"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." [Illustration: THE DANDELION IS BOUND TO SPREAD ITS SEED] 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. [Illustration: "SO IT BLOOMS BELOW THE LAWN-MOWER'S CUTTING-WHEEL"] 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.