A “good apple” is a nickname for someone who is a good person. Johnny Appleseed was a good apple.
Sometimes he helped settlers build cabins or chop trees. He knew they were struggling to make new lives for themselves in the west. If people couldn’t pay, he traded apple seedlings or gave them away for free.
Johnny usually brought gifts when he visited settlers’ cabins. He loved children and brought them bits of ribbon or interesting things he found in the woods. Most pioneer children had only a few homemade toys. For fun, they rolled barrel hoops, played with rag dolls, and rode ponies carved from wood. They were glad to get anything new to play with. Johnny also gave settlers herbs such as dandelion or catnip, which were used as medicine.
Polite settlers invited him to stay overnight in their cabins. Even when they offered him a bed, he insisted on sleeping on the cabin floor or outside on the ground. Sleeping outdoors was one of Johnny’s favorite things to do. He covered himself with a blanket of leaves to keep warm. If the weather was bad, he would quickly build a crude hut or sleep in a hollow tree.
During his visits, Johnny read aloud from books he always carried. They were written by a man named Emanuel Swedenborg. The New Church was created to follow his beliefs. Swedenborg believed that helping others was a good way to find happiness. He believed in the importance of thinking for yourself and deciding how to live a useful life. Swedenborg believed people should not be afraid to be different. You can see why Johnny liked these ideas.
It’s uncertain when Johnny first became interested in the New Church, but he was so excited about its ideas that he wanted to share them. Since he didn’t own many of Swedenborg’s books, he divided those he had into sections. He would lend one section to a pioneer family. Then on his next visit, he would exchange it for the next section of the book.
Johnny was a vegetarian, so he didn’t eat meat served at settlers’ dinner tables. He believed it was wrong to kill animals. Pioneers hunted for food and thought his belief was strange. While traveling in the forest, Johnny boiled creek water in his cooking pot, adding berries, grain, or potatoes to make a meal. He also may have taken some “journey bread” on his trips in the forest. This was bread that Native Americans taught him to make from corn.
There are many stories about Johnny’s kindness toward wildlife. He fed squirrels and birds and released animals from traps. He bought abused animals and found people who would care for them. When he took honey from a beehive, he always left enough for the bees.
While pulling heavy wagons westward, some horses became lame. Settlers turned them loose in the woods. It was hard for the horses to find enough food and water. Each fall, Johnny would gather as many of these horses as he could. He would find someone to care for them through the winter. In the spring, he would lead them to land where there was better grazing.
Some people said he knew how to communicate with robins and turkeys. They said even wild deer would come when he called.
One popular story told of a snowy night when he decided to seek shelter in a hollow log. When he spied a mother bear and her cubs in the log, he didn’t bother them. Instead, he slept out in the snow so they could keep warm in the log.
Johnny didn’t even kill snakes or bugs if he could help it. Once, while clearing brush in a new orchard, a rattlesnake bit him. Without thinking, he quickly killed it. He felt terrible about it and didn’t kill snakes after that.
While helping to build a road, he was stung by a wasp. The other workmen thought he was silly because he wouldn’t kill the wasp. But Johnny said it hadn’t intended to hurt him.
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