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Show ARE STRANGE TWINS Missouri County Claims Distinction Distinc-tion in Unusual Kinship. Man and Tree Made Their Start In Life on the Same Day and Have Grown Up Together Now 63 Years Old. St. Louis, Mo. New Garden neigh-' borhood in Ray county, Missouri, boasts the possession of unique twins, a man and a tree, 63 years old. March 15, 1S47, saw the birth, on his father's farm near New Garden, of Samuel Hightower. The same day Elias and Thomas, older brothers of the new arrival, set out in the yard before the house a slip of a sugar tree, or hard J maple, as many know It . Thus the two made their start in life together, and thus while the babe that was to be a man, hard thinking and hard working, fought its way through the precarious first days of its existence to a securer hold on life, before the door the slip that was to be a tree, great and spreading, underwent un-derwent the same process. When passing years had given the youngster sufficient strength to toddle about the yard one of the chief of the innumerable wonders his round eyes . beheld was the sturdy young "sugar tree." His first efforts at climbing were expended on it. The hard maple is of slow growth, and this one at that time was not large, yet to the child it seemed of great size. Through the years of his. childhood his happiest hours were those spent in scrambling around over its limbs. As he grew older, large enough to I I The Man. ' take a part in the work in the fields, he found a new pleasure in the sugar tree. Resting in its shade during the noon period was a pleasing reprieve from the toil in the sunbaked fields. - In time the boy reached man's estate es-tate and married, but as the young couple made the old place their home, the association between the twins was not interrupted by this . momentous event in the man's life. It was in the tree's shade that the bridal party, on arriving at the house, halted to' recuperate re-cuperate from the drive through the July heat. The grassy plot beneath it formed the parlor where friends and relatives were entertained on hot days. When children came to the coui)le the young mother availed herself of the sugar tree's help in caring for them. A cradle or pallet underneath Its boughs, and a mosquito net, insured insur-ed baby a sound nap. As time transformed these babies into children they, like their father before them, found their chief delight in clambering about over the tree, and now, though they are grown men and women, they still cherish a deep affection for it. Houses have come and gone from the yard, but each succeeding suc-ceeding one has been so built that the sugar tree commanded a place of hon- The Tree. I or before the front entrance. In plan- , nlng changes in the place It Is always taken Into consideration. Nothing Is done that may endanger Its vigor or detract from Its beauty In the least. Mr. Hightower, or "Uncle Sam," as everyone calls him, Is Inclined to be old fashioned as regards the love of home, and has never traveled much, so In all the 63 years there has scarcely scarce-ly been a day that he has not seen the maple. |