Act Of Kindness Grows From Tree Theft

(CBS) -- A Northwest Indiana man says he's amazed by what happened to a tree in his yard – and by what happened afterward.

First some backstory: Twenty years ago, Douglas Mappin and his son planted a tree in their yard in South Bend. It was a fir tree that Mappin says a store was about to throw out.

But the Mappin family took it. Over the years, it grew to 15 feet.

This was Douglas Mappin's fir tree in all its glory, before someone chopped it down and stole it. (courtesy: Douglas Mappin)

Then on Monday, Mappin was on his way to work and saw that overnight somebody had chopped off the top 12 feet.

"I immediately noticed it was gone, and I'm like, 'You've got to be kidding me. I've seen it all now.'"

This is all that's left of Douglas Mappin's fir tree, the one he and his son planted several years ago. (courtesy: Douglas Mappin)

The story was on a South Bend TV station.

Mappin got a call. Now, somebody is giving him a 25 foot tree, to be transplanted in his yard.

"When it happened I was like, you know, this really kind of makes you feel really rotten about people. But this kind of restores your faith in them."

Indiana
Steve Miller