folks on a winter night. Clever chemists can get beautiful colors and scents from these little buds. The contents of Frank's paint-box, for instance, owe half their brightness to the field flowers. His new stockings, of which he seems so proud, owe their color to the indigo plant. And as to you, Maggie, almost all you have on was once part of the little blue flax, or linum. Even the threads which hold your clothes together are only the twisted fibres of the same little plant. Indeed, I could number so many things that we owe to the field plants, that you would be tired of listening. 14. "I have often watched the habits of flowers, and marvelled at the differences between them. Almost all go to sleep, more or less. Some shut their leaves up at night, and open them in the daylight. This morning, when I looked out, there seemed to be not one daisy in the fields, but by breakfast-time thousands of their little pink faces were turned up, staring, open-eyed, at the sun. They always look up early, as day's eyes ought to do." 15. "Oh, then, that's why the bed of tulips all look dead at night, and yet seem brighter than ever next morning. They 've only been to sleep, after all." 16. "That's it; and they are in such a hurry sometimes, that even flies or bees who may be getting their supper inside them are shut up and kept prisoners till morning. Some flowers seem so fast asleep that they hang their heads and nod them about as though they might be dreaming, though a few sleep at day and only wake up at night, like the sweet evening primrose. 17. "The common yellow dandelion shuts up if it is too warm, and its friend the buttercup drops its face if it rains, for fear of the water settling in its cup and spoiling it; while the little scarlet pimpernel (which you will find about our fields in any quantity) is called the shepherd's weather-clock, because it always foretells if rain or a change for wet weather is near. I have often tried it, and never known it fail to be right. It is always open enough in FLOWERS AND THEIR STORIES. 83 bright, clear weather, but covers its rosy face when it sees the clouds coming." 18. "I wonder what is the name of the largest flower that grows, and if it is a very big one. I should like to get one for papa's button-hole; he always says I bring him such little ones." 19. "To get that you would have to go to India and inquire for the Rafflesia.* I think you would be rather astonished at its appearance, though you might not like the smell of it." 20. "Rafflesia! what an odd name! And has it very large leaves too?" 21. "No; one of the remarkable things about it is that it has no leaves at all, and leaves, you know, are the lungs of flowers; without them they can't breathe. These kinds of plants are called parasites, because, instead of growing out of the ground, they grow on other plants, and breathe through their leaves. 22. "Well, this flower has a long thin stem; at one end grows the flower, and the other springs out of a wild vine, perhaps, and twists and climbs in and out among the huge forest trees. Its buds look like cabbages, which go on gradually enlarging for about three months, the flowers. expanding until they are more than a yard across. The cup in the middle is about a foot wide, and would hold twelve pints of water-rather a troublesome nosegay, Maggie, for it weighs about fifteen pounds; so it would scarcely do for papa's button-hole, though it is so handsome." C. L. MATTEAUX. EXERCISE. 1. He chanced to pick up a small cluster of violets. 2. Apollo, one of the pagan gods, was playing at quoits. 3. See, the blood which recently has colored the grass. 4. I have often observed the habits of flowers. 5. I have wondered at the differences between them. 6. I think you would be surprised at its looks. * Pronounced Raf-fle'-zhe-a. XXIX.-MY FRIEND IN THE WOOD. M I. ETHOUGHT a thrush upon a tree Sweetly sang one day to me, 'Poet, poet, hear me, hear me!" "Hear thee," I at once replied; XXX.-THE STORY OF SOME HOT WATER. A BOUT two hundred years ago, a man, bearing the title of the Marquis of Worcester, was sitting, on a cold night, in a small mean room, before a blazing fire. This was in Ireland, and the man was a prisoner. A kettle of boiling water was on the fire, and he sat watching the steam, as it lifted the lid of the kettle and rushed out of the nose. 2. He thought of the power of the steam, and wondered what would be the effect if he were to fasten down the lid and stop up the nose. He concluded that the effect would "How much power, then," thought be to burst the kettle. he, "there must be in steam!" 3. As soon as he was let out of prison he tried an experiment. "I have taken," he writes, "a cannon, and filled it three quarters full of water, stopping firmly up both the touch-hole and the mouth, and, having made a good fire THE STORY OF SOME HOT WATER. 85 under it, within twenty-four hours it burst and made a great crack." After this, the marquis contrived a rude machine, which, by the power of steam, drove up water to the height of forty feet. 4. About one hundred years after this, a little boy, whose name was James Watt, and who lived in Scotland, sat one day looking at a kettle of boiling water, and holding a spoon before the steam that rushed out of the nose. 5. His aunt thought he was idle, and said. "Is it not a shame for you to waste your time so?" But James was not idle: he was thinking of the power of the steam in moving the spoon. 6. James grew to be a good and great man, and contrived those wonderful improvements in the steam-engine which have made it so useful in our day. 7. What will not the steam-engine do? It propels, it elevates, it lowers, it pumps, it drains, it pulls, it drives, it blasts, it digs, it cuts, it saws, it planes, it bores, it blows, it forges, it hammers, it files, it polishes, it rivets, it cards, it spins, it winds, it weaves, it coins, it prints; and it does more things than I can think of. 8. If it could speak, it might say,— "I blow the bellows, I forge the steel; I hammer the ore, and turn the wheel, 9. In the year 1807, Robert Fulton, an American, put the first steamboat on the Hudson River, and in 1829 a locomotive steam-carriage went over a railroad in England. 10. And this is the story of some hot water. From so small a beginning as the steam of a tea-kettle resulted the steam-engine, the steamboat, and the locomotive engine, by which the trains of cars are moved with such speed on our railroads. 11. Learn what the power of thought will do. How many men had looked at kettles of boiling water, but how few thought of the force of the steam, and the good uses to which it might be turned! XXXI.-" LOOK ALOFT." I. HE ship-boy was clambering up the high mast, cast; His head swam with fear, and thick came his breath, II. So do you, boy-since up life's rough hill you must go, Pause not to gaze over it, raise up your head, "Look aloft, look aloft!" and in safety you'll tread. |