Then It Rained

     There was a man. He planted a tree in his yard.
     The man watered the tree every day there was no rain. There had been no rain for four hundred years.
     His neighbors planted flowers and tended brown lawns.  They often watched the man water the tree. He was known as the man with the tree.
     He could have had a fruit tree, his neighbors said. At least the children could have eaten the fruit. 
     Cut it down, others said, and he might have a stool where he could sit.
     Year after year the man came out of his house and watered the tree. Then one day he did not come out.
     The house was sold. The people buying the house wanted to cut down the tree as soon as they moved in.
     The neighbors missed seeing the man water the tree. They wanted to continue watering the tree, and so they assigned a day to each neighbor on which it would be their turn to water. They remembered when it was another's turn; however, they often forgot when it was their own.
     The tree became brown and brittle; the neighbors decided it was best to cut it down.  They asked the new neighbors if they could cut the tree together.
     Many neighbors helped to chop through the old trunk. The house looked bare without the shade of the tree.
     The neighbors split the trunk into pieces they then divided among themselves. Each family stood a piece of the tree in their own yard for different reasons: to enjoy a seat, to have a natural picnic table, or to look out and remember the man with the tree.
      The next morning the neighbors looked out and saw that a heavy rain had fallen overnight. The trunk pieces left out in their blooming yards had sprouted roots and fine coats of moss.
      Over the years, growing trees would thrive in every yard, and every family water on the few days rain did not fall.