Humor by DAR

Four Interesting Trees
(and what their bark foretold)

(First published in North American Review)

1. The Harkengrove Willow

A weeping willow on the estate of Dame Harkengrove in Tewkesbury was a brilliant and lively willow who could do most nearly anything and yet did nothing remarkably well. She could sing rather nicely, could use a pistol and ride to hounds as few weeping willows can, and yet for all her talents the Harkengrove Willow at the end could look back over her life and point with pride to nothing.

As the eldest willow in Dame Harkengrove’s estate, she had an exalted position in a very pleasant lawn. However, she started going off in those fast cars, dribbled away her inheritance, made a mess of her marriage, and hardly ever returned her phone calls.

I reproduce her bark (fig. 1) as an example of a Life-Line which appears perfectly fine in its early stage, but about the middle of the trunk crosses over and finishes on the Mount of Saturn, an indisputably ominous indication on any bark, not to mention unattractive.

Other markings for the student to note are the general droop of the Heart-Line, the listless Line of Marriage, and the Line of Head which terminates in a knot, indicating mental brilliance—but the obnoxious sort.

The Harkengrove Willow had a scintillating personality, she was a charming hostess, and yet at her funeral were far fewer mourners than hecklers. In studying her bark, it is well to bear in mind that the most popular trees invariably have bark lines that are straight and true and that are not criss-crossed by lots of junk.

2. Potted Palm

The bark of Potted Palm, one of England’s great business trees, under whose spreading leaves in the Broad Street Dining Club were conducted some of the century’s biggest banking transactions, is a good example of “the business bark.”

It is the stable type (fig. 2) with impressively deep, somber lines and a level Line of Head, closely allied to the Life-Line. Potted Palm was a stable tree and slow to anger: He was known for his reserve, but at the same time he could shout you right out of the billiard room.

There is one line that looks remarkably like a lightning bolt which intercepts the Line of Fate precisely at its mid-point. Such a line is never seen unless it be evidence of something horrible.

When I took the impression of his bark, I warned Potted Palm of an impending catastrophe.

Very calmly he asked: “When will this event come to pass?’’

Donning my cape I replied: “In seven or eight minutes from now.”

Seven minutes later the Broad Street Dining Club was bombed to smithereens during the midst of a stockholders’ lunch.

3. Sweet Gum, Me American film goddess

For all the world, Sweet Gum was a happy and vivacious film goddess—never lonely, never blue. She had fame and fortune and all the marks of a life lived before an adoring public. But one glance at her bark proved to me what only her closest friends suspected, and none dared mention: There was a well of emptiness midst the gaiety (fig. 3).

Deep insecurities, a desperate need to be loved, a nasty case of beetle rot—this was the sad truth behind the glittering legend of Sweet Gum. Again and again she consulted me, and each time her future looked worse. I begged her to take care of herself, yet always there was something in her mysterious half-smile that made me wonder: “Does she truly believe?”

Shortly before she was found washed ashore at Malibu, Sweet Gum paid me a final visit in my private salon above Madame Tussaud’s on Grosvenor Street. Recorded in my Guest Book from that visit is this tragical inscription:

4. The bark of a certified f/asher

I obtained the impression of Professor Birchwood’s bark (fig. 4) when he was a sapling of three months old.

And such a strange-looking bark! Pale and flaky, with hardly a mark of any kind, except for a tell-tale Line of Head that doubled over on itself at the midpoint and became real ugly.

“Mr. and Mrs. Birchwood,” I told his parents as they relaxed in the elegant comfort of my private salon, “you are dandling on your knee a tree who begins life in a normal, uneventful fashion. He wins the usual scholastic honors and at age 24 is awarded a stipend at Paisley College, Oxford. However, the rigors of academic life soon prove too much for him, with the result that by his late 20’s he is experimenting with pine cones, consorting with driftwood, and finally … becoming a flasher!”

The gasp that escaped the lips of little Professor Birchwood’s parents, as they sat that day in my cozy salon, with its crackling fireplace and free unlimited cordials, was not an easy gasp to live with, as gasps go. In fact, over the years it haunted me. Could I have been mistaken? Worse yet, could I have been wrong? The remote possibility that I had given them groundless cause to suffer—for all those years!—put an ache in my heart.

Early one evening last spring, an evening when I was seeking to assuage the ache in my heart with an after-dinner stroll, I was stepping through Kensington Alleyways when I heard the unmistakable sound of a tree dragging itself along behind me. The air was cool, the moon was bright, and the terror mounted inside of me. Could it have been one of the Chestnut Brothers against whom I’d testified, so long ago? I dared not look around. I could not breathe or think, as the dragging grew quicker, as the dragging grew closer. At last there was a tug upon my shoulder. Trembling I turned, and in a flurry of leaves beheld the grisliest, most disgusting sight ever beheld in Kensington Alleyways.

Hoorah! And thank God the Birchwoods had not suffered in vain.