“Rainbow-Walker”

No one has ever counted all the apple trees in America, but there are a lot of them. According to some people, we have all these apple orchards because a man called Johnny Appleseed (his real name was John Chapman) spent his life planting apple seeds. That was back in the days when most of our country was still a wilderness.

Johnny Appleseed loved apple trees more than almost anything else. He loved animals, too; some say he could talk to them. When he was still a small boy in Boston, people brought hurt or sick animals to him. Johnny had a kind of magic in his hands that helped him to heal hurt creatures, just as it helped him to grow trees and plants.

One day, when Johnny was a young man, a stranger came by Johnny‘s house. Johnny was picking apples from the ground where the wind had blown them.

The man stopped and said, "I haven‘t seen apples like that in two years."

"Where have you been?" Johnny asked him.

"Working on a flatboat out west in the Indian country. There aren't any apple trees growing out there. I’d like to buy a sack of your apples. Maybe they‘l1 keep long enough for my wife and children back in Ohio Territory to enjoy them."

Johnny fixed up a sackful. "I don‘t want any money," he said. "Just save the seeds when you get home, and plant them."

"That‘s a good idea, young fellow," the man said. "Thanks."

Johnny sat down under one of the apple trees and thought about what the man had said. Many families were moving west. If they carried apple seeds with them and planted them, there would be orchards sprouting up all over. Johnny knew his own orchard wasn't large enough to provide all the seeds needed. And there weren't as many settlers starting out from Boston as from a place like Pittsburgh, which was farther west.