Who Was Johnny Appleseed 苹果核约翰尼 Chapter 6 The Legend Blossoms

The first newspaper in the Northwest Territory was published in 1793 in Cincinnati, Ohio. But frontier settlers rarely got a chance to see a newspaper or any book besides the Bible.



Most cabins were built far apart, and settlers didn’t get many visitors. So they were glad to see Johnny when he came to their cabins to advertise his apple business and sell apple seedlings 1. Besides, he didn’t just bring seedlings. He brought news and stories.



Johnny was a good storyteller and liked to entertain settlers with his wilderness 2 adventures. He told of a life full of exciting escapes from bears, wolves, and other wild animals. He told of tending his own wounds with a piece of blazing-hot iron. And he told of the time he set his canoe on a large piece of ice floating down a creek 3. The ice carried him along faster than he could have paddled. Unfortunately, he fell asleep and wound up passing the place he’d meant to land.



When Johnny told stories, his gray eyes sparkled. He knew how to use his voice to build a story to a thrilling climax 4 or to make people laugh.



One thing that surprised people about Johnny was that he was always barefoot. He walked hundreds of miles in his apple business. His feet must have hurt at first. But the bottoms of them got tough after a while. Stepping on rocks and twigs 5 became less painful. He occasionally stuck pins through the tough skin of his feet to impress people.



Some people wondered if his feet were magic. Rumors 6 got started. It was said he could leap across rivers or melt ice with his bare feet. The soles of his feet were said to be so tough that a snake’s fangs 7 couldn’t pierce them.



People talked about his clothes, too. Some said he wore an upside-down cooking pot on his head! He made a brim for the edge of it to shield his eyes from the sun. He may have done that a few times. It would have been a good way to carry his cooking pot and to shade his face from the sun. But most of the time, he probably carried his pot in a backpack.



Johnny made his shirts out of empty coffee sacks with holes cut for his head and arms. Although he took baths, he didn’t really care how he looked. He wore whatever he could find. Once, he found an old boot and a moccasin, so he put one on each foot.



Some Native Americans believed Johnny was a medicine man because he looked and acted so odd. They admired him and didn’t try to hurt him.



Johnny met so many people through his travels that he became more and more well-known. Everyone who saw him remembered him. People who had never met him claimed they had, and made up stories about him. Pioneer families who knew him told his adventure stories to others. Some of the stories got exaggerated as they were passed around. The legend of Johnny Appleseed grew, as tall tales about him spread.



A tall tale is a story with exaggeration, adventure, and humor. Real-life problems get solved easily in funny, amazing ways.



Each group of workers in the old west had a tall-tale hero that made what they did look easy.



Paul Bunyan was a logger. He helped settlers clear forestland for farms and cabins. Paul Bunyan was so strong he could pull trees from the ground with his bare hands, even when he was a baby!



As a boy, Paul Bunyan rescued a blue ox from a snowstorm. He named it Babe, and Babe became his lifelong best buddy 8.



Pecos Bill was a Texas cowboy. According to the legend, his parents moved west when he was just a baby. As their covered wagon 9 crossed the Pecos River, Bill fell out. He was rescued and raised by a family of wild coyotes.



With such a strange upbringing, Pecos Bill grew up to be a very unusual cowboy. When a rattlesnake bothered him one day, he used it to lasso a bull and invented cattle roping! Digging fence postholes was tiring. So he got prairie dogs to do it for him. He even tamed a wild horse named Lightning for an outlaw 10 gang.



In time, pioneers began telling tales about Johnny Appleseed. In the days before television, telling stories about a folk hero was a favorite pasttime. But Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan were not real people. Johnny Appleseed was.