ere vastly mistaken.
He said that was such a shortsighted proceeding, he would be ashamed to
indulge in it. 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.

Mother said those apples were so hard a crane couldn't dent them, but
she never watched the birds in winter when the snow was beginning to
come and other things were covered up. They swarmed over those trees
until spring, for the tiny sour apples stuck just like oak leaves
waiting for next year's crop to push them off. She never noticed us,
either. After a few frosts, we could almost get tipsy on those apples;
there was not a tree in our orchard that had the spicy, teasing tang of
Johnny Appleseed's apples. Then too, the limbs could be sawed off and
rambo and maiden's-blush grafted on, if you wanted to; father did on
some of them, so there would be good apples lying beside the road for
passers-by, and they needn't steal to get them. You could graft red
haws on them too, and grow great big, little haw-apples, that were the
prettiest things you ever saw, and the best to eat. Father said if it
didn't spoil the looks of the road, he wouldn't care how many of his
neighbours straightened their fences. If they did, the birds would
come to him, and the more he had, the fewer bugs and worms he would be
troubled with, so he would be sure of big crops, and sound fruit. He
said he would much rather have a few good apples picked by robins or
jays, than untouched trees, loaded with wormy falling ones he could
neither use nor sell. He always patted my head and liked every line of
it when I recited, sort of tearful-like and pathetic:

"Don't kill the birds! the happy birds,
That bless the field and grove;
So innocent to look upon,
They claim our warmest love."

The roads crossing our land were all right, and most of the others near
us; and a road is wonderful, if it is taking you to the woods or a
creek or meadow; but when it is walking you straight to a stuffy little
schoolhouse where you must stand up to see from a window, where a
teacher is cross as fire, like Miss Amelia, and where you eternally
HEAR things you can't see, there c