II

“That’s Johnny Appleseed,” said Skenedonk, turning in his saddle.

“What is Johnny Appleseed?”

“He is a man that God has touched,” said Skenedonk, using the aboriginal phrase that signified a man clouded in mind.

God had hidden him, too.  I could see no one.  The voice echo still went off among the trees.

“Where is he?”

“Maybe one side, maybe the other.”

“Does he never show himself?”

“Oh, yes,” Skenedonk said.  “He goes to all the settlements.  I have often seen him when I was hunting on these grounds.  He came to our camp.  He loves to sleep outdoors better than in a cabin.”

“Why does he shout at us like a prophet?”

“To warn us that Indians are on the warpath.”

“He might have thought we were on the warpath ourselves.”

“Johnny Appleseed knows Shawanoes and Tecumseh’s men.”

The trees, lichened on their north sides, massed rank behind rank without betraying any face in their glooms.  The Ohio and Indiana forests had a nameless quality.  They might have been called home-forests, such invitations issued from them to man seeking a spot of his own.  Nor can I make clear what this invitation was.  It produced thoughts different from those that men were conscious of in the rugged northwest.

“I think myself,” said Skenedonk, as we moved farther from the invisible voice, “that he is under a vow.  But nobody told me that.”

“Why do you think so?”

“He plants orchards in every fine open spot; or clears the land for planting where he thinks the soil is right.”

“Don’t other men plant orchards?”

“No.  They have not time, or seed.  They plant bread.  He does nothing but plant orchards.”

“He must have a great many.”

“They are not for himself.  The apples are for any one who may pass by when they are ripe.  He wants to give apples to everybody.  Animals often nibble the bark, or break down his young trees.  It takes long for them to grow.  But he keeps on planting.”

“If other men have no seeds to plant, how does he get them?”

“He makes journeys to the old settlements, where many orchards have grown, and brings the seeds from ciderpresses.  He carries them from Pennsylvania on his back, in leather bags, a bag for each kind of seed.”

“Doesn’t he ever sell them?”

“Not often.  Johnny Appleseed cares nothing for money.  I believe he is under a vow of poverty.  No one laughs at him.  The tribes on these grounds would not hurt a hair of his head, not only because God has touched him, but because he plants apples.  I have eaten his apples myself.”

“Johnny Appleseed!” I repeated, and Skenedonk hastened to tell me: 

“He has another name, but I forget it.  He is called Johnny Appleseed.”

The slim and scarcely perceptible tunnel, among trees, piled with fallen logs and newly sprung growths, let us into a wide clearing as suddenly as a stream finds its lake.  We could not see even the usual cow tracks.  A cabin shedding light from its hearth surprised us in the midst of stumps.