THE ART OF STORYTELLING AND THE CHERRY TREE BUCK

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He said, I like that kind of thinking." And he took one of the pits and dropped it down the barrel of the gun, took a ramrod and shoved it down there. We sat real quiet and, sure enough, in a few minutes, a great big buck came walking out of the woods.

Now, I know you know that in those days a lot of people wouldn't have any meat on the table if it weren't for the white-tailed deer. And we waited and we watched and that deer came walking down the trail toward US.

And my grandfather raised that old fashioned rifle and he sighted it on that deer's chest. He held his breath, pulled the trigger ... and the shot went off just fine.

When the smoke cleared, I looked and saw that the deer was still standing dim as if it wasn't even hurt. He was just shaking his head back and forth.

I could see that the hair in between his antlers was roughed up a little bit and I realized what had happened. My grandfather probably shot a little high and that cherry pit must have flown through the air and lodged itself in the skin between the deer's antlers. Now that's pretty strange. After a moment, the deer came to his senses and ran off.

We kind of forgot about it. and then the next year we were out wandering around in that part of the woods. I know you've all seen cherry blossoms in the spring and can recognize those white blossoms a mile off. We looked up through the woods-the leaves were just coming on the trees-and we saw this cherry tree walking down the trail toward us!

And when we looked, sure enough, there he was. It was that deer with a little tiny cherry tree growing out of the top of his head. We followed the deer around for awhile in amazement and put the pieces together. The seed must have managed to find enough food to grow there on the deer's head, and later on in the season he got a beautiful crop of hair that had little red cherries nit.

We could actually collect those cherries by following the deer through the woods. 'Cause you know, every now and then, the branches would sweep those cherries off and we'd pick them up. Every year, we just loved to watch the cherry tree deer through all the seasons. And you know what? My grandfather decided we were going to protect that deer because, even in central Pennsylvania, we very rarely get a deer with a cherry tree growing out of the top of his head.

So we put signs all around the land. We didn't want the hunters to come near the cherry tree buck's stomping ground, and the hunters respected my grandfather enough to obey.

The years passed, and that deer grew up just fine. The cherry tree grew just as well and came to be about five feet tall. What's more, you could get about a bushel of cherries off the head of that deer every season, should you be inclined to follow him around for some time.

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