“‘And just see my little boy,’ said his mother—‘all red and angry. Did you suppose, my dear, that if apples rolled off the window-sill they would certainly fall inside?’
“‘I guess I’ll never put anything there any more,’ said Mark, gathering up the five apples in his arms and letting them all fall again. But they fell inside this time, and rolled over the floor.
“‘You had better decide how many apples you will eat just now,’ said Mrs. Penly, ‘and then put the others away in the closet.’
“‘It’s too bad!’ said Mark. ‘I hadn’t but six. And I thought you would have three and I’d have three.’
“‘Well you may have five,’ said his mother smiling—‘the chickens have got my part. And maybe some good will come of that yet, if it only teaches you to be careful.’
“Oddly enough,” said Beachamwell, “some good did come of it. When the chickens pecked the apple to pieces the seeds fell out, and one seed crept under a clover leaf where the chickens could not find it. And when the snow had lain all winter upon the earth, and the spring came, this little seed sprouted and grew, and sent down roots and sent up leaves, and became an apple-tree.”
“How soon?” said Carl.
“O in the course of years—by the time Mark was a big boy. And the tree blossomed and bore fruit; and from that time Mark and his mother never wanted for apples. He called it the ‘Thanksgiving Tree,’ but it was a true Beachamwell, for all that.”
“But say!” exclaimed Carl, catching hold of Beachamwell’s stem in his great interest, “Mark isn’t alive now, is he?”