Chapter I: Don't See What Weeds Are For, Anyway (1)

AND the very next day was Fourth of July, with all the fire-crackers and torpedoes and sky-rockets that always come on that day.

But there was something else. For when big Prue and the Chief Gardener come to the breakfast-table, they found that Davy and little Prue had arranged what Prue called a "susprise." The room was all red, white, and blue--not with flags or bunting, but with flowers.

There were bowls of red and white and blue morning-glories on the sideboard, and in the center of the table there was a very large bowl of red, white, and blue sweet-pease, so nicely arranged that each color was separate, and the whole looked like a cake of flowers cut in three equal parts. And there were other red and white and blue flowers, too, but the sweet-pea bowl in the center was the finest of all.

There was not much gardening that day, of course, for there were parades to see and music to hear, and fireworks in the evening. The Chief Gardener had brought home the fireworks, and when all the rockets had been fired and the Roman candles, he brought out something larger than the rest, and when it was lighted, it all at once turned into a great flower-pot and sent out hundreds of the most beautiful fiery flowers, such as no garden would grow, no matter how hot it was.

"That is to pay for the sus-prise you gave us this morning," said the Chief Gardener, when little Prue was through dancing and squealing and jumping up and down with delight. "They grew in that hot sun yesterday."

But little Prue didn't believe it, though she did ask if some of the stars which came out of the rockets didn't stay in the sky with the other stars. She was quite certain she had never seen so many in the sky before.

July was a great month in the little gardens. Almost everything bloomed and bore. The pinks, the pansies, the alyssum, the sweet-williams and the morning-glories--they grew and then bloomed and crowded each other in their beds until some of them had to be moved into new places, while as for Davy's things, his corn grew taller and taller, until it shaded his tomato vines, and he was afraid they would not do well for want of sun. But the sun was up so high, and was so hot in July, that perhaps they got enough anyway, for they grew so big they had to be tied up, and the tomatoes on them were so large that Davy thought one was almost enough for a whole family. As for his beans--well, Davy will plant fewer beans next year. They began to bear just a little at first, and then, all at once, there were beans enough on his few hills, not only for himself and Prue, but for the rest of the family, and then for the neighbors, too. Davy picked nearly all one hot afternoon to keep up with his bean crop, and then nearly trotted his fat legs off carrying little baskets to the different people that he knew, explaining to each that these were really from his own garden--his own beans that he had planted and tended himself. Then he and Prue carried some vegetables and flowers to a little hospital not far away, where there were some sick children, and some who were just getting well. And it was a happy, happy time for the little boy and girl when they took the things they had planted and cared for to the other little boys and girls who seemed so glad to have them come.

But as the weather grew warmer and summer showers came the weeds got worse and worse. Sometimes when Davy and Prue had tried very hard to get them all out and found that new ones had come almost over night, while some of the old ones they had cut down had taken root again, they were almost discouraged.

"I don't see what weeds are for anyway," Davy said one warm morning, almost crying, and little Prue, whose face was very red and hot, flung herself down in the shady peach-tree house, too tired to talk. "Now, there's that old pursley, I pull and pull and cut, and unless I carry every bit of it away, it all takes root again and grows right along as if I hadn't touched it."

"Yes," said the Chief Gardener, "it is a nuisance. I suppose its pretty sister is very much ashamed of it."

"Its sister! Why, who is its sister?" asked Davy, while little Prue sat up and forgot she was tired.

"Miss Portulaca Purslane, of course, sometimes called Rose-moss, because her flower is something like a wild rose and her stem and leaves a little like overgrown moss."

"Oh, is my sweet rose-moss just old pursley weed?" whimpered little Prue, who was very proud of a little bunch of portulaca that was just in full bloom. She had chosen the pretty flower from a catalogue, and it had been one of her best growers.

"Why, no, Prue, your rose-moss is not a weed at all, but she belongs to the Purslane family, and like a good many other families it has a member who has run wild and become a disgrace to its relatives and a trouble to everybody. There is another wild purslane, but it is not a weed. It is just a little wild-wood cousin of Portulaca. Her name is Claytonia, and she lives in pleasant places in the woods, and hides under the leaves in winter-time. Most people call her Spring-beauty."

"Oh, Spring-beauty! Oh, I know! Just bushels of them--Davy and I found over by the lake last spring! Little white flowers with pink lines in them, and smell--just a little tiny smell--so--so springy and wild. Oh, I just love Spring-beauties! But I'm sorry my nice rose-moss is pursley. Is it, Papa? Is it really a sister to that ugly weed?"

"Suppose you bring a branch of each over to the bench here--one with flowers on it."

Prue brought a sprig of her precious rose-moss, and Davy a large piece of the pursley from the pile he had just cut down. The Chief Gardener took them and put them together.

"You see, they are a good deal alike," he said, "though the leaves are different--Miss Portulaca's being the finer."

Then he took one of the tiny pursley flowers and put it under the magnifying-glass, and let the children look. Yes, it was almost exactly like the beautiful flower of the rose-moss, only smaller. Each flower had two green sepals and five colored petals, also five stamens, so they knew it was an exogen, though it would have been harder to tell this from the thick, pulpy leaves and stem. The little seed-pod of each had a tiny cap which lifted off when the seeds were ripe, leaving a perfect cup, heaping full.

"You see, children," said the Chief Gardener, "weeds do not care to be either useful or ornamental. So they become rank and common, and lose their beautiful flowers. But somehow they never have any less seed. They want to grow just as thickly as they can, and however small their flowers are, the seed-pods are always full to the brim."

"Well," said Prue, "I'm sure there can't be any of my flowers relation to chickweed. I never can get that out of my beds."

The Chief Gardener thought a minute.

"Why, yes, Prue," he said, "that's Cousin Stella; I suppose she came to see the beautiful Dian and to make her all the trouble she can."

"Oh, Papa! what do you mean by Stella and Dian?"

"Well, Stellaria is chickweed, and she's a cousin to Dianthus, your lovely pinks. I suppose you might call them Stella and Dian, for short. They are not very nearly related, but they do belong to the same family, and perhaps they were once more alike. I don't suppose beautiful Dian would own Stella, but Stella (or perhaps her weed friends call her Chick), is a great nuisance and makes Dian and _her_ friends all the trouble she can."

"Papa," said Davy, who had been silent all this time, "are there really any plant families that don't have wild members who behave badly and become just weeds?"

"I don't remember any real weeds in the Lily family, Davy, though almost any plant will become a weed if allowed to run wild and live in fence corners, like a tramp. They become prodigals then, like the man's son in the Bible. And sometimes they come back to the garden, as the prodigal son did, to become well-behaved and useful flowers again. Of course, there are many others that have always lived wild in the woods and fields, and are not called weeds, because they do not spread and destroy other plants. These are our wild flowers, and the world would be poor, indeed, without them. Sometimes we bring them into the garden, and make them grow larger and call them by a new name. And sometimes, I am sorry to say, a sweet wild flower will suddenly spread and overrun the fields and become almost a weed. I am afraid our beautiful daisies are becoming a weed to a good many farmers. Those fields that are like banks of snow, and so beautiful to us, must worry the man who owns them and cannot get rid of the millions of 'rare Marguerites!'"

Little Prue sighed.

"Oh, dear," she said, "it's just too bad that there isn't some flower, or somebody, or something that can be just every bit good, all the time, to everybody."

The Chief Gardener smiled.

"We can only do our very best," he said.

AUGUST

AUGUST

I

THERE ARE JUST TWO KINDS OF LEAVES

A GOOD many things were ripe in August, and some of the things were through blooming. Prue did not plant a great deal. It was too hot to dig long in the sun, and then there did not seem to be much in the way of flowers that could be planted so late. Davy planted a few turnips and some late beans and salad, because there was time for these, but even Davy found it pleasanter to sit in the shade, where there was a breeze, and pull plants to pieces and talk about Exogens and Endogens and the different parts of things, than to hoe and dig and rake on an August day.

The Chief Gardener heard quite loud voices under the peach-trees, one warm afternoon. Prue and Davy were not really quarreling, but they seemed to be a good deal in earnest about something. The Chief Gardener went over there.

"What is all the excitement?" he asked.

Davy held up and waved a large stem of very coarse grass.

"It's an Endogen," he said, very decidedly, "isn't it, Papa?"

"It isn't at all, is it, Papa?" eagerly asked little Prue.

The Chief Gardener took the plumey stem and sat down.

"Why do you think it is an Endogen, Davy?" he asked.

"Because it's a grass, and belongs to the grass family. And corn belongs to the grass family, too, and corn is an Endogen, for it has a big pith instead of rings. So if corn is an Endogen, grass is, too."

The Chief Gardener smiled.

"Well, that's pretty good, Davy, and is true enough, but it isn't just the best way to reason. Now, Prue, why did you think it was an Exogen?"

"Because the stem is hollow, and makes a ring when you cut off a little slice of it, and because the bloom part is in five pieces."

"Sharp eyes," nodded the Chief Gardener, "but Davy is right. There is not always a pith in the endogens. Pipe-stems and fish-poles are hollow, but the cane we make them of is an Endogen, too. And as for the bloom part of this grass, it is a sort of a tassel, like that of the corn. The real blooms are very tiny--too small for us to examine. And then, perhaps, some insect or bird has nipped some of it away. I think I must tell you a little more about leaves, so Davy won't have to know that grass is an Endogen because corn is, and so you won't be mistaken. Suppose, Davy, you try to tell me how many kinds of leaves there are."

Davy looked quite helpless.

"It would take a hundred years," he said.

"Why, no," said Prue. "There are just two kinds. Exogens and Endogens."

Davy laughed, and the Chief Gardener laughed with him.

"But you are right, Prue, in one way," he said. "There are just two kinds of leaves--simple and compound. A simple leaf is a leaf of just one blade, like a grass leaf, or the leaf of a morning-glory. A compound leaf is a leaf made up of several blades, like a bean leaf, which you know is divided into three parts. Of course, there are hundreds of shapes and thousands of species of leaves, but there are just two great kinds, simple and compound. Suppose, Davy, you look about and bring me three compound leaves, and you, Prue, try to find three simple leaves, and let's see what they are."

The children jumped up quickly, and wandered out into the sunny garden, looking as they went. The Chief Gardener heard them chatting, as they looked this way and that. Presently they returned with what they had found. Little Prue climbed up in his lap.

"Look at mine first!" she said, holding them out, and fanning herself with her little hat.

Davy sat down by them, and looked his collection over to be sure they were right.

"Well, Prue, let's see what you have," began the Chief Gardener. "One peach leaf--that's simple enough. Then here's a lily leaf--that's simple, too. But what's this? It looks as if it came from a Virginia creeper. But where's the rest of it? That's only part of a leaf."

"I told Prue that," said Davy, "and I brought a whole one for one of my compound leaves."

Davy held up what he had brought. The Chief Gardener took the stem of the Virginia creeper. Branching from it were five little stems with a small leaf on each. Prue had taken one of these to be a complete leaf, when it was really only a part of one compound leaf divided into five parts.

"You see, Prue, there is only one stem that joins the main stalk," explained the Chief Gardener. "Whatever branches out from that stem is a part of that leaf. What else have you brought, Davy?"

Davy held up a blackberry leaf, and the leaf of a tomato.

"Those are both right," said the Chief Gardener. "The blackberry has three parts like the bean, and the tomato has a good many parts. There are some leaves that are compounded as many as four times--each little stem being compounded over and over until there are hundreds of little parts, and yet all are connected with the main leaf-stem which joins the stalk or branch, making really only one leaf. Of course, it is not always easy to tell about leaves, any more than about flowers. Sometimes shapes are so peculiar that it is almost impossible to tell just what they are. Pine-needles are leaves, but it is hard to tell whether they are simple or compound, and it would be hard to tell whether the pine was an Exogen or an Endogen if we had only the needles to go by."

"But you haven't told us how to tell that by the leaves at all," said Davy. "That is what we started to find out."

"That's so, Davy. It's hard to keep to the subject in botany. There are so many things, and all so interesting."

The Chief Gardener took up the lily leaf and that of the blackberry, and held them up to the light.

"Do you see the difference?" he asked.

"Why, yes," said Prue, "the blackberry is all criss-crossy, and the lily leaf runs straight and smooth."

"Those are the veins," said Davy; "I heard Mamma say so."

"Yes, they are the veins," nodded the Chief Gardener, "and when they form a network, or run criss-crossy, as Prue says, it means that the plant is an Exogen. When they run side by side smoothly, as they do in corn and grass, it means that the plant is an Endogen. There are a few of both kinds which do not quite follow this rule, like the pine-tree, which is an Exogen, but has its little straight-grained needles, or like smilax, which has netted leaves, but is an Endogen."

II

SOMETIMES I THINK PLANTS CAN SEE AND HEAR

IT was about a week after this that Davy and Prue came to the Chief Gardener with their hands filled with leaves.

"We want you to tell us about them," they said. "There is a lot of kinds and shapes, and some we can't tell whether they are simple or compound, or anything."

The Chief Gardener looked over their collection.

"Well," he said, "I am afraid you are getting ahead too fast. It would take a real sure-enough botanist to tell all about these leaves."

Davy picked up a daisy leaf.

"Is that simple or compound?" he asked.

"It's mostly ribs," laughed the Chief Gardener. "There really isn't much leaf about a daisy leaf, but what there is of it is simple, only it is so cut and sprangly that it might almost be called a compound leaf."

They looked at many others in the collection, and the Chief Gardener explained as far as he could.

"You will learn all the names of the different shapes some day," he said, "but it is too much for little folks. I suppose, though, you might remember the parts of a leaf. They are the blade, the stem, and the stipules."

"This is the blade, and this is the stem," said Davy, "but what are stipules?"

The Chief Gardener picked up a red clover leaf, and pointed to a little thin pale-green husk where the stem joined the main stalk.

"Those are stipules," he said. "In the clover they grow together, as one. The stipules are a part of the outside of the leaf-bud. When the bud opens, and the leaf goes out into the world, the stipules stay behind. Sometimes they are like little leaves, and take up air for the plant, just as the leaves do. Sometimes they almost take the place of leaves, and are quite large. Sometimes they are very tiny, and some plants have no stipules at all."

"But leaves have veins, too," said Davy.

"Those are parts of the blade. The blade has ribs--they make a framework which holds it together; also veins--the fine threads which help to carry the sap. You see, plants are a good deal like ourselves, and live much in the same way. Some leaves have only one strong rib through the center--a sort of a backbone. Some have as many as six or seven."

They talked about these things, and looked at the different leaves and stems. Then they spoke of the stalks of different plants, and the Chief Gardener explained how the tender stalk of the lowliest plant, that of the tall twining vine, and the trunk of the giant oak, were all one one and the same, only different in kind. Each came at some time from a tiny seed. Each put forth buds and leaves and branches. Each was made to withstand the storm--the oak by its strength, the vine by its fast hold on the wall or lattice, the tender plant through its lowliness.

"Oh," said Davy suddenly, "that makes me think of something. Our Virginia creeper on the front lattice has three ways to climb."

"What are they, Davy?"

"Why, it twists, for one way."

"Twines, you mean."

"Yes, twines, and then it has little curlers, like a grape-vine."

"Tendrils, they are called, Davy."

"And little clingers, like an ivy."

"Feet, you should say. Yes, I have noticed that. A lattice is not very well suited to a Virginia creeper, and ours has to try every way known to vines, to hold on. I have never known all three ways on one vine before. But vines are very curious things. Sometimes I think they can see and hear. I know they can feel, for a honeysuckle shoot will grow perfectly straight until it touches something that can be climbed. Then it will begin to twist so fast you can almost see it."

"But why do you think they can see and hear?" asked little Prue.

"I don't know that I do really think so, but I have tried every way I can think of to keep those morning-glories of yours from running up my little pear-tree. I have pushed them away, and tied them away, and I have even cut some of them away. But if I turn my back for a day, or even a half a day, there is one of them starting up the stalk, or, at least, reaching out for it as hard as ever it can."

Little Prue laughed, and ran over to see. Yes, there it was--a fuzzy green shoot half-way up the little pear-tree, and three more reaching out in the same direction.

"A vine will grow in the direction of a tree or shrub, if it is half way across the garden from it. Whether it hears or sees, or, perhaps, smells it, I do not know. Some vines will turn out of their way for a drink."

"For a drink! Oh, Papa!"

"Yes, certain melon vines. In dry weather they will turn to find a pan of water set several feet away. I suppose they can sense the moisture from it."

The children talked the rest of the afternoon about these curious things. They found where a scarlet runner had traveled several feet through the grass to reach a peach-tree, and had climbed far up into its branches. Then Davy happened to remember the story about the vines which the Chief Gardener had told them during the winter, and told it all over to little Prue--how the honeysuckle had laughed at the scarlet runner and the morning-glory, and had been punished by being made to twine to the left, away from the sun, instead of to the right, toward it, like the morning-glory and the bean. So the happy summer day passed, and in the cool of the evening big Prue came out to watch the sun go down, and in the pleasant arbor they all had tea together.

III

THERE ARE PLANTS WHICH DO NOT BLOOM

BUT during the last two weeks of August the Chief Gardener and big Prue and little Prue and Davy all went to the seashore, which was not far away. They lived in a pretty cottage near the beach, and there were meadows behind that stretched away to the blue hills. Davy and Prue loved the sea, with all its curious shells and star-fishes and other wonderful creatures. They loved the white sand, where they found these things, and where the great waves billowed and broke over them when they bathed on hot afternoons. They loved the meadows, too, for here there were birds building in the grass, and flowers unlike any in their gardens, and little streams of clear water that went singing to the sea.

It was when they came from the meadow one afternoon, that they hurried to the Chief Gardener with the little basket which they always carried.

"We have found some things," said Davy, "and want you to look at them."

The Chief Gardener took the basket. On top were some mushrooms--two kinds. One had whity-brown tops, and was pink or brown or almost black underneath, while the other had yellow tops with white spots on them, and was very pale underneath. The Chief Gardener looked sharply at the children when he saw these yellow mushrooms.

"Go and wash your hands, quickly," he said, "and I hope neither of you have put your hands to your mouth since you touched these."

"I haven't," said Davy, "and I picked the yellow ones."

"They are deadly poison," said the Chief Gardener, "they are called the Amanita, and even to touch the tongue with your fingers after handling them might make you very ill. The others are meadow mushrooms and harmless. But even they could not be eaten after being in the basket with the Amanitas."

The children ran to wash their hands, and were presently back to ask questions. Meantime the Chief Gardener had found a lot of beautiful moss and ferns in the bottom of the basket, and some lichens, which the children had gathered from a rocky cliff not far away.

"Papa, _aren't_ mushrooms toad-stools, and _don't_ they build them to sit on, in pleasant weather, and to get under, when it rains?"

This was little Prue, and she was quite excited.

"I think they are some kind of plants," said Davy, "but I don't see where the flowers are, or how they make seeds."

"How about the ferns?" asked the Chief Gardener. "Did you find any flowers on the ferns?"

"No, but we found seeds."

Davy turned one of the fern leaves over, and, sure enough, there were a lot of little brown seeds under the ends of some of the leaflets. Then the Chief Gardener turned over one of the meadow mushrooms, and divided the little layers beneath with the tip of his pencil.

"That is where the mushroom keeps its seeds, too," he said. "We do not call them seeds, though, but spores. Fern seeds are called spores, also."

"But toads do sit under mushrooms, don't they?" insisted little Prue.

"Why, yes, I suppose a great many toads have done that, but they are really plants, as Davy says."

Davy had become thoughtful.

"Are they Exogens?" he asked, "or Endogens? I should think the mushrooms might be Endogens from their stems, and the fern Exogens from their leaves."

"Well, Davy, that is very well said, but they are really neither one. They belong to a great class of their own. Exogens and Endogens are only the two kinds of flowering plants. These mushrooms and ferns and mosses and lichens all belong to the flowerless plants, and are called Crip-tog-a-mous--a very long word, which I do not expect you to remember. The divisions of flowerless plants are too hard a study for little folks, but the plants are all very interesting, and we can gather them, and see how they grow. In fact, I think we will have to call our meadow and our beach your August garden."

"But there isn't anything on the beach," said Prue.

"How about all that seaweed you were gathering yesterday?"

"But does that really grow like our plants on the shore?" asked Davy.

"Very much the same, and it belongs to the flowerless class, too, along with the mosses and lichens and ferns and mushrooms. It has spores instead of seeds, and is really a sort of a moss of the sea."

"Oh, call us not weeds, we are flowers of the sea,
For lovely and bright and fresh-tinted are we,"

sang little Prue, with a memory of her kindergarten.

"Yes, they are flowers of the sea, though they do not bloom," said the Chief Gardener, "and are very beautiful in color and form. I will give you some white cards and you can gather specimens to dry. You spread out the little branches with a tooth-pick, and the cards make pretty little books afterwards."

"But do seaweeds and mosses and lichens and ferns and mushrooms all belong to one family?" asked Davy.

"Oh, by no means. Not even all to the same division of flowerless plants. But it is too hard a study for a little boy, and it is enough to learn now that they do all belong to the big flowerless or Crip-tog-a-mous class."

"Papa, is it true that if you put fern seeds in your shoes, nobody can see you?" asked little Prue.

"Why, I don't very well see how '_nobody_' could see you, but I think somebody might."

"It says in my fairy book that the princess put fern seed in her shoe, and then there wasn't any one who could see her. I wish it was like that. I'm going to try it," and the little girl pulled off some of the brown spores and tucked them in her dusty ties.

"Can you see me? Can you see me, now?" she asked, dancing about.

"Why, no," said the Chief Gardener, who pretended to be looking for her in another direction.

"Can you, Davy? Can you see me?"

"Not very well, when _you_ go so fast," laughed Davy. "Stand still, and let me try."

Just then big Prue came out on the porch, and little Prue danced up to her.

"Can _you_ see me? Can you _see_ me, Mamma? You mustn't, you know, because I've got fern seed in my shoe."

Big Prue shut her eyes, and put out her arms.

"No, I can't see you," she said, "but you feel like the same little girl," and she kissed the little round tanned face on her shoulder.

IV

THE PRINCESS BY THE SEA

"I HEARD you talking about flowerless plants," big Prue went on, "as I sat there by the window. I wonder if you would like to hear a little story of how they came to be without flowers."

"Please, yes!" and little Prue forgot her fern seed and hugged closer.

"Well, once upon a time there was a princess with a beautiful garden--"

"Is this the same princess that turned into a red rose?"

"Oh, no, this is another princess. There have been a great many princesses with gardens. This princess lived by the sea, where there was a meadow, and a cliff not far away, much like it is here. She loved her flowers more than anything in the world, and her garden was so beautiful that even the fairies loved it better than their own gardens of fairyland and came at midnight to dance in the moonlight, after the princess was asleep.

"And the princess knew that they danced there, for once a gentle fairy had come to her and told her of it, and warned her never to try to see them, for whoever sees the fairies dance by the midnight moon may meet with some dreadful misfortune, which even the fairies themselves cannot help.

"But when the princess heard about the fairy dance, she wanted to see it very much. Instead of trying to forget it and going to bed before it began, she thought of it all the time, and the more she thought, the more she made up her mind to see it, no matter what might happen afterwards.

"So one night, just before twelve o'clock, she crept into a large cluster of blooming ferns--"

"But ferns do not bloom--"

"They did then, and their sweet odor filled the still night air; the moon was white and round in the sky, and the level sea had a path of glory that led close to where she lay.

"The princess thought how beautiful was all the world, and especially her garden, and she grew sad to think that perhaps some time she would not be there to see it all. And then all at once she forgot everything else, for there in the moonlight were the fairies, dancing in a great glittering ring.

"The princess looked, hardly daring to breathe. Then it seemed to her that she could not see so well. She rubbed her eyes, but the world about her only grew dimmer still. She thought the moon had gone under a cloud, but it was sailing high in the sky. And then everything faded out, the world became dark and the princess gave a great cry of grief, for she knew that her punishment had come, and she was _blind_!

"The fairies heard the cry, too, and vanished, but the gentle little fairy who was her friend came and guided her in sorrow to her palace, and said, 'I can grant you one wish, but it must not be to see again--that I cannot grant.'

"'Then,' said the princess, 'if I cannot see my flowers, I wish that they may never bloom again until some one, who cares more for them than I, shall wish to see them.'

"And the wish came true. Never a flower in the garden of the princess bloomed from that day. Their buds dropped, their leaves shrank, and many of them hid away where they would not be seen by passers-by. Some slipped away into the water and became seaweeds. Some hid in the deep woods, and crept into dark places, and became ferns. Others, growing smaller each year, became moss. Some hid among the rocks of the cliff and became lichens. And some, who wanted to be useful if they could not bloom, scattered themselves over the woods and fields and became mushrooms. But some of these were of bitter or sharp nature, and these we cannot eat. And some grew wicked and vicious, and these are poison. One of them, the Amanita, which had bloomed as a great golden white-spotted flower in the garden of the princess, became the most vicious of all. It kept much of its color, which now makes people shun it because it is a sign of deadly poison."

"And will the flowers that grew in the garden of the princess never bloom again?"

"Never, unless some one who cares more for them than she did shall wish to see them."

"But how can I care so much unless I can see them?" asked little Prue.

"Perhaps that is why they will never bloom again," said Davy.

SEPTEMBER

SEPTEMBER

I

A FLOWER REALLY HAS CLOTHES

THE little gardens were in quite a bad way when Davy and Prue came back from the seashore. Everything had done well, even to the weeds, and that was just the trouble. It took two whole days, working when the sun was not so very hot, to get the beds in shape, and the Chief Gardener had to work, too, very hard. But by and by everything was clean and beautiful again, and the seat under the peach-tree was a finer place than ever, because there were more things in bloom, and everything had become more beautiful.

One day Davy came to the seat, where little Prue and the Chief Gardener were resting, with a double carnation in his hand.

"I wish you would look at this," he said. "I can't tell petals from stamens."

The Chief Gardener took the flower, and slowly pulled it to pieces.

"Well, no," he said; "it isn't the easiest thing to do, though, of course, those anther-looking things must belong to stamens."

"But the filaments are like petals," objected Davy.

"Yes, and here are others like them, though they have no anthers. Those are supposed to be stamens, too, or, at least, they were stamens, once."

Davy looked puzzled.

"You remember I told you once, Davy, that a flower was only one form of a leaf--a leaf intended to make the plant beautiful, and to make it bear seed. Well, in some plants, especially cultivated ones, the flower-leaves seem to get rather mixed in their parts."

The Chief Gardener picked a scarlet canna that grew near.

"Here is a flower which has three little petals and four large flower-leaves which you would think were petals, wouldn't you? But the stamens and petals and sepals are so mixed that even botanists can hardly decide which is which. In a water-lily, too, the petals gradually become stamens, so, perhaps, the leaf came first, ages and ages ago, and little by little it has changed, first to sepals, then petals, then to stamens and pistils, so that it could make seeds and scatter them to the wind. Gardeners make double flowers out of single ones by a process of turning stamens and even pistils into petals. The double flower is sometimes very beautiful, but it is not the most perfect flower. The wild rose is more perfect than the finest double American Beauty. Perhaps double flowers came before single ones, a long time ago, when the leaves were turning to blossoms, so that the gardeners who make the wonderful double blooms now are really going backward instead of forward. But that is all too hard. I'm afraid--especially for a little girl who likes very double carnations."

"I know everything you're talking about, just as well as Davy does," said the little girl, sitting up quite straight. "And I like single flowers, 'specially lilies, and wild roses; but I think double flowers are nice, too, because they seem dressed up, like folks--queens and princesses, all with nice dresses--velvet and chiffon and lacey stuff."

"Why, that is just what they are, Prue. They are dressed up, and, of course, the more anything, or anybody, is dressed up the less they are really like themselves. The petals and sepals of a flower are really fine clothes, you know, just as you sometimes play they are, when you make hollyhock dolls, and it wears them for just about the same reason that we wear ours. It might grow and be useful without them, but it would not be very attractive, and some of its friends and servants might pass by without seeing it."

"Servants! But flowers don't really have servants. That must be just a story."

"No--at least, it is all very true. Flowers are like people in very many ways. They really have servants and friends, and some of them live off other flowers and plants, and some of them eat and sleep, very much as we do. I will tell you something about that another time."

II

THE FLOWER HAS MANY SERVANTS

IT was about a week after this that little Prue was picking some sweet-pease for the table when Davy came along with the Chief Gardener.

"The servants are busy this morning," said the Chief Gardener.

"Do you mean me?" asked little Prue. "I am trying to pick some flowers, but there are so many bees around that I'm afraid."

"Those are the servants I mean. I do not think they will hurt you if you are careful. They are only collecting their wages, and working at the same time."

Davy and Prue looked close.

"What do you mean by their working?" asked Davy. "Do you mean for the flower, or for themselves?"

"For both. Watch this bee. You see, he pushes open the flower for honey, but to get it he has to cover his legs with the pollen from the anthers, which are placed down in this little lower part called a keel, just where his legs and body will be covered. Then he comes out and goes to another flower and carries this pollen, and really rubs it on the stigma there as he crawls in and out, and takes more pollen, and so goes on from one to another--a real servant, doing a real duty and getting his pay as he goes."

"But he doesn't have to do it. The pollen would fall on the stigma anyway, wouldn't it?"

"It might with the sweet-pea, but even if it did, the pollen from the same flower is not as good as the pollen from another flower from a different plant, and the seed would be poor and the plants would grow weaker every year. There are many insects that act as servants to the flowers, and the wind is one of the servants, too. It shakes the corn-tassel so that the pollen falls on the silk and makes the ear, and it carries the pollen of one stalk to the silk of another--sometimes from one field to another."

"But, of course, the bee doesn't know that he does it," said Prue, who was still very intently watching the little servants of the sweet-pease.

"I am not so certain of that," the Chief Gardener said musingly. "The flower must know, for it dresses in bright colors so that the bee may see it, and offers honey as pay for his work. And if the flower knows, why shouldn't the bee?"

"But don't you think it might all just happen so?" asked Davy.

"I don't think anything in nature just 'happens so,' Davy, and I am sure that the bee's work for the flower doesn't, for there are too many flowers that would have no seed and would die out if it were not for the bees that carry the pollen, and most of these flowers have grown just to fit in every way the especial little bee, or big bee, or insect, that comes to work for them. There are some flowers, like the sweet-pea, that the bee cannot get into without getting pollen on his legs, and there are others that drop it upon his back. Some flowers have stamens that wither before the pistil is ready for the pollen. In such flowers the little servants go from one to the other--from a new flower to an old one--carrying the pollen which would not be of any use in the flower where it grew."

"And is that really all that the flower's pretty color and sweet smell and delicious honey are for?" asked little Prue, "just to get bees to work for it?"

"No, Prue, I don't think so. I think all the world of nature is harmony, like sweet music, and the flowers with their beauty and sweetness are part of it, but I think that just as we may attract friends and good servants by kindness and offering something in return, so the flowers attract the bees and butterflies, and even a little girl and boy to keep the weeds away. The more a flower depends on an insect to carry its pollen, the gayer or sweeter that flower always is. The orchids, which are almost the finest flowers in the world, seem to be made especially for the insects, and they could not do without them, any more than the insects could do without the flowers."

"And is that what makes some flowers such funny shapes, too?"

"I think it is. The foxglove, and the horse mint, and many others, have curious shapes and forms, just to fit their little helpers, and the milkweed has a funny little saddle-bag which it hangs to the bee's feet, so that he can carry it to another plant. There is another kind of a milkweed which is very cruel, for it attracts small insects by its odor, and when they come they are caught by a sticky substance and held until the weed sucks them down and really eats them, much as we eat our food. So, you see, plants are a good deal like people, just as I told you the other day."

"You said they could sleep, too."

"Yes, your rose-moss closes up every night, shuts its eyes just as you do, and rests. Many flowers close at night, and some even droop their heads quite low, like the bird, which sleeps with its head beneath its wing."

III

A FLOWER MAY REALLY REASON

HOW beautiful was the September garden! The wild sunflowers were all in bloom like a wall of gold. A bunch of black-eyed Susans at the corner of the house seemed trying to imitate its large cousins, and was just as bright and yellow, too, in a small way. The little Susans had not been planted, but had strayed in out of the field somewhere, perhaps longing to be with people. A row of bright red cockscombs made a crimson line of plumes down one side of a garden-path, and just beyond them Davy's third planting of beans was in full bearing. Prue's pinks and sweet-pease bloomed on and on, and her alyssums and the other sweets became sweeter every day.

"Do you think all these things like to be together?" Prue asked, one afternoon, as they sat looking at them from the shade of the peach-tree.

"I think those that grow well do," said Davy. "They seem to, anyway."

"And they do, Davy," said the Chief Gardener. "A plant that doesn't like a place will not grow in it, and in the woods and fields we only find those plants together which like that particular spot. Down below the hillside yonder you will find golden-rod and several kinds of tall blue and white daisies and grasses that all belong there, and seem very happy together. They would not grow well in the wet woods, and would soon die out, but there are other plants that grow and tangle and are happiest where the ground is damp and the shade overhead. So, you see, there we have another way that plants are like people--they have their proper company, and, perhaps, their societies and friendships. I am sure they have their friendships, for there are certain little plants, and big ones, too, that you will nearly always find together. Violets and spring-beauties and adder-tongues must love each other, I am sure, for you seldom see one without the others, and there are certain vines, like the Virginia creeper and the poison-ivy, that are nearly always together, though why the Virginia creeper should care for the poison-ivy I don't see. Perhaps it doesn't seem poison to the creeper, but only to us."

"It seemed poison enough to me," said Davy, "when I got a dose of it last year. It nearly itched me to death."

"Yes, it is terrible stuff, and little folks, and big ones, too, have to be very careful, for it looks very much like its friend, the creeper, only that its compound leaf is divided into three parts instead of five. You can always tell by that, and you must always _beware of the vine with the three-part leaf_."

"Do poison-ivy and Virginia creeper belong to the same family?" asked Davy.

"No, though they look so much alike. The poison-ivy belongs to the Sumach family, while the creeper belongs to the Grape family. The families are quite close together, but are separate. Often members of different families are better friends than members of the same family, and that is still another way that plants are like people."

"Do you suppose the poison-ivy knows that it is poison?" asked Prue, who liked to believe that plants were really _just_ like people.

"Perhaps it does. We can never be quite sure how much a plant knows. I told you once how I believed they could feel and hear, and even see. I am almost sure that the dandelion can reason."

Davy looked interested, and the Chief Gardener went on.

"You will remember, Davy, how when the dandelions first bloomed they had quite tall stems. Then we mowed the lawn, and when they tried to bloom again the stems were shorter. We mowed again, and the stems grew still shorter, and so they became shorter and shorter each time, until they bloomed flat against the ground, so low that we could not mow them. They were bound to bloom, and they did bloom, and then all at once almost in a day they shot up long pale stems with balls of white-winged seeds that were ready when we mowed again to float away at a touch or a puff, to be ready to sprout and grow another year. The dandelion is bound to spread its seed. By and by it learns that the lawn-mower cannot cut below a certain level. So it blooms below the lawn-mower's cutting-wheel, and then when it is ready to seed, it pops up as high as ever it can, and stands waiting for the mower to come around and help scatter its seed. Perhaps it doesn't really reason, but it does something exactly like it, and there are people in the world who would be happier if they could do the same thing."

And just then big Prue came out into the garden, and they all sat on the bench under the peach-tree, and watched the sun going down, away off over the purple hills. And they thought how the summer was nearly over, and how soon the glory of the little garden would be fading, and how the snow would be sifting down among the withered leaves.

IV

SOME FLOWERS LIVE OFF OTHER FLOWERS AND PLANTS

SO summer with its song and its blossom came to an end. Autumn clad in gold and purple came across the land, and the gentle haze of Indian summer lay upon the fields. From the banks of golden-rod below the hill, Prue and Davy filled jars and vases, and one day they brought in great bunches all linked and bound together with something like a tangle of golden thread.

The Chief Gardener was not at home that day, so they brought their discovery to big Prue to explain.

"Why," she said, "that is dodder, or love-vine. It is what is called a parasite, for it has no root in the ground, but lives from the plant it grows on."

Then she showed them where the small, tough little rootlets were really embedded in the stalk of the golden-rod from which it drew its strength and life.

"Oh," said Prue, "that is what Papa meant when he told us once that some flowers lived off other flowers and plants, just as some people live off other people."

Big Prue nodded.

"There are a good many such plants," she said. "The mistletoe we get for Christmas grows on several sorts of trees. Its seed lodges under the bark and sprouts there, just as it would in the ground. Then the wood grows up around the root, and the mistletoe becomes almost a part of the tree. Then there are many kinds of mosses, and the Indian pipe--that white, waxy flower which you found in the woods not long ago, and thought you had found a flowering mushroom. It is a sort of a relation of the mushroom, for it springs from damp, decaying leaves, and has no real root, but it is more of a parasite, for it feeds mainly on roots of living trees and plants. This dodder blooms and drops its seeds to the ground, where they sprout, but as soon as it finds a weed to cling to, the root dies and it lives only on the weed."

"Why do they call it love-vine?" asked little Prue.

Her mother took the long golden tendril and twined it about her slender white finger. Then she told them the story of

V

THE PRINCE AND THE THREAD OF GOLD

"THERE was once a prince," she began, "who lived in a far country between blue seas. And all the land the prince owned, and a great palace, but he was not happy, because there was a little fisher girl more beautiful than the sunrise, who would not come and dwell in his palace and be his princess.

"When this fisher girl saw the prince coming toward her, she would dance away laughing, like a ripple of sunlight on the water, and there were some who said she was not a real child, but a sea-fairy, for she had been found as a babe by the fisher's wife, cast up on the sand, after a great storm.

"But the prince did not care whether she was a human being or not. He thought only of her, as each day she grew taller and always more beautiful. He went every morning to the fisher's hut to beg that they would give her to him, and this they would have been glad to do had Dodora been willing, but always she laughed and danced away when they spoke of it, and sometimes they did not see her again until evening.

"But one morning, when she was eighteen years old, and they spoke to her, she said, laughing:

"'Tell the prince to tie a knot in the thread of love. If he will tie a knot in the thread of love it will hold me fast,' and again she danced away, while her laugh came as the tinkle of the tide among the pebbles on a still evening.

"So when the prince came that day they told him, and he went away sadly, for he thought she was only playing with him for her amusement.

"But that night, as he walked alone in the moonlight by the shore, he suddenly saw on the sand in front of him a radiant fairy, spinning on a silver spinning-wheel a wonderful thread of gold. Without daring to breathe he stood and looked at her, and then he saw that it was from the rays of moonlight that she was spinning the thread. All at once she rose and came to where he was standing.

"'Here is the thread of love,' she said to him, and then she showed him how to tie the true lover's knot in it. 'With this you may win our Dodora,' the fairy added, and then suddenly like a breath of perfume she was gone, leaving the thread of gold in the prince's hands.