I

SEEDS ARE MADE TO BE PLANTED

OCTOBER brought seedtime in the little garden. Many seeds had ripened during the summer, and Prue had already gathered some of the tiny black flakes from the opened pods of her precious pinks, and Davy had saved some seed pease. But October was the real harvest-time. The children took a lot of white envelopes, and upon them Davy printed the names of all the seeds they expected to gather. Into these envelopes they put carefully the different little black and brown and white seeds after they had picked and blown the husks all away, so, as Davy said, they would look just like seeds bought at the store.

And some of the seeds were big flat beans, or little long round beans; and some, like the sweet-pease, were very round, like shot; and some, like the cockscomb seeds, were tiny and shiny and black and so slippery that Prue lost more than she got in her envelope, though she got enough, for there is such a lot of seed on a cockscomb. Some seeds were in funny little pods that snapped when you touched them, and sent the little black or brown shot flying in every direction, like a charge out of a bomb, and these had to be gathered very carefully. Then there were seeds with little wings, made to help them to fly, and there were seeds with little claws made to catch and hold on, so they would be carried and planted in many places. But these were mostly weed seeds, and were only gathered because they clung to the children's clothes, and stuck so fast that it was hard to pick them off.

"You see," said the Chief Gardener, who was watching them, "everything has a way of taking care of itself. Just as I told you about the dandelion, the plants have something which is very much like reason, or instinct, to guide them. These zinnia seeds do not have the little prongs, because the zinnia does not need them. It is a garden flower, and the seed will be taken care of. But those brown two-pronged little things you are picking off your coat-sleeve came from its very near relation, the Spanish needle, which is a weed, and must look out for its own planting. Those wild sunflowers turn top-side down, and the little yellow birds that peck and chirp about them all day are scattering the seed so thickly that next spring the garden will be covered with the young plants. The big tame sunflower doesn't take care of itself nearly so well. Of course, you remember how the dandelion seeds go drifting on the wind, while the thistle-down that goes floating by is carrying seed to some farmer's field, or fence corner. Then there are the maple seeds, which have two wings, or keys, as they are called, and there are many of these key seeds that are tossed here and there when the wind blows. The wind and the birds are the servants that sow the wild seeds, just as the bees and butterflies helped to make them."

"But there are some thistles," said little Prue, "that are not blown by the wind. They have stickery balls, and I make baskets out of them."

"Those are burs, and they are carried by sheep and cows, and by people. They cling to everything that passes. I have seen a horse's mane so full of them that it had to be cut off. The burdock is a very bad weed, and there ought to be a story about it, but I suppose if there was one, it must have been so unpleasant that it has been forgotten. There are many other weeds almost as bad. There are seeds with all kinds of hooks and claws to grab and stick, and there are many that are carried in the dirt which clings to the feet of animals and men and even birds."

"I should think some weeds would make their seeds look like flower seeds, to fool people."

"Well, that is just about what they do. There are cockle seeds in the wheat, and so nearly the same size that the threshing-machine will not take them out, and there are many little plants in the grass that have seeds so nearly like those of the grass itself that we are obliged to sow them with the grass seed. So, you see, men, too, become servants of the wise, persevering weeds. Certain beans and grains have been carried by water, and have been known to be brought across stretches of the sea to be scattered and planted upon a new shore."

"How many kinds of seeds are there?" asked Davy.

"About as many as plants, Davy."

"I don't mean that. I mean how many principal kinds—like flowers, you know—they are Exogens and Endogens."

"Oh, I see. You mean classes. Well, I suppose we might say two, fleshy and dry. Then we might divide the dry into seeds and nuts, and the fleshy into fruits and vegetables."

Davy and Prue were both thinking.

"I suppose my beans are dry," Davy said at last.

"Yes, of course."

"But we ate them green, and they were not dry then."

"That was before they were ripe. There are a number of things that are fleshy when eaten green, that become pods or hulls when the fruit is really ready to gather. Of course, there are fruits and nuts and vegetables that, like flowers, are hard to put in any class. Take the almond—you would call that a nut, of course."

"I just love almonds," said little Prue.

"And aren't they nuts?" asked Davy.

"Yes, the almond is a nut, but you would hardly call the peach a nut; yet they grow exactly alike, except that the outside of the almond is tough and not fit to eat. The walnut is a nut, too, of course, but the hull is quite fleshy, even after the nut is ripe; and there are certain sorts of foreign plums that have a sweet kernel, so they are really fruit and nut in one. But I think we shall have to go nutting next week, and then we can tell more what we think about them."

"Nutting! Oh, yes, we'll go nutting!" cried little Prue. "And we'll take baskets, and Mamma, and stay all day and bring home just bushels."

"We must take plenty of dinner in the baskets," said Davy, who remembered one time when the dinner had been less than he thought it should be. So then they ran into the house to put away their envelopes of seeds, and to tell the news.

II

THERE ARE BITTER NUTS AND SWEET ONES

How splendid it was in the October woods. Some of the trees were almost bare, some of them were a fine russet brown, and some were all crimson and gold; and the gold was so beautiful against the blue sky that it seemed to Davy and Prue that October, after all, might be the very best month of the year.

There was a brook that wound through the woods. On both sides of it were bottom lands, and here the hickory and walnut and butternut trees grew. Near the hillsides there were groves of hazel with their brown clusters, half opened by the frost, ripe for gathering. Camp was made near the brook, and then all hurried to the nut-trees; the children kicking their feet through the rustling leaves that covered the ground. The Chief Gardener found quite a large section of a young tree which he put on his shoulder for a battering-ram. Then he walked several steps, and butted one end of it against a tall hickory-tree, and down showered the nuts, clattering in the leaves—the hulls bursting and flying in all directions.

Then how the children scrambled and gathered.

"Let's clear the leaves away first, next time," said Davy, "so they will be easier to find."

And this they did, and so they went from tree to tree, gathering hickory-nuts, large and small, and walnuts, butternuts, and chestnuts, and these they emptied into sacks they had brought in the little wagon that was not hitched far away.

By and by, Davy spied a patch of hazel, and each with a basket, Prue and he gathered until they were tired, and it was lunch-time.

How very hungry they were! Is there really anything like nutting to make a little boy and girl hungry? And there was plenty of luncheon, this time. Davy ate until he did not care to get up right away, but was glad to lean back against a tree, and talk, while the Chief Gardener smoked and little Prue and big Prue put away the things, and hulled some of the hazelnuts, which little Prue said seemed to be more hulls than nuts, for there was only about enough to cover the bottom of one basket when they were all hulled.

"What makes all the nuts have such big, thick hulls, anyway?" she asked, as she tried to pound open a thorny chestnut-bur.

"I think the hulls must be to protect the young nuts from birds and squirrels," answered her mother. "The trees do not like to have them carried off until they are quite ripe, so they hold them very tight and enclose them in a very tough shell, and the shell is very bad-tasting, too. But when the nuts are ripe and sweet they let go of them very easily, just as other seeds are dropped, and the hulls open and the harvest is ready for whoever may come to gather it."

The Chief Gardener picked up a hickory-nut from one of the baskets.

"You see, we are eating flower-pistils all the time," he said.

"Are we? I don't believe I ever thought about that," said Davy.

The Chief Gardener pointed to the little black tip on the top of the nut.

"That was once the stigma," he said. "You see, it is quite like one, even now. Of course, it was soft then, and the pistil below was soft, too. Then as it grew it became harder and harder until the shell formed, and it was really a nut. The calyx hardened, and made the hull. The pistil and the calyx of a flower are the parts that last longest, but the stamens and the corolla are just as useful in their way. They form a separate flower on the nut-trees. We will have to come to the woods next spring when they are in bloom."

"Papa, don't hazelnuts and chestnuts belong to the same family?" asked little Prue, who had some of each in her chubby hands.

"Why, yes, but why did you think so, Prue?"

"Well, you see, they both have those white spots on them, and I thought mebbe it was a kind of family mark."

"Wise little head, Prue. And now what else is there that has the family mark—we might call it the family seal?"

The children were silent a moment, thinking. They were sitting under a big oak tree, and all at once Davy's eye caught something in the leaves, just by his hand.

"This!" he shouted, and held up an acorn.

"Right you are, Davy boy! The nut that stands at the head of the family. Few acorns are fit to be eaten, except by animals, but you see how round and perfect the family seal is, and though the acorn-cup is nothing like the chestnut-bur, or the husk of the hazel, it perhaps would be, if the green acorn itself was not so bitter that it does not need any other protection. The oak is one of the finest and most useful of all trees, and the hazel and chestnut and beech are probably very proud of belonging to the Oak family."

"And how about hickory and walnuts?" asked Davy.

"They are in a family together—the Walnut family. There are three kinds of walnuts—the English walnuts, the butternuts, and these. There are as many as half a dozen kinds of hickory nuts, and some of them are as bitter as the bitterest acorns."

"Pignuts—I know those," said Davy. "They're awful. I tried to eat some last year."

"You gave me one, too," said Prue. "I don't think that was very nice of you."

Davy blushed and grinned, as he recollected the round, puckered face of little Prue, after she had tasted the bitter nut.

"Never mind, Prue; we'll give him a mock-orange some day," said her mother.

"The pecan is a hickory-nut, too," said the Chief Gardener, "a nut that has left all its bitterness in the shell."

"Davy is a pecan-nut," said little Prue. "He's just bad outside."

Then the little party made ready to go home. They had a good way to drive, and it grows chilly on October evenings. How still it seemed to have grown in the woods when they were ready to go. A squirrel scrambled up a hickory-tree, and sat chattering at them as they drove away.

"He is scolding us for carrying off his winter food," said big Prue. "Oh, let's leave him some!" said little Prue, the tender-hearted.

"Pshaw!" said Davy. "There are enough nuts in these woods to feed all the squirrels in the world."

III

THERE ARE MANY THINGS CALLED FRUITS

Truly October was harvest-time in the little garden. The winter apple-tree yielded several bushels of bright red fruit, and Davy's pumpkin-vine had great yellow pumpkins scattered all about. Some of them Davy could hardly lift, and when they were carried into the cellar, on the very last day of the month, they made a real pyramid of gold. Then there were some late tomatoes, too, and peppers, which big Prue made into pickles; also, a last gathering of green corn, besides several ears of ripe corn, for seed, and all the pop-corn—fifty-five ears of it from Davy's little patch.

There were some things to be taken up, too, and put into little pots for the window-gardens, which Davy and Prue were going to have all through the winter, this time.

There was a good open fire in the dining-room when Davy came in, after picking his pumpkins, for the nights were getting colder, and the bright blaze seemed so friendly and cheerful.

"I am going to try some of my pop-corn," he said suddenly, and started for the popper.

"I'll get some apples," said little Prue.

"I'll bring some nuts," added the Chief Gardener.

"And I'm afraid if you have all those things now, you won't care for tea afterwards," objected big Prue.

"Never mind tea," said Davy. "These are the very best things for a fire like this, and then if we don't want tea afterwards it'll save trouble."

So the pop-corn and apples and nuts were brought, and the little family gathered about the bright blaze.

THE APPLE IS A CALYX. THE PISTIL IS THE CORE INSIDE OF IT