Dialogue, Volume 25, Number 2 - Dialogue – A Journal of Mormon ...

164 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT
hardly noticed as the tree became sickly and branch after branch dried
up. Quite apart from being alarmed, Orson was glad, since each woody
branch could be cut into a hundred small relics and sold at a handsome
price. But his prosperity was short lived, for at last the lone tree
was only a stump, and the visitors no longer came in any number.
Grandmother Cedarbloom was grieved at the death of the tree,
and she no longer had the will to live. Now, on the next Twenty-fourth
of July, when Orson watered the stump and it failed to blossom, the
few who had gathered scoffed and laughed him to scorn, all but one
stranger. So Grandmother Cedarbloom hailed this one and told him
the whole of the story, and then and there she passed away. Orson was
left to wander the streets, carrying his oversized watering can. But the
stranger told the story to my father, who told it to me. And any who
doubt the tale can go to Sixth East Street, three or four blocks south,
in the City of the Great Salt Lake, and there they will find grass and
bushes growing down the center of the street and a stump standing in
an old, forgotten gazebo. And that is the proof of the story.