When the brothers were 5 years old playing in the back yard, they we’re playing kick ball and it went under the back porch.  My father, Bard, went under the house to get the ball.  There stood a little man about 2’ tall with a green Derby on his head, a green jacket and checkered pants.  My Dad was surprised and said, “Who are you?”

The little man answered, “Acorndrum, I’m a Leprechaun, and I live in that oak tree by the back steps.  Dad asked, “Where’s your pot of gold?”

He said, “It’s up where my friend Squirrel lives, in that knot hole at the top of the tree”.

Big Bard called Clarence to come and see.  When Clarence got there it was just my Dad.  Acorndrum was gone.  On the ground were small foot prints where Acorndrum had stood, and a small corn cob pipe.

Well, Dad told Clarence all about him.  For months they tried to feed him cake and cookies.  He never would eat any sweets.

One day the man who trimmed the hedges was in the yard, his name was Dub.  They ask Dub if he “…had seen the little man?”

Dub answered right up, “Acorndrum?  Yes we are old friends, and he told me if I saw Bard to tell him to leave me sprouts, mushrooms, pecans and a pawpaw if it’s ripe.”

So they started packing lunches and leaving them on the bottom step next to the tree.  A few days later they found the paper bag was opened.  They looked inside and he had eaten the Pawpaw but left the seeds.

If you don’t know, Pawpaw grows in the woods, all wildlife loves a Pawpaw.  The taste is a cross between an orange and a banana with more big brown seeds than fruit.  The Pawpaw loves shade close to a ditch or lake, so ya take the seeds and plant them on the farm’s woods.

You know leprechauns are magic, they can blink an eye and be somewhere else.  That’s why you can’t ever catch ’em.

But one morning the brothers found a gold coin under the step and Tait Tate always wears it around his neck to this day.