The tree's mother specifically forbade him from swimming in the lake. He tried arguing with her, pointing out that trees need water to grow big and strong, and more water meant more big and more strong. Still, she would have none of it. He sulked and moaned as he watched other children go for a swim. It looked to be such fun, all the splashing about. Why couldn't he?
One warm summer day, he decided he had had quite enough of this no-swimming policy nonsense. He stripped off his bark, pulled up his roots, and did the most epic canonball the world had ever seen. He splashed and frolicked. He did poorly at Marco Polo but excelled at chicken fighting. No one could knock the other children out of his branches.
Of course, it wasn't long before his mother came looking. A missing tree does not go unnoticed for long. The other children told him he needed to hide if he wanted to keep playing, so the tree ducked behind the biggest thing he could find, a half submerged stone wall in the middle of the lake. It would have been a fine spot for a human child, but a tree is a much larger creature. He assumed, because he could not see beyond the wall when he ducked, that others could not see him. A child's logic. His mother spotted him at once, and despite his protests that she must have him confused with some other tree, she saw through his ruse and made him come home. Still, for one glorious day, he was the king of the lake, and no one could take that memory away from him.
- Originally mailed to J. Coulton of Brooklyn, New York
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