


It's an unpromisingly cuddly notion, but there's a nice clean ring to the harvest: When a heavy overnight rain turns the buds to fully-formed teddy bears, Bertine plucks the first one from the tree, noticing ""a rather pleasant odor of damp plush and newly turned earth. The teddy bear tree shoots up at a phenomenal rate as soon as little Bertine plants (or, in her view, buries) a beady eye that is all she has left after the neighbor's dog takes off with the scruffy old 25¢ teddy bear she has half-heartedly bought at a rummage sale.
