleseed, or Abraham Lincoln. The best account of Johnny Appleseed is in Harper's Monthly for November, 1871.
I carry good tidings of great joy among the people all the time. This is yours. Put it in your pocket." I hid the padlocked book in the breast of my coat, and seized his wrist and his hand. "Be of good courage, white double-man," said Johnny Appleseed. "The Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon you, the Lord make His face to shine upon you and give you peace!"
Johnny Appleseed turned his rapt vision aside and answered: "'White robes were given unto every one of them. There had I laid me down in peace to sleep, and the Lord made me to dwell in safety. The camp-fires burned red in the sheltered place, and they who were to possess the land watched by the campfires.
"The little girls, they like to dress their doll-babies, so I carry patches for the little girls. Here's what I was looking for." It was another doeskin parcel, bound lengthwise and crosswise by thongs. These Johnny Appleseed reverently loosened, bringing forth a small book with wooden covers fastened by a padlock. "Where did you get this?"
These were seedling apple-trees, grown from the stocks introduced by the white man. The French missionaries are said to have carried the apple far into the interior, and early settlers took seeds with them. The legends and records of Johnny Appleseed, sowing the seeds as he went, are still familiar.
"Up in the State, out my way," says the narrator, "there was a farmer in the days when his sort were not called agriculturists; he kep' an orchard, at the same time, without being called a horticulturist. He was just another kind of 'Johnny Appleseed, for he doted on apples and used to beg slips and seeds of any new variety until he had one hundred and eighty-two trees in his big orchard.
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