Dutton, Kathy

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MANUSCRIPTS 27THE TREASURE TREEby Kathy DuttonThe city bought the McCarey orchard in 1955, and that spring acrew of workmen started undoing Johnny Appleseed's planting. Oneby one the blossom-laden trees crashed to the ground, making roomfor the new housing complex. The work stopped momentarily whena giant elm was discovered. Because of its great size and the conse-quent difficulty in felling it, the tree was spared. The work resumed,and soon only the elm stood in the field. The complex was soon fin-ished, and the houses looked like rows 0.£ boxes that had been painteddifferent colors. Each lot had two maple saplings in the front yardand two in the back, except 4,10 which had the giant elm in its backyard. Families came to choose the box of their favorite color, andsoon all the boxes were filled with people. The family that lived in410 was luckier than the others, because the elm shaded their houseand kept it cool in the summer. In the evening, the shade extendedinto the next yard, and the people in 414 shared the luxury.In the summer of 1957, Mr. and Mrs. Dutton and their sevendaughters moved to 414 East South "E" Street. During the first after-noon in their new home, the Dutton girls hurried next door to inspectthe giant elm. It was not as pretty as it had once been; lightning hadstruck the elm during a thunderstorm, and now the tree was dead. Thebark had rotted away until the tree, except for part of the trunk, wasnaked. The huge, bare elm looked strangely out-of-place amid thethriving young maples. Linda, the eldest daughter, stripped a pieceof bark from the tree, revealing hundreds 0.£ red ants that scurried awayin as many directions. Then Larry, the boy who lived at 4,10, cameoutside and said to the girls, "Y{)U can't play with my tree unless youask me." The girls quickly went home. Later they met Larry'syounger sister, Theresa, and she invited them to play under the elm.That summer the tree caught on fire, but the children used thegarden hose to put out the fire. The tree was spared.Once Larry announced that there was a treasure buried under thetree and that he was going to cut down the tree and dig up the treasure.The children watched as Larry and Rod started chopping the tree atthe burned part, One girl felt silent tears run down her cheeks---the28 MANUSCRIPTStears the tree could not cry. The boys chopped until they had made atriangular opening in the base of the hollow tree. They decided tocrawl inside, but the opening was too small for them. Anita Dutton,the second daughter, was the only one small enough and brave enoughto crawl inside. As she crawled into the tree, she noticed a differencein the light. The brilliant light outside could not compare to the lightinside the tree. The long, slender rays of quiet sunlight cast softshadows within the tree. She looked up and watched a small portionof the sky through the opening at the top of the tree. The world out-side seemed far away. Anita heard a woodpecker hunting for insectsin the wood of the tree, and she heard bees buzzing far up in the tree;but it was a long time before she heard her mother telling her to comeout of the tree. When she crawled out, the brilliant light hurt her eyes,and she had no words with which to tell the other~ what sh~ had seen.In time the children forgot about cutting down the tree and finding thetreasure, but Anita did not forget that the tree sheltered life.When Larry's pet rat died, the children buried the tiny animal in-side the tree. Thereafter the tree sheltered the graveyard for the petsthat died and any dead animals that the children found.The elm was magically transformed into a winter fortress, and theboys on "E" street never lost a home snowball fight. In the summersthe girls played house and the boys wrestled under the elm, and thetree was always "safe" when they played tag. The years passed, andthe elm silently watched over the children.Then those children forgot the elm. The girls primped, and thehoys took odd jobs; hut the wonderful tree remained the same and wasinherited hy younger children.The year after Larry was graduated from high school and wasdrafted into the army, his parents decided to cut down the elm. Ayoung girl ran to her mother, crying the words that the tree could notsay, "Mother, don't let them kill our tree.""But, Honey, the tree is already dead.""Not to us!"The ashes of the tree were still burning in the pet graveyard whenit was learned that Larry had been killed in Vietnam. The tree hadagain been spared-spared the grief of losing one of its children.

The Treasure Tree

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The Treasure Tree

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