A nice old couple owns a dog, and one day the dog scratches at the ground and when the old man digs at the spot, he unearths gold. Their neighbors, a mean old couple, are jealous and demand to borrow the dog. The dog doesn’t scratch on his own, and when the old couple forces him to scratch, they only find “filthy stuff.” In a rage, the mean couple kills the dog and buries him under a pine tree. The same tree grows exponentially quickly, and the kind old man cuts it down and makes a mortar from the wood. When he uses the mortar, it overflows with barley. Again, the neighbor is jealous and borrows the mortar. However, when he uses the mortar his barley is ruined. Enraged once more, the man breaks the mortar and burns it. The kind old man scatters the ashes on dead trees, which then bloom. The kind old man is rewarded with treasure by the prince of the country, and aptly called “The old man who made the dead trees blossom.” The mean old man envying the kind man’s fortune attempts to spread the ashes on dead trees as well, but instead the ashes are blown into the eyes of the prince. The prince’s retainers beat the mean old man in retribution, who barely makes it out alive. The mean old woman, seeing her husband from a distance, thinks the prince gifted him with purple clothes and sees he’s actually stained with blood. The mean old man goes to his bed and eventually dies.

This is a first edition copy of the story titled The Old Man Who Made the Dead Trees Blossom, a story whose later edition we also have as a part of our crepe-paper book collection. This specific story is one part of a larger acquisition of four books donated to the St. Olaf Library's Special Collections by Dickie Anderson, whose great-grandfather Charles MacQueen Fisher first acquired these stories while living in Osaka, Japan. The books were first given to her grandmother who was born in Japan, then passed on to Charles, and finally discovered by Dickie.