Johnny thought a long time. Then he began gathering all the apple seeds from the apples on the ground. Before long, he had a small leather sack full of seeds.

A house sparrow flew down to pick one of the seeds, which had fallen from the sack.

"You leave that seed by, Mrs. Sparrow," Johnny said. "That's going to be an apple tree."

Two small boys going by heard him. "There‘s that loony Johnny, talking to himself again," one said.

"My folks say he's light in the head," the other said.

Johnny heard them and laughed, rolling a firm, red apple in his hands. He did not care what people said.

The next day, Johnny put the sackful of seeds over his shoulder and a small bundle of food in his pocket and started walking toward Pittsburgh. The dust spurted up in small clouds behind his bare heels. The wind made his long, black hair stand out behind his ears. Off in the distance, in the direction he was going, a rainbow shone in the sky, pink and yellow, green and blue. To Johnny the pink was the colour of apples before they were ripe.

It took Johnny quite a long while to reach Pittsburgh. When he got there, he worked until he had enough money to buy a piece of ground. Then he started planting an apple orchard. Before long, apple trees were sprouting up around him like grass. As soon as the trees were large enough to bear fruit, Johnny gathered the seeds.

Whenever the people traveling west stopped to ask Johnny for food or water or a place to rest, he gave them apple seeds as well. And he never took any money.

"That‘s no way to run a business," some of the travelers said.

Johnny laughed. "I like giving orchards away."