Allister Cromley's Fairweather Belle (Bedtime Stories For Grownups To Tell)
  • Home
  • Stories To Hear
    • The Tree On His Back
    • A Nosebleed
    • An Abduction (Of The Alien Variety)
    • It Begins And Ends With A Fall
    • Drunken Boxing
    • His Breadbox Mouse
    • New Years Eve In A Cellar (Awaiting The Future)
    • An Explanation Of The Acceptance Of His Name
    • To Fall In Love With A Tomato
    • An Attempt At Ending Fear
    • The Race To Awkward
    • His Shadow/s
    • Candy From Strangers
    • A Lunar Eclipse (And The Man On The Moon)
  • Stories To Read
  • Historical Assumptions
    • An Impossible Conversation With Emily Dickinson
    • Happy Halloween Nevermore
    • The Naming Of Numbers
    • The First Thanksgiving
    • The Recession Of Wild Bill Hickok
    • A Tale Of Two Beginnings
    • A Possible Salem Witch Trial
    • A Royal Courtship
    • A Duel
    • Trouble At The Lincolns
    • Dempsey Vs Willard (A Scholarly Discussion On Violence)
    • The Condensed History Of The Carburetor
  • About The Belle
  • The Book
  • Contact
  • The Book Drop Project
  • Live Performances
  • Cousins, Collaborators & Conspirators
  • The Mailing List
  • Additional Links

Johnny Appleseed

11/10/2008

0 Comments

 
Allister once set out to buy all the apple trees that Johnny Appleseed had ever planted. It was an ambitious project-even for Allister. For one thing, no one was really sure how many trees Mr. Appleseed planted. And there was no conceivable way of ever acquiring this information. But, Allister was dead-set on owning every one in the hopes that he could make the world's biggest apple pie and finally give everyone a slice of something.

So, it came as no surprise to anyone that when rumors began spreading of a possible apple tree map from Johnny himself, Allister was one of the first to join the search. The rumors placed the map under the first tree Appleseed ever planted (which was thought to be somewhere in between the east and west coast of North America). Allister estimated that it would take at least a couple of days to find the tree. He found himself, three months later, in utter disappointment and confusion (estimation was never one of his strong suits and a year later he would give up estimating all together) and having only covered an incredibly small portion of North American apple trees. 

There was simply no concrete evidence. Dating the trees was all estimation at that time and Johnny himself had left no evidence of ever existing (his beard and famed pan hat were nowhere to be found). A fossilized footprint was found in Nevada, but after numerous tests and measurements it was decided that the footprint was probably from the late cretaceous era and, thus, the footprint more than likely belonged to a Tyranosaurus Rex and not Johnny Appleseed.

In desperation, Allister wrote to other nations-nations who had better documented their apple tree planters. Johnny's Russian counterpart, for instance, Boris Appleseed's maps and journals were lamenated and put on public display in Moscow. When children turned the age of seven they were expected to know the order and location of over 3,000,000 trees that Boris had planted. If they did not, their families disowned them. In Cambodia, up until the early twentieth century, many territories still used the apples from Samnang Appleseed's trees as currency. Anyone who bit into one would be shot on the spot. Allister was inspired by these stories and confused as to why we had been so careless in the remembrance of our nation's most beloved apple planter.

It would have been easy to (or so he thought) just get any old apples and make the largest apple pie out of them, but that was not good enough. He attempted everything-even just asking the trees themselves, but to no avail. The trees were not talking and no one else knew. 

Allister slept with disappointment each night and could think of nothing but Johnny Appleseed for three years. Then, one night, Johnny appeared to him in a dream. He thanked Allister for his hard work and explained to him that it would be impossible to find all his trees and make the world's biggest apple pie from their apples. There were just too many and it was too long ago and, in the end, there still might not be enough apples to feed everyone. It was a nice thought, Johnny said. But, peerhaps, just a little too ambitious. 

When Allister opened his eyes, he could feel his heart and soul open as well. His project had consumed him, but Johnny's message relieved him of the duty he felt to the world and let him just be Allister Cromley. He quickly decided that a monument must be made to this man so that no one ever forgot his contributions. 

Allister commissioned a statue of Johnny Appleseed, towering eighty feet and to be made entirely out of apple cores. When birds began to eat it, Allister had all the cores bronzed. Eventually, he would find and catch each bird that nibbled on the monument, charging them with treason. They would later be released on a technicality-that birds could not be held accountable for treason. Immediately after their release, the vengeful birds ate the entire statue in under two hours (bronze and all) and were never seen again.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    More Stories
    ​To Read   
    ​

    Picture

    Archives

    October 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    May 2013
    December 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    August 2010
    March 2010
    December 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009
    June 2009
    May 2009
    April 2009
    March 2009
    February 2009
    January 2009
    December 2008
    November 2008

    Categories

    All
    About Dreaming
    About Drinking
    A Memory Or Two
    Battle Scars
    Bits Of History
    Family History
    Famous People & Their Footwear
    Holiday Stories
    Human Feelings
    In The Toybox
    Kids These Days
    Learning Of Lessons
    Lost Objects
    Musical Tunes
    Mysterious Beginnings
    Old People These Days
    Plants & Animals
    Riding On A Train
    Sandwiches & Things
    Smells Nostalgic
    Some Art
    Some Friends He Had
    Some People He Met
    Some Rights For All
    The Scent Of Cave People
    The Weather
    To Technology Or Not To Technology

    RSS Feed