Sylvestersylvania

SYLVESTER’S EVERGREEN

A Tall Tale

By Izzy Ess of Inverness

Sylvester Douglas was a farmer who worked hard all day to tend his crops and harvest them.  His children went to Universities and all had left the farm and family to make a careers out West.  Sylvester and his wife enjoyed the outdoor life and both worked hard to keep the farm successful.  But, as time went by and both of them were in their seventies, the work got harder and they had to sell some land to make ends meet.  They grew enough to eat and buy supplies until one day in June, Sylvester stubbed his toe and it was swollen and so painful that he could not walk.  The farm became neglected and he had to rent the land and sell some parcels to support his wife and self.  The toe became infected and he soaked it day and night in Epsom salts, to no avail.  He started having fevers and hallucinations and they could not call the doctor, since it would cost them so much.

The neighbours offered to assist them and they did.  Sylvester sat in his big chair and gasped as his infected toe turned blue and purple/  The neighbours were concerned enough to pay a doctor to come over.  The doctor looked at the huge purple toe and said it must come off.  Sylvester was so adamantly so against the surgery that he refused and said he’d rather die than have the amputation.  The doctor shrugged and left and left him a prescription for some penicillin.  The penicillin, bought by neighbours seemed to help but soon an ugly green and brown small growth arose from his great toe.  It grew and grew and was a good eight feet before the neighbours once again became concerned.  The doctor, once again, was recommending surgery, which old Sylvester turned right down.

Sylvester’s wife was bright and quite resourceful.  She put a sign out on the road which advertised a man with a small tree arising from his toe.  Indeed, the growth resembled a small evergreen.  Sylvester, quite immobile just sat there as several neighbours and some tourists gawked upon his evergreen arising from his toe.  By time, the evergreen had grown some thirteen feet and was completely decorated as a Christmas Tree.  Sylvester’s wife changed her big roadside sign to read, “Amazing Christmas Tree Arising from a Toe!”  “A dollar for a view,” she printed down below.  The sign attracted visitors from far and wide and the farmer and his wife collected thousands for the views.  The newspapers and television got involved and paid Sylvester thousands for the story and the pictures.  The couple got quite rich because the great publicity drew heavy crowds and the admission price was raised to $20.00.  By February, the needles fell from off the tree and Sylvester died a painful death of unretractive inanition./ The doctor offered feeding tubes but he’d refused.  The neighbours helped the wife saw down the tree trunk and they buried him out back in the copse of trees behind the house.

By April, several trees sprang up, allowing the widow and her neighbours to sell the crop of Christmas Trees.  The next spring, there arose a forest of tall evergreens, one of which grew faster than the rest.  By Christmas it was over hundred feet and seemed to reach the clouds.  The trees made everyone quite rich and views of the amazing tall tree cost the tourists $50.00.  The widow died a peaceful death and left the property to all her neighbours who could sell the trees, each year and charge admission for a view of one that reached to Heav’n.  A second tree grew very quickly and it also reached the Heavens.  Neighbours swore that they could hear Sylvester and his wife in arguments about just everything, if one but listened carefully.

A lot of tourists paid $100.00 for the privilege of just listening to this unusual phenomenon. If you are interested, drive to Hazlehurst, Ontario, and you can hear them, too, if you but pay the hundred dollars with some shiny loonies, eh?

THE END

© izzy sommers, md

Welland, Canada

September 19, 2013