The Littlest Apple Tree - Part 4

Then, the tree saw him coming one morning, after the gentle rain had come and gone the night before. This time, he didn’t bring any shears. Just his hands and a smile. “Wow, look at you, little tree,!” said the farmer. “You certainly aren’t so little anymore!” With that, he knelt down onto his knees and began to pull up long stalks that grew all around the tree’s base. “Wait! No farmer!” cried the tree, now once again upset that its roots were being cleared of the warmth that these small plants had given him throughout the previous cold winter and cool spring months. “I need them! They keep my roots warm. Please don’t take them away from me now.” However, once again, the farmer would not stop pulling with its cries; and when he was done he simply said, “Well little tree, it’s all finished now. We will both have to be patience until it is time for the harvest.” With that, he stood and walked joyfully away, occasionally pulling up some other weeds that also had sprung up beneath the other trees.

With summer’s presence came the scorching sun, tanning the tree’s leaves dark green in its bright light. However, the tree, no longer depressed and bitter as before, was now able to withstand the intensity of the heat without complaint. The farmer had not cut him down, as it had once feared. Instead, the tree’s confidence in the farmer, in what he had done, and was now doing, grew with each passing day. It noticed one day, in the nearby pond, that where the farmer had painfully cut off places on its top, middle and bottom, there were many more branches and leaves that had replaced them and now fully covered it from every angle. It also realized that it could drink more freely from the rich soil now that the wild stems, which grew at its base, were completely cleared away from its roots. It began to realize that over the expanse of its life, the farmer had known exactly what he was doing, even though it had been a very painful process at times. That day, the tree decided to never doubt the farmer again nor his plans for its harvest. “How beautiful the world is today,” it said to itself as it gazed across the expanse of the orchard.

A few more weeks passed. The little tree could barely see its reflection in the pond anymore due to the ample amount of leaves which trimmed its branches. One such morning as the tree awoke to the sound of a small bird singing, it noticed something odd that was growing out from beneath some of its leaves. Knobs of golden color, small and round, were protruding everywhere, now causing him to strain when it tried to stand tall in the sunlight. As the wind then stirred its leaves, it was able to catch a brief view of itself before its leaves once again were obscured from the view of the pond. “Apples! Apples! Everywhere! All over me!!!” the little tree exclaimed to itself. The farmer indeed had known all along that the painful pruning of itself would produce such a large harvest,” it thought. “Surely, he must have or else he would have done away with me without going to any trouble to prune me.”