Horan - Seeds: one mans serendipitous journey to find the trees that inspired famous american writers from faulkner to kerouac, welty to wharton

There he began thrusting his iron rod into the earth, making a hole in which he planted an acorn; then he refilled the hole. He was planting oak trees. I asked him if the land belonged to him. He answered no. Did he know whose it was? He did not. He supposed it was community property, or perhaps belonged to people who cared nothing about it. He was not interested in finding out whose it was. He planted his hundred acorns with the greatest care.

JEAN GIONO , THE MAN WHO PLANTED TREES

D URING THE SPRING BREAK OF 2001, my wife, our two daughters, and I went on a vacation to the Gulf of Mexico. Destination: Dauphin Island, Alabama. We drove from our home in Wisconsin, covering more than a thousand miles of interstates and back roads. To break up the drive, we put together an itinerary of historical places to visit along the way.

First stop: Springfield, Illinois, and Abraham Lincolns home. Originally just a cottage, the place was expanded by the Lincolns into a two-story, twelve-room house soon after they moved in. When we visited it, the saltbox colonial had an overabundance of creaking stairways, paisley wallpaper, crimson carpets, and primitive-looking furniture. And it smelled funny.

My youngest daughter, just seven at the time, was dazzled by it. I felt it lacked all freedom of interior and exterior occupation, to borrow a phrase from Frank Lloyd Wright, but then again, the young Lincoln was not noted for his architectural contributions to the house, just his legendary prowess there with an adz.

In the living room, a photograph caught my eye: a picture taken in May of 1860 of Honest Abe standing out in front of the house next to a young basswood tree. Coincidentally, there was a fully mature basswood in that same spot just outside the window.

Say, is that the same tree as the one in the photograph? I blurted out.

I believe it is, the docent replied.

I felt a thrill run down my spine.

It was the perfect excuse to escape, so I left the family behind to continue the malodorous tour while I went outside to take a closer look at the ancient hardwood that had known Lincoln personally. There was nothing special about the treeno patina-proud plaque pointing out its pedigree, no initials carved into the bark, no tattered rope swing. It looked like any other tree. On the ground and underfoot were scads of golden pea-size seeds. I dont know what possessed me, but I reached down and picked up a handful and jammed them into my pockets.

This tree had known one of the greatest and most complex figures in American history. Had Lincoln even leaned against it and pondered his future? Surely he mustve dreamed under that tree, dreamed of a better life for his family, for his fellow citizens, black and white. Suddenly those seeds in my pocket from that touchstone felt like pennies from heaven.

N EXT STOP : H ANNIBAL , M ISSOURI , on the western banks of the Mississippi River, just an hour and a half from Springfield. At Mark Twains childhood home, we were disappointed to learn that we had missed the last guided tour of the day. I searched the yard for old trees and seeds. Nothing. But Hannibal itself was old and seedy, surprisingly untransformed by its one-time residents fame. Later that evening, while my brood swam in the indoor pool at the hotel, I decided to have a look around town in the waning sunlight.

Because I have been a transient most of my life, I have a knack for bonding quickly with any given locale. I need only wander around a place for a little while to feel a keen sense of belonging. As a teacher, Ive learned that someones environment has as much to tell us about that person as does his or her friends and family. So, within the hour, Ich bin ein Hannibaler .

I came to the base of Cardiff Hill, that illustrious playground of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. A rusty sign modestly boasted of the sites place in literary history. As I made my way up the steep incline along a narrow dirt path, I half expected two waifs to come bouncing out of the bushes in rolled-up dungarees, wooden swords in hand, battling make-believe pirates.