Higgins Headlines

Long ago in a garden there lived a man. He took care of the garden and tended to all of the beautiful flowering plants; he was the gardener. Every morning and evening he would walk through the garden and admire the little plants that grew along the path. There were daisies and lilies here and posies and petunias there. The soft dirt path wound around the garden and through the center where it passed a small grassy hill. Each day the gardener would walk the garden path and sit upon the hill to admire the plants in this wonderful and beautiful land as the warm sun passed overhead.

The gardener was settling himself into the grassy hill to admire the flowers one day; he began to feel that something was missing. Days went by and the feeling did not leave, he sat himself upon the soft green hill and the feeling returned. One day the thought occurred to him, finally he knew what to do. He reached into his gardener’s pouch and pulled out two tiny seeds. On one side of the hill he planted one seed and on the other side he planted the other. Each day he would return to the hill, water the seeds and sit as usual.

After a while the gardener noticed a single green leaf began to emerge from the dirt, first on one spot and then on the other. Before long the trees were tall enough to nearly reach his waist. That is when it began to happen, the trees began to bend. The gardener tended and fertilized and watered but the trees still bent. This troubled the gardener for he loved the trees so he began to think. He thought and thought; he tried sticks and wire to prop the trees up but they still grew toward the ground. Finally he settled on the only solution. The gardener reached for his trowel from his gardener’s bag and began to dig, he dug up the first tree and then the other and began to dig at the top of the grassy hill.

The gardener placed the two trees side by side and rested their tiny, withering branches upon each other’s branch. The trees continued to grow, but now, whenever they began to grow downward the branch of the neighbor tree began to grow around and support the tender stalk.
Seasons came and went; all the while the gardener cared for the trees and the other plants in the garden. But, above all the other beautiful flowers and shrubbery in the garden, he loved the two trees he placed in the center. They were his pride and joy; he could not speak of the garden without speaking of the trees. When the sun got too hot over head as he walked the garden, they gave him shade. When the birds would fly by, singing their lovely songs, they gave them a place to perch near the gardener so he could enjoy their melody.

The two trees no longer needed help to continue growing toward the sky, but you could not separate them now. They had become one tree together, sharing roots and branches; sharing water and the sun. The nutrients they gathered from the soil fed them both equally and fully. The two shoots that became two little trees had now become one tall tree; they loved each other and together as one they loved the gardener.