Bikey the Skicycle and Other Tales of Jimmieboy

by John Kendrick Bangs

"That's what I thought," said the tree, with a sigh. "I wish I could go. There's nothing I'd like to do better than to go over there and drop a lot of blossoms around on the graves of the men who went to war and lost their lives so that you might have a country, and we trees could grow in peace without being afraid of having a cannon-ball shot into us, cutting us in two—but I want to tell you a little story about all that. You didn't know I was planted by a little boy who went to the war and got killed, did you?"

"No," returned Jimmieboy, softly. "I didn't know that. I asked papa one day who planted you, and he said he guessed you just grew."

"Well, that's true, I did just grow," said Stoopy, "but I had to be planted first, and I was planted right here by a little boy only ten years old. He was awfully good to me, too. He used to take care of me just as if I were a little baby. I wasn't more than half as tall as he was when he set me out here, and I was his tree, and he was proud as could be to feel that he owned me; and he used to tell me that when I grew big and had apples he was going to sell the apples and buy nice things for his mother with the money he got for 'em. We grew up together. He took such good care of me that I soon got to be taller than he was, and the taller I became the prouder he was of me. Oh, he was a fine boy, Jimmieboy, and as he grew up his mother and father were awfully proud of him. And then the war broke out. He was a little over twenty years old then, and he couldn't be kept from going to fight. He joined the regiment that was raised here, and after a little while he said good-by to his mother and father, and then he came out here to me and put his arms around my trunk and kissed me good-by too, and he plucked a little sprig of leaves from one of my branches and put it in his buttonhole, and then he went away. That was the last time I saw him. He was killed in his first battle."

Here Stoopy paused for an instant, and trembled a little, and a few blossoms fell like trickling tear-drops, and fluttered softly to the ground.

"They brought him home and buried him out there in the semingary," the tree added, "and that was the end of it. His father and mother didn't live very long after that, and then there wasn't anybody to take care of his grave any more. When that happened, I made up my mind that I'd do what I could; but around here all the apple-blossoms are withered and gone by the time Decoration Day comes, and nobody would take plain leaves like mine to put on a soldier's grave, so I began to put off blossoming until a little later than the other trees, and that's how I came to be called the stupid little apple-tree. Nobody knew why I did it, but I did, and so I didn't mind being called stupid. I was doing it all for him, and every year since then I've been late, but on Decoration Day I've always had blossoms ready. The trouble has been, though, that nobody has ever come for 'em, and I've had all my work and trouble so far for nothing. It's been a great disappointment."

"I see," said Jimmieboy, softly. "What you want me to do is to take some of your blossoms over there to-morrow and put 'em—put 'em where you want 'em put."

"That's it, that's it!" cried the stupid little apple-tree, eagerly. "Oh, if you only will, Jimmieboy!"

"Indeed I will," said Jimmieboy. "I'll come here in the morning and gather up the blossoms, and take every one you have ready over in a basket, and I'll get papa to find out where your master's grave is, and he'll have every one of them."

"Thank you, thank you," returned Stoopy; "and you'll find that all I've said about your apple will come true, and after this I'll be your tree forever and forever."