The Old Crippled Tree

     There once was an old crippled tree in the middle of an old American town, the people despised it so. They where unhappy with its rusty, flaky bark and its twisted branches with a big squirrel hole in the high middle. The town folk complained it made their town look grey and lacking color, like the old man who lives in a shanty on the far part of town.
     All the town had a meeting and decided the tree would be cut down at once. The old man was chosen to accomplish this, they provided him an ax and nothing more, so he started for the large tree at a slow pace. Then he chopped it down in a few thwacks for the tree was very dry. Inside was a fine crimson brown color, some awed but some had no interest in it. The very next day there was a lot of elegant fragrance in the air and the women and men sprang from their windows to see … a mahogany cottage and an old man with a gun barrel to match sitting on a stump of a chair. Every one began to walk and wonder to the old mans house as soon as they got there they cheered "Oh,where did you get that wonderful wood?!"
     Then he quieted all the town folk and said "Why you fools it is the old twisted tree I cut down the other day," at once they all awed at the mistake they had made. They all trudged home wishing they had the The Mahogany Tree.

"A mahogany cottage and an old man with a gun to match sitting on a stump of  a chair"
Photo by: jo-h

"Sitting on a stump of a chair"
Photo by: Robert Beljil photography