Herm Claims that His Peach Tree Is Alive
One night in early fall of last year, through an open window, under the light of a full moon, the corn field stirred and awoke a Duff Herm hiding within it who yelped and gave a start as the great corn plants started to walk towards him, swaying like ghosts not quite alive. He ran. Still, the corn swayed back and forth on either side of him, as if trying to catch him and pull him into their depths, and still the unmistakable sound of crunching as if by footsteps came from a short way off.
This was the story of a homeless Duff Herm from that night. The walking corn plants and footsteps, of course, were just the resident Duff Herms of Lalrod Ancob’s farm, chasing away the intruder in their own mischievous way. That night, however, it was not the Duff Herm who saw the most spooky sight, but, having been awakened by the commotion outside, Lalrod himself who looked out his bedroom window at the swaying fields and creeping shadows below.
To the right of his farm, where the peach trees grew, half-leaved as if unsure whether winter would come early that year, the snapping of a twig and the sudden movement of a shadow brought his attention to a lone peach tree, a few dozen feet away from the rest. Funny, he thought: That was the tree he never remembered having planted. He stared and stared, swearing that he had seen it move only a few minutes before, but it stood like a statue or, in this case, a tree. When he returned to his bed, however, the snapping of twigs continued and it sounded as if a log was being dragged, or dragging itself, across the farm.
The next morning, the peach tree had definitely moved and all the Duff Herms agreed, for once, that something was up. When they went to go talk to their Ba Herm, he asked them if the peach tree had moved and they shuddered at the thought of a walking peach tree. In the afternoon, after all the chores around the farm had been finished, the Ba Herm instructed all his Duff Herms to watch the peach tree to make sure it didn’t move again while he went to the local Agricultural Phenomena Office to ask for a scientist to come study the miraculous turn of events.
The scientist, however, found nothing wrong with the peach tree and dismissed it as a Herm trying to get attention or hoping that he would be able to revive his peach orchard, whose leaves, at this point were ghostly white and brown in places, evidently in fear of the walking peach tree. In fear, and worrying that they may lose that year’s peach harvest, they cut down the walking peach tree, and life on the farm returned to normal, even the other peach trees grew back their leaves, and the peach harvest turned out to be as plentiful as any.
Today, in the town of Beaver’s Brook the Duff Herm assigned to watch the stump of the tree, having taken a break to eat from the cereal dispenser thinking that the moving peach tree was a Grandpa Herm myth meant to scare the younger generations, returned to his post to find that the peach tree had moved again, what was left of it, at least. Terrified, he rushed and told his Ba Herm who, from now on, will be assigning two Duff Herms to the stump.
That Ba Herm, being a good part of his community and wishing to share the Village’s mythology with the rest of Hermistan, came to the HermPost office and gave us his story. If you have a story like this, we encourage you to stop by your local HermPost office and share it with us as well.
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