Three different leaf shapes. I thought the middle one was supposed to be a ghost. Don't know about the other two.

{{gwi:367353}}

keep in mind we use this story with 6 to 8 year olds.

There once was a boy named Sassafras who fell madly in love with a girl. But the girl didn't love him back. So he went to the medicine man and said "oh medicine man please help me get this girl to notice me" and the medicine man gives him a potion and says "drink this when you go to bed and when you wake up you will have something so special that she will have to notice you." So sassafras takes the potion and goes to bed and when he wakes up he has a second thumb growing out of the other side of his hand (everyone put one hand on top of the other so it looks like you have two thumbs. note also in asl this is the sign for sea turtle) and sassafras looked at his hands and thought wow this is really cool I bet she will love me now! So he went out into the village, but instead of being amazed all the villagers laughed at him (go ahead and laugh too!) And even the girl he loved laughed. So he went back to the medicine man and said "oh medicine man please help me get this girl to notice me" and the medicine man gives him a potion and says "drink this when you go to bed and when you wake up you will have something so special that she will have to notice you." So sassafras takes the potion and goes to bed and when he wakes up he has a no thumbs.(everyone tuck your thumb under so it looks like you don't have any) and sassafras looked at his hands and thought wow this is really cool I bet she will love me now! So he went out into the village, but instead of being amazed all the villagers laughed at him (go ahead and laugh too!) And even the girl he loved laughed. So he went back to the medicine man and said "oh medicine man please help me none of your potions have worked." And the medicine man says " I'm sorry sassafras I don't have anything else for you."and so sassafras goes off into the forest and cries beneath the trees and he dies of a broken heart. A few days later the villagers say "hey where's sassafras I haven't seen him in a while?" So they go into the woods to look for him but they can't find him anywhere. Finally they give up and they look at the trees above them. And there in the middle of the forest is a little sapling (a sapling is a baby tree) and it has three kinds of leaves, it has leaves with one thumb (look at your hand and do the motions with me as I say them) leaves with two thumbs, and leaves with no thumbs.
And the villagers all exclaimed "there that's what happened to sassafras" and the girl sassafras loved took care of the sapling until it grew as big and tall as the other trees in the forest.

So that's a fun way to remember how to spot a sassafras tree. And remember the moral of the story is don't laugh at people or they just might turn into trees! (Kids usually laugh at the end and then they each get to pick one leaf to put in there camp journals and we take turns watering the tree.)

This is a charming story that I remember my father telling me as a child. Thank you for helping me remember it!