The Story of the Dollar Tree

Imitation of Mark Twain’s short story “The Story of the Old Ram.” The story is about not making a point.

The story of the dollar tree

As a boy, I spent almost every weekend of the summer at my grandparent’s house, which was approximately one mile from the old mine.  I used to spend days playing around the old mine.  I used to spend my days playing around the mine; pretending I was a miner, sweating and laboring within the black bleak bowels of the Earth, although I was never allowed to go inside of the mine.  My favorite thing, though, about staying with my grandparents, was being the audience of my grandfather, who, at the time, up to ten years before his demise, was a shriveled man who had lost almost all of his hair; all that was left was thick white patches of a white fur in and around his ears.  The poor man, once upright and strong, was now fragile and appeared boneless, with sloped shoulders, as if someone were pushing him to the ground.  I loved when he would tell me the rousing stories of the good old days when he was a boy.  I loved my grandfather with a ferocity to match a tornado’s winds; I believed that he knew everything, but my grandma was always calling him a senile old man, because he always seemed to forget things, like taking out the garbage, or watering her plants.  

One balmy summer evening, with the moon covered up by thick, hanging clouds, I beseeched, appealed, and implored him to relate a memory of his youth.  My grandma, who usually sent me to bed in a hurry,for once directed me to ask, with a wry smile, for an account of the dollar tree.  It was approaching my bedtime, but my grandfather acquiesced my wishes, and, in the dim, candlelit parlor, with the plumes of his dark cigar smoke hovering over my head like a fog, he began:

Bobby, yer great-great grandpa put useta po-session a tree that grew dolla’s.  That big old tree was a mixture a Simpson, I don’t recall, maybe a oak an’ a maple�"no, I disremeber.  But, anyways�"this her tree prop’gated dollars, how’s ‘cuz yer great-great grandpappy cut up a dollar once, when the tree wiz still little, mixer’s it all up in the soil.  Ev’ry summer, us kids useta pick useta pick up some treasure growin’ off they dolla’ tree�"it put out suma the crispest dollars you ev’r did b’hold�"like they jes come from the U.S. mint.  Well, us kids would run to the local sweet shop, with our loot, and buy up all the candy we could eat.  The propi’tor, Sam Stone, son of Hake Stone, who wiz the head po-lice of’offca’ in town, , had some 0f the bestest choc’lates you ever did taste�"all kinds, too.  He carried the choc-o-late covered cherrrie, ap’crots, cjoc’late coverd ice scream sticks, And even choc’late cov’as critters-and even choc’late covered critters�"bugs, I mean.  Ole Sam went out in the blszin’ sun fer hours, with some of hid fine choc’late to ‘tract dem buggies.  Boy, he mustered up the biggest and juciets, ants, beetle and spiders, then take’s back up to his shop, bake’d dem, and covered them in his fab’lous choc’late.  Dem candies were de-lic-ours.  The spiders were mostly chewy, the ants were crispy, but sometimes, if you were unlucky, you got a bee that Sam did forger to de-sting.  Man, that ‘urt something awful!  The point really stung!  It made so’s that, if you happened to be ‘lergic, yer ‘ole moth swole up som’pin bad.  One in’sdent Sally Heynny got ‘resell stung, her whole face ‘oiled up so ‘ horrible it looked like it was fixin to burst’ of course it ne’er did.  Rather, the doctors came to the house, and had to let the pus that was fiIlin’ her face up, real slow-like, so’s there was no explosion of gook all ‘round the parlor.  Poor Sally’ what the did was en-sertthese long tubes ‘thro her ever-grow’ cheeks, an would have ces’fully have grained the pus out, ‘tell her face turned normal, ‘crept they wud all drink’ and smok’in in the kitchen with Sally’s folks, and consequenc’d in Sally bein left to drain fer to long, so’s that her face was kinda invertin’ , and er treats drew inwards, and ‘her lips all pitched out, So’s she ‘peered ‘the a fish on dry land, suckin’ fer wadder.  

I reckon the pressure wiz too much for ‘her little face, cuz her eyeballs almost popped out right straight out ‘er herd.  Fortun’ly, the doc just happ’d to walk in when this deezaster was ‘curing, but, he was so taken ‘back surprised, cuz to tell the truth, this ain’t’t no ev’ryday ‘currance, that he opened his gob as wide as the Specic ocean, ‘fore he could he holda his head,.  Was suckin’ ‘er poor self to death the, nurses must have her all the suckin’ noises Sally’s cheeks were makin’, because they hurried, because the hurried into the room, and took dem tubes suckin’ sweet Sally, and saved ‘er.  But poor Sally, she fur ever had cheeks that wuz inside out.  Lucky fer ‘er, she could turn a profit with dem tube ‘oles in ‘er face; she was able ta stick ‘er tongue thro either ‘ole at ‘er will.  It was fun fer the kids on dreary days, to watch ‘er tongue-in-cheek antics, fer a day with no fun, is s no day at all.  .  One lil yugg’n, Tommy Benson, was one aft’noon, walk’ ‘round Sally’s house, ‘Rodin ‘round fer cookies most prob’ly, when he suddenly commenced havin’ a fit.  The innocent boy fell to the floor all spitting and thinkin’ up a hellava storm, like some rabid ‘coon needing to be put out ‘o its mis’ry.   Ev’ry one knew fer sure he was a goner, but ther doctor shewed up jes in time.  The doctor that the situation ’quiered ‘mmediate surgery, right then and there, and he enlisted the kids to a*s-ist him.  First off, he pulled out a needle longer’n the Grand Canyon, and sucked up the awful smellin’ gunk.  He said, “This ‘ere boys is a fine point�",” and as he slid’r inta Tommy’s vein, he said “A good point never misses. 

Poor Tommy, the doctor said the cause of his fit wuz was accounta’ his brains, but he did not know which area of his brain was causing it.  So he poked and prodded in the gushy mess,  and said to hisself, “Hmmm, I ne’er saw this part ‘here.  I don’t know what it’s s’pposed to do, so I reckon it must not do anything!.  I’ll jes scoop it right out.  That oughta fix ‘em up good!”

Well, the doctor rooted ‘round fer Sally’s ice cream sccop, and jess carved that inimportant section ‘right outta Tomm’y head. Missus Dekkie, Jimmy’s momma, and wife of Colonel Roger Dekkie, whose sister ‘nitiated te Pilardo plague, ast for the non’ssentual brains to feed her retarted hound, Grover, so’s to try a nd make ‘em smarter.  That dog was the most ridiculous animal you ever did witness. It euz so dumb, that it useta ramble itself right smack inta tables’n chairs and whatnot all the time, e’en while it was fixin’ right at ‘em.  He musta not cared much, cuz he did it most ev’ryday.  After ‘while, he carved a big ole dent in his head, ‘bout three inches deep, from the ever-constant bangin’.  When Missus Dekkie received company, she would make ole Grover lie down on the floor, wind his belly up in the air, and used his trenched head to yer cup.  Grover loved it, cuz the cold drinks left him feelin’ cool on steamy days, and the drinks kept ‘em warm on cold days.  Jimmy’s Uncle Rex, curiously and luckless widder’d five times�"the last time bein’ his wife died accounta Rex was fixin’ up the house, and jes happen’d to save the wood shavins’ in a jar marked “Cheese.  Well. Poor old Missus Rex musta reckoned it WERE cheese, fer she sprinkled it all over her meal one day, and commenced to choke and scratch and scrape her throat with wood shavins’, ‘till the Pale Horse came and claimed her as his own.  

We’’, to git back to the topic, Uncle Rex said he was a lern�"ed man, an’ he proclaimd’ thet dogs’ heads were filthy, dirty things, and that puttin’ yer drink on his head was bad as kissing him square on the moth.  That proclamation didn’t bother Missus Dekkie none, cuz she always useta kiss Grover straight on his moth.  But, anyways, Missus Dekkie protested, sayin’ that ‘er husband thought it wuz a good idea, for them and the dog, to place their cups ‘pon his head.  Well, Uncle Rex didn’t like no talking back, and said they were alls a bunch a dim witted simpletons that would believe anything that you told ‘em, ‘crept for listening to reason.  Uncle Rex said that the way he knew everything, wuz his bein’ a learn-ed individual, a lore to be exact.  Uncle Rex won ev’ry case he ever fought fer.  One case he had wuz a schoolteacher who was prone to lettin’ his students climb tree durin’ recess.  Course, the kids loved the excersise, and the schoolteacher liked the extra time he was able to work on his ‘speraments.  He would usually sit under dem trees., and ‘sperament wid whatever he could get aholda, such as bird, bugs, or worms.  Like if you were to cut a worm in her, both end still wiggle ‘round.  So’s, one day, the schoolteacher got the notion of ‘speramentin’, with some gravity.  So’s he stared shekkin’ the trees so’s the boys would fall out. It seemed a reas’nable idea, ‘cwept for one thing�"the schoolteacher forgot thet half of dem trees was was hangin’ over a fence.  The fence was a good built, sturdy one, made outta planksa wood.  Some of these planks was sharp and pointy, while ethers were blunt and dull.  Well, the schoolteacher3 shekked and shekked the trees, and the boys and girls started fallin’ out like dead flies.  Some landed on spikes, poor souls, but most of those innocent you kids fell on the parts of the fence (yawn) lacking a point.  

By this time, it was past my, and my grandfather’s bedtimes.  I stumbled back to my room on the east side of the house, breathing in the fresh air coming in from my open window, glad to be away from the haze of my grandfather’s habit.  The moon was illuminating my room, and seemed to follow me to bed as if it wanted to tell me something.  I treadles softly to my window and gazed out on the night, which, earlier in the Erving was dark and murky, but was now bright and distinct.  But, as I climbed into bed, I failed to realize, and it would be many years before I would, that, I, too, had fallen, and landed on a dull point.   

Reviews

[JayG]

A couple of points, first:

Those strange marks on the page are where the translation to HTML format didn’t handle a special character. So for them you need a workaround. For an em-dash, for example, use two hyphens, For the others I wasn’t certain what the original was.

Second: So far as the character accents you have the volume way, way too high. No way in hell can someone not from the area pronounce, or recognize how to speak them. So you just made the act of reading a lot harder for the reader. Sure, it works when you play the role as you read. But the reader has no clue of how you want the work read, so far as vocal presentation or such things as gestures on the part of the narrator.

And now, on to the story:

Okay, you’re probably not going to like me, but I see a problem that’s common, and it’s one that the author cannot see, or will even suspect exists. And since you are working hard, and we won’t address the problem we don’t see as being one, I thought you might want to know.

Let me preface this by saying that it has nothing to do with how well you write or your talent. But it is a killer. And, this is going to sting. But I know of no more gentle way of breaking such news, which is: We all leave our school years sharing what I call, The Great Misunderstanding: We think we learned how to write.

We did learn one approach to writing, yes, but the name we give to that approach is, unfortunately, nonfiction. It’s a methodology we studied and practiced for over a decade, mostly by being assigned reports and essays.


But think back. Did a single teacher explain something as simple as why a scene on the page ends in disaster for the protagonist? Did they explain why scenes on the page are vastly different in approach than on the screen, and must be? How about the elements that make a scene up? Because if they didn’t, how can you write one?

Pretty much all of us leave our school days believing that writing-is-writing, and we have that taken care of. So you have s LOT of company—including me when I began recording my campfire stories.

What we forget is two things: First, that the purpose of universal education is to provide prospective employers with a pool of workers who possess a useful and predictable set of general skills, known as The Three R’s: Reading, wRiting, and aRithmatic. And the kind of writing employers want from us is reports, papers, and letters. In other words, the kind of writing we spend so much time practicing in school.

The second thing we forget is that professional knowledge and skills are acquired in addition to our school-day skills. And they offer four-year degree programs in Commercial Fiction-Writing. Doesn’t it make sense that at least some of what they reach is necessary?

But of more importance is the thing they don’t teach us. We know that the goal of nonfiction is to inform the reader. And to do that, the narrator stands alone on the stage talking TO the reader, about the facts. But fiction? A very different goal. As E. L. Doctorow so wisely put it, “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

Not only were we not given the emotion-based and character centric techniques of the profession, no one mentioned that those skills existed, because few employers need us to write fiction.

And because we aren’t given those skills, and don't know we weren't you misunderstood the use of “person” in fiction. yes, you’re using first person pronouns, but uour viewpoint is that of the narrator, who lives at a different time from the action, and is talking about it, primarily in overview and summation—lecturing and providing the weather report, not the sting of wind-driven raindrops peppering the skin. And because we can neither hear nor see that person, the voice that’s full of emotion when you read your own words is dispassionate for the reader. A very good editing technique that will help pick up some of those problems, or at least make them apparent, is to have the computer read the story to you.

To show what I mean, instead of looking at the words as the all-knowing author, let’s take the reader’s seat and look at a few lines:

• As a boy, I spent almost every weekend of the summer at my grandparent’s house, which was approximately one mile from the old mine.

Why do we care? What matters is the events of the story, not backstory. Would the story change were it every other weekend? Story happens as we read, it’s not talked about. So this opening isn’t a story, it’s a verbal storyteller setting the scene because there are no actors or visual aids to do that. But on the page, we do have the actors. And you can’t make the reader feel the rain if you’re only telling them about it. To make them feel it they must be within the protagonist’s viewpoint, within the moment that person calls, now. So to a writer, the term first person means first person viewpoint, not pronoun

And, “the” old mine? How can there be a specific mine when it could be a pit-mine, a uranium mine, or anything else. You know. The protagonist does. But won’t the reader know it’s a mine, and what kind when it’s talked about, or explored? Never tell the reader what you’re going to show them by making them live the events.

• I used to spend days playing around the old mine. I used to spend my days playing around the mine;

Forgetting that you missed this in editing, Why does the reader care? This is a lecture, not story. Opening a story by talking about things that happened before the story opened is wasted time. If it matters so much open it there. The reader wants to begin with story, not history. They want to be made to feel and care, not be better informed on the life of someone who never existed.

So...see how quickly what the reader perceives deviates from what you intended them to get?

The fix? Simple. Add those missing skills to your toolbox, practice them till they’re as intuitive to use as the ones you now use, and there you are.

Of course, the words simple and easy aren’t interchangeable. But learning something you want to know isn’t hard labor. And when you do master them, the act of writing becomes a LOT more fun, as the protagonist becomes your co-writer, whispering warnings and suggestions in your ear.

As to where to begin, my view is to start with a few books on the basics. You work at your own pace, when you have time. And, there’s no pressure or tests. What’s not to love? Personally? I’d suggest starting with Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer, which recently came out of copyright protection. It's the best I've found, to date, at imparting and clarifying the "nuts-and-bolts" issues of creating a scene that will sing to the reader. The address of an archive site where you can read or download it free is just below. Copy/paste the address into the URL window of any Internet page and hit Return to get there.

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

So try a few chapters. You’ll find yourself saying, “How could I not have seen something so obvious without help?"

And for what it might be worth as an overview, the articles in my WordPress writing blog are based on what you’ll find in such a book.

So…I KNOW this wasn’t what you hoped to see. And I really wish I knew of a more gentle way of breaking such news, because I’ve been there. And it can be a huge shock. But on the other hand, the first step to fixing a problem is to know it is one.

So hang in there and keep on writing. It never gets easier, but with work and study, we do become confused on a higher level.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[Abbey]

Thanks for your thoughts; I truly appreciate them.
Abbey.