The Boy and the Apple Tree

Once upon a time there was a little boy who lived alone in a forest. There wasn’t much to eat there, bugs and things, but there was the apple tree. In the center of the forest stood a beautiful, enormous apple tree.  Its shade was comforting and in the spring when it bloomed the pink blossoms were gorgeous and of course, there were the apples. Delicious! They were the boy’s favorite thing to eat. The problem was the tree was so tall the boy couldn’t climb it and he had to wait for the apples to fall. This was annoying. Eventually he discovered that if he threw his axe into the branches he could knock apples down. It was a little dangerous but the boy was nimble. He felt a little badly about it because he could see he was breaking branches but the tree was so sturdy and the fruit so delicious he soon got over that. But it was a lot of work. One day he was complaining loudly when a voice behind him said, “There’s another way, you know.” He turned to face an enormous serpent. The snake shifted his unpleasant triangular head to regard him with his lidless eyes. “If you cut the tree down, you can have all the apples you want.” “That’s stupid,” the boy said, “it would kill the tree.” “Very true,” conceded the snake, “but you could just cut the trunk a little bit and the tree would lean over.” “The tree would be alright?” “Of course,” the snake hissed reassuringly, “this tree has stood for 240 years!” The boy considered the proposal. There was some risk to be sure but he was always a bold fellow and so he set to work. It took him the better part of two days but when he finished the last cut the tree groaned and cracked and leaned over. Now the boy could eat all the apples he wanted! He would lie on his back and just reach up and cram his mouth full and his belly got big and it gave him the runs but he was happy.  But after a while, he noticed the tree didn’t look so good. Insects had gotten into the cuts and feasted on the heart wood and rot followed the insects and the tree got sick and before long the tree died. The boy felt guilty. Worse, he was hungry. He grew gaunt. At night sometimes he would dream of the tree. One day the serpent found him and killed him and ate him. He was delicious. He tasted faintly of apples.