The Apple Tree Switch
It was a few weeks after my mother’s funeral. The ache in my heart was still excruciating. I could hardly think of her without tears. I went about my work as a groceryboy in a mechanical sort of way. The owner of the store was away at lunch when the woman and her ill-mannered son arrived.
She flounced in through the front door with her incorrigible offspring at her heels. He made straight for the peanut barrel. In those days, long before lettuce was sold by the pound or steaks were wrapped in cellophane, the grocery store was a homey sort of place that you could enter without an engraved calling card, and where you could stop without having to observe traffic signals as you pushed a chrome-trimmed baby carriage around. I went on about my work of sacking potatoes and left the woman and her son to their own devices.
Suddenly, during a lull in my own operations, I heard a crunching sound. I looked over toward the peanut barrel. That eight-year-old Public Enemy was gobbling up peanuts like a turkey eating grasshoppers. He was throwing the shells all over the floor. I spoke to the mother.
“Hey! Your kid’s in the peanut barrel,” I called forthrightly with none of the finesse which a modern grocery clerk would use in addressing a customer. The woman put her groceries down on the counter and turned toward her son. Very gently she said, “Junior, you shouldn’t eat those peanuts; they’ll make you sick.”
I opened my mouth to say, “You are missing the point. Those do not happen to be Junior’s peanuts. They belong to the store. What’s more, they are worth ten cents a pound!” (Now you know how long ago this was.)
At that moment the owner of the store, a fat, jolly sort of fellow, breezed in. Figuring it was his problem, I ducked down and started to fill the potato sacks. Suddenly there flashed across my mind’s eye the picture of my own mother in contrast to the empty-headed specimen with the peanut-stuffed kid. I remembered the most painful experience of my childhood for the first time with thankfulness and understanding.
I had become a thief.
What I had stolen was of little monetary value. In fact, it was worth then about two cents. It was just a red brick. I had taken it from a neighbor’s yard where he was building a fireplace. The trouble was that Mother had seen the whole thing from where she stood washing dishes at her kitchen sink.
Mother came through the kitchen door wiping her hands on her apron. I had the brick under my coat and was transporting it out behind the chicken house where I intended to use it in some of my business with some toy cars. I was arrested in my quick walk around the fence by an ominous call from Mother.
“Young man, come here this very instant!”
I threw the brick down and obeyed reluctantly. I knew before she verified it that I had been seen taking the brick. To my horror, I saw also that she had broken a small limb off the apple tree which stood near the kitchen door and was calmly stripping it of leaves.
“You took something which did not belong to you,” said my mother. “That is stealing. I am going to punish you for it.” What happened then for a few dancing moments is too painful to relate. Suffice it to say that Mother gave me an application of child psychology punctuated at the close of each paragraph by the apple tree switch.
“Now,” she said, while I gouged my dirty fists into my tearful eyes, “you are going to take that brick back to Mrs. Jones. You are not going to put it back on the pile, but you are going to knock on her door, hand the brick to her, and tell her that you took it from her back yard, that you are sorry, and that you will never do anything like that again.”
That was the bitterest gall I had ever tasted.
And now, as I weighed up a quarter’s worth of potatoes, my eyes were filled with tears again. This time they were tears of happiness, as I thanked God for a mother who built her house upon Him and the precepts of moral law. She had cared more about my soul than she had about my stomach.
She flounced in through the front door with her incorrigible offspring at her heels. He made straight for the peanut barrel. In those days, long before lettuce was sold by the pound or steaks were wrapped in cellophane, the grocery store was a homey sort of place that you could enter without an engraved calling card, and where you could stop without having to observe traffic signals as you pushed a chrome-trimmed baby carriage around. I went on about my work of sacking potatoes and left the woman and her son to their own devices.
Suddenly, during a lull in my own operations, I heard a crunching sound. I looked over toward the peanut barrel. That eight-year-old Public Enemy was gobbling up peanuts like a turkey eating grasshoppers. He was throwing the shells all over the floor. I spoke to the mother.
“Hey! Your kid’s in the peanut barrel,” I called forthrightly with none of the finesse which a modern grocery clerk would use in addressing a customer. The woman put her groceries down on the counter and turned toward her son. Very gently she said, “Junior, you shouldn’t eat those peanuts; they’ll make you sick.”
I opened my mouth to say, “You are missing the point. Those do not happen to be Junior’s peanuts. They belong to the store. What’s more, they are worth ten cents a pound!” (Now you know how long ago this was.)
At that moment the owner of the store, a fat, jolly sort of fellow, breezed in. Figuring it was his problem, I ducked down and started to fill the potato sacks. Suddenly there flashed across my mind’s eye the picture of my own mother in contrast to the empty-headed specimen with the peanut-stuffed kid. I remembered the most painful experience of my childhood for the first time with thankfulness and understanding.
I had become a thief.
What I had stolen was of little monetary value. In fact, it was worth then about two cents. It was just a red brick. I had taken it from a neighbor’s yard where he was building a fireplace. The trouble was that Mother had seen the whole thing from where she stood washing dishes at her kitchen sink.
Mother came through the kitchen door wiping her hands on her apron. I had the brick under my coat and was transporting it out behind the chicken house where I intended to use it in some of my business with some toy cars. I was arrested in my quick walk around the fence by an ominous call from Mother.
“Young man, come here this very instant!”
I threw the brick down and obeyed reluctantly. I knew before she verified it that I had been seen taking the brick. To my horror, I saw also that she had broken a small limb off the apple tree which stood near the kitchen door and was calmly stripping it of leaves.
“You took something which did not belong to you,” said my mother. “That is stealing. I am going to punish you for it.” What happened then for a few dancing moments is too painful to relate. Suffice it to say that Mother gave me an application of child psychology punctuated at the close of each paragraph by the apple tree switch.
“Now,” she said, while I gouged my dirty fists into my tearful eyes, “you are going to take that brick back to Mrs. Jones. You are not going to put it back on the pile, but you are going to knock on her door, hand the brick to her, and tell her that you took it from her back yard, that you are sorry, and that you will never do anything like that again.”
That was the bitterest gall I had ever tasted.
And now, as I weighed up a quarter’s worth of potatoes, my eyes were filled with tears again. This time they were tears of happiness, as I thanked God for a mother who built her house upon Him and the precepts of moral law. She had cared more about my soul than she had about my stomach.
Harold Dye, A Story to Remember (Nashville: Broadman Press) p. 37-40. Used by permission in Alfa & Omega and other home-school publications.
