A Story about Jack

Jack went out hunting, and he had a good day. He'd used up all his shot and his gamebag was full. He sat down to eat his lunch--a sackful of ripe peaches.

As he sat there, he saw the biggest buck he'd ever seen in his entire life. Its antlers branched out so far they blocked the sunlight, and that buck must have stood seventeen hands high. Jack reached for his gun, and then he remembered. He was out of shot.

Now some people would have cursed their luck, stomped around, cried, or blamed someone else for not having any shot left to shoot that big deer. But not Jack--he wasn't the kind of feller to let little things like that concern him. No, sir. Jack commenced to looking for an alternative solution to the situation at hand.

And he found it, right on the ground in front of him. Peach pits. Jack gathered up the peach seeds from his lunch and rammed them down the barrel of his gun, shoved in the wadding and powder and took aim.

Jack was a good shot. No, he was a great shot. No, he was an EXPERT shot. He hit that buck square between the eyes. But the buck just flinched, shook his head and ran off into the brush.

It didn't worry Jack too much. He had a bagful of game and he was too tired to drag a deer down the mountain anyway. He went whistling on home and cooked up a fine supper of squirrel gravy, fried rabbit and such as that. He forgot about that buck before his stomach was full.

A year later Jack found himself hunting in the same woods. He sat down to eat, and there in front of him he saw a magnificent peach tree. It was loaded with ripe, juicy peaches. Jack never could pass up a peach, so he jumped up and commenced to climbing up that tree.

He just got to the top where the ripest peaches were, when that tree stood up! That was when Jack realized that this wasn't an ordinary peach tree.

Remember the buck he shot? Well, one of the peach pits Jack had shot at that buck had lodged between the buck's antlers and grown into a full-sized peach tree right there on the buck's head!

That ol' buck shook his head, and sent Jack flying off--but not before Jack shoved about a dozen peaches into his pockets. Jack went on home and made him a peach cobbler.

And if no one's shot him, that buck is walking the woods yet.