In our backyard we have an apple tree that produces large, tasty apples. Last year we had a good crop but we noticed that as the apples ripened they seemed to diminish in numbers.
We went away for a short holiday and when we came back all the apples were gone from the lower limbs.
One day when the family car was away, but I wasn’t, I saw two boys about three and four years of age. They had come up the back driveway and were walking hand in hand across the garden.
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“Where are you going?” I called out.
Unfazed by my stern tone, the bigger boy replied with a complaint:
“We’ve come to get some apples but they’re too high to reach.”
I almost apologized for causing them such inconvenience but caught myself and gave them lecture No. 5 about raising these apples for my own hungry family. They looked at me in bafflement at my crass selfishness and left. I suspect if the apples hadn’t been out of reach they might have been back.
I shouldn’t have a problem with a trampled garden this season. After outdoing itself last year the tree has produced only a few scattered apples, and all of these are on the upper limbs.
However, it should be remembered the nervy apple filchers are a year older and likely a few inches taller. If they still can’t reach, I expect to have them ring our doorbell and ask to borrow my ladder.
The late Dr. C. F. Patterson would have been delighted that the apple variety he developed has won such acceptance among the purloining public.
