The Cousins Chronicles
THE FIG SAGA (+/- 1957)
CHARLES (Snr)
Charles Parsons: So, the fig story today. Someone must have given my Mom this advice or maybe she learnt this from the farm.
One day I am playing in the back yard with my cars, and I see Mom go to the shed and get a spade. She then goes to the fig tree turns the spade on the flat side and beats the living daylights out of the tree.
I thought to myself, "This tree must be very naughty to get such a hiding!" When she is finished, Mom casually walks back to the shed and puts the spade back, the whole time I am carefully watching her in case she decides I too, am also naughty!
Turns out I was not so wrong. Mom always took the figs and bottled them on a yearly basis. That year the tree had yielded nothing, just green unripened small figs, which was unpleasant to eat, and apparently not good for bottling.
From the next season, after its hiding, it yielded the most beautiful figs which we ate, and Mom bottled enough to last us the full season.
So, parents you see when you do give a naughty tree a hiding, it listens well for a season.
END
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