The Importance of the Peach Blossoms

          While we were reading the Drummer Boy of Shiloh, by Ray Bradbury, in class we brought up how much the peach tree and the peach blossoms kept on appearing. Even the first time I read the story they still stuck out to me. I knew that they meant something deeper than just being some peach blossoms and a peach tree. The author wouldn't have brought then back so many times if they hadn't been important. When I read the story again, I was looking out for them. I realized they appeared really, only in the most important parts of the book, and so I begin to analyze 'what they really meant' each time they were mentioned.
          The first time the peach blossoms are mentioned, is actually the first sentence of the story. The line is, "In the April night, more than once, blossoms fell from the orchard trees and lighted with rustling taps on the drumhead. At midnight a peach stone left miraculously on a branch trough winter, flicked by a bird fell swift and unseen..." In the next few sentences they introduce the main character, Joby who is the drummer boy in the Battle of Shiloh and they explain the fact that the men in the army are scared and waiting for battle. I think that the idea behind this mention of the peach blossoms, is how in such a harsh time where boys are forced to become men, awaiting possibly death, life can just continue for anything and anyone else. Like, the birds only a few feet away continue on ignorant to such hardships. I thought that this brought a light to the severity and reality of war, and this situation.
          Also, the next time the peach blossoms and the peach trees are mentioned is when Joby is flicked by a peach blossom. Right before this, Joby was crying about how he probably wouldn't make it through the battle with no weapon, even no protection, whereas the oter boys are scared but also wanting to be hero's and more confident. In our minds, whether or not we think about it, I think the idea of peach blossoms, or even blossoms in general, would be considered 'light' and 'happy' and certainly nothing relating to war and death. I think that the peach blossom shows the idea of the innocence and youth held by all of the boys no matter how grown up they've been forced to become. right after this the general calls Joby a 'boy' which because I was thinking of the innocence really stood out to me as further proof of the real idea of what the soldiers are.
          Lastly, the peach blossoms are mentioned in the last line. This is right after Joby has begun to accept that he may die in battle but either way he will charge into the battlefield giving everything to his army no matter what the cost. First, it stuck out to me that Ray Bradbury would close the story with the peach blossoms. He would obviously not do so unless it was important. I thought that they were supposed to have an effect of finality which, really, is what I got from reading that last line. I thought that not only does the idea of peach blossoms seem light and happy, but really just calm and peaceful. It gives you a sense that everything's going to be okay. When Joby falls asleep then I think that that idea of everything being okay and finality is how he appears to feel.
           All of these mentions of peach blossoms in the story, show me that they are really metaphorical and deep, which leads me to the fact that they obviously are important. To me they were almost like clues, they give you a little idea of whats really going on, without directly telling you, and leave you to really think about the rest.