Who are the characters in "Split Cherry Tree"?The characters

The narrator: a young man fearful of and embarrassed of his father; he thinks his father will shoot his teacher.

He tells Professor Herbert:

"He might be called a little old-fashioned. He makes us mind him until we're twenty-one years old. He believes: 'If you spare the rod you spoil the child.' I'll never be able to make him understand about the cherry tree. I'm the first of my people to go to high school."

Professor Herbert: the principal of the school who punishes the narrator for breaking down the cherry tree.  Later, he will show the boy's father the microscopic world, which will induce an apology from him.

He tells the narrator:

"You must take the punishment.  You must stay two hours after school today and two hours after school tomorrow. I am allowing you twenty-five cents an hour. That is good money for a high-school student. You can sweep the schoolhouse floor, wash the blackboards, and clean windows. I'll pay the dollar for you."

The boy's father: uneducated, working class, old-fashioned, conservative, uses his gun to solve problems, suspicious of liberal education.  He will help his son pay off the damage by the end.

He says:

"I'm a poor man. A bullet will go in a professor same as it will any man. It will go in a rich man same as it will a poor man. Now you get into this work before I take one o' these withes and cut the shirt off'n your back!"