Carl told his family of his adventure with Bobby Brown and there was cheerin and whoopin as they sat around the cracklin fire! After Carl’s story, Earl said he had a story to tell them, too. He had picked out a calm story so everybody could start calmin down before bed. “I told you a while back that these woods were full of chestnut trees. Well, it wasn’t just our woods, but all of the woods from Georgia up to West Virginia. The whole Appalachian Mountains was full of these trees. Every fourth tree was a chestnut tree. Now these trees were not just regular trees, but like I told you before, many of them were 100 feet tall and ten feet around! They were huge! They were a treasure fur our relatives and the other folks who lived in the Appalachians. Most people would turn hogs loose to forage so they could fatten up fur market and the hogs loved chestnuts. The people loved to eat them too! The taste was amazin when they was roasted over a fire. The people of the hills also bagged them up and sold them. There weren’t no trees better fur makin split rail fences. They was used fur loggin, too and buildin all kinds of buildings. I guess you could say they was the backbone of the Appalachian people’s economy.”

  “What’s economy, pa?” Hattie May asked.

  “Well, Hattie, that means that that is where they got their income from.”

  “Why don’t we see those trees anymore, pa?” asked Karen.

  “That is what my story is about today, Karen. You know how sometimes people order things from other countries?” Earl asked.

  “Uh huh,” Karen replied.

  “Well, a man in New York ordered some Chinese chestnuts. They make a pretty decoration. What he didn’t know was besides being a pretty decoration, these Chinese Chestnuts also brought a disease with them. Now, the Chinese Chestnuts were resistant to this disease,” Pa said.

  “What does resistant mean, pa?” Hattie asked.

  “ It means the Chinese Chestnut could recover from the disease. It wasn’t killed by it,” her pa explained. “But after a few years, it was discovered that the American Chestnut trees were not resistant to the disease and the chestnut trees in New York were starting to die from the disease. They would get a ring around the trunk of the tree and once it encircled the whole tree, the tree would die,” Pa told them.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Well, this disease started killing all of the American Chestnut trees in New York and then started moving south, killing trees as it went. It took about 45 years to kill off all of the chestnut trees all of the way down to Georgia! As you can imagine, this was bad news for the Appalachian people, since they could not sell chestnuts anymore, or raise their hogs as easily, or eat chestnuts themselves, or log big trees, because they were not reproducing. They couldn’t make fences that would last nearly as long, with the trees gone and it changed their lives!” Earl said, sadly.

  “However, their roots were still alive. But every time the trees would try growing again, the disease would stop them before they got very big. Now, what do you think of that?” their father asked.

  Cora asked, “Did it really happen like that, pa? This isn’t just a made up tale?”

  “Yes, Cora, this story is as true as birds flying or corn growin,” Earl answered.

  “Why we could have bacon every day if there were still chestnut trees,” Timmy said.

  “We wouldn’t be forced to take up moonshinin, if there were still so many trees,” John stated.

  Lucy said, “Our house was built a number of years ago and it was American Chestnut wood that it was built out of. That wood lasts so well that it will probably be around a good many more years. Which reminds me, the chimneys need a good cleaning so the house doesn’t burn down!”

  Everybody laughed. Carl said, “I wish I could build me a house out of chestnut wood!”

  Karen said, “Why Carl, we already have a house! Why would you need to build a house?”

  Earl explained that all of the kids would be moving out and living on their own, getting married and startin their own family eventually.

  Hattie started crying, “I don’t want none of our family to move away!

  Her Mama went over and put her arms around Hattie and pulled her close, “Hattie, it’ll be ok. Don’t worry about the things to come and just love your brothers and sisters whilst they are here.”

  Hattie snuggled into her ma’s arms and got a smile on her face. If her ma said it would be ok, then it would! She fell asleep while the story tellin went on fur a spell.