After Shakespeare died, his house was sold to different people. It finally came into the possession of a man who had a very short temper and no tolerance of tourists; people constantly kept coming by the house to see where Shakespeare had lived. One of the draws for the tourists was a mulberry tree which Shakespeare had planted behind his house; tourists would trample through the gardens to get a view of the tree, which infuriated the man. First, he decided to chop down the tree; a sprig was saved and planted by a neighbor, which is the tree that I am standing under. When the tourists kept on coming, the man, burdened by debts, decided he could kill two birds with one stone - if he destroyed the house, tourists wouldn't come, and he wouldn't have to pay taxes on the house. When the house was taken apart, the man was literally driven out of town by the other townspeople; however, the house was not put back together again, and all that remains is the mulberry tree and gardens.
