Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbors Peaches!

Yesterday at church, I was teaching my Sunday school class a lesson about Salvation, and I began discussing being able to know a saved person by their "fruits." As I was talking about that and discussing the "good tree bringing forth good fruit and a bad tree bringing forth bad fruit," all of a sudden I had a recollection of something that happened to me in my childhood. I told my class about it and they all got a real big kick out of it, so I thought I'd share it with the readers of Tug's Life.

I guess it was around 1978, I was either 11 or 12 years old. It was during the Summer time when we were out of school. My dad had this old apple tree that grew in our backyard. It would always be loaded down with these little green apples. You couldn't stand to eat them, they were way too sour. Of course, that didn't keep me and Pam from feeding them to Lorn's cows... We mostly just threw them at each other when we apple fights in the backyard.

Anyways, getting to my point... I was exploring through the woods back behind my papaw's property. There wasn't any houses back there at that time, just cow pastures and woods. In one of these pastures, I discovered a huge peach tree. That tree was loaded down with the biggest, juiciest, peaches you have ever seen in your life. I first plucked one off, whipped out my barlow knife, peeled the skin off and ate one. "Yum, yum," it was good! I then got this bright idea that I would pick ALL of the peaches off of that tree and take them home with me. I didn't even think about the peaches belonging to somebody else. After all, they were way out there in the field not even close to anybody's house. I just figured the tree had grown wild and was placed there for my benefit. I began picking those peaches, holding out the bottom of my t-shirt and using it for a make-shift sack. After I picked as many as I possibly could, I somehow made it back home, crossing at least 4 different barbed wire fences, without dropping all of the peaches on the way.

When I got back to the house, I got the bright idea that I could make me a little bit of money off of them there peaches. So, I got some brown paper lunch sacks that my momma had in the kitchen cabinet. I could fit 3 or 4 in each sack. I then placed the sacks in a 5-gallon bucket, hooked the bucket handle over one handlebar on my bicycle and headed off down the road to sell those peaches. I first stopped at Dewey Grave's house and tried to sell some to him, he said he "didn't want no peaches." I moved on down the road hitting every door on the way. I sold a few peaches. I was asking 25 cents a piece for them. I went to one house and the man was awfully nice. He bought 3-bags of my peaches. I think it cost him around $3.75. You talk about happy! I peddled home on my bike as fast as my little fat legs would take me. I walked in the house wiping peach juice off of my chin and counting my money. My dad looked at me and said, "where did you get that money?" I said, "I sold some peaches to that man that lives down the road." Then dad said, "where did you get them peaches?" I said, "I found a peach tree way back yonder behind Lorn's woods." Then dad said, "you mean to tell me you sold that man his own peaches?" I had no idea that my best customer was the man that owned the field I had taken them from! I just looked up at dad and said, "well, I reckon I did."

Yep, you guessed it, after fessing up to dad, he made me go back to the man and give his money back and apologize for stealing peaches off of his tree. You talk about embarrassing! So remember kids, "thou shalt not steal," and "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's peaches!"