“You are a dear, affectionate little girl, Carry, and I believe you think you love me better than play; but I do not mean to put your constancy to the trial. I hope we all love one another.” “Yes, that we do,” said Charles Linn. “But hurrah for doing something! I am tired of doing nothing.” It was so pleasant out of doors to-day, that Mary asked her scholars if they would like to have their botanical lesson in some shady place in the wood instead of the school-room. They all exclaimed “Yes!” and the little ones jumped about and clapped their hands for joy that they could stay out of doors a little longer. After they had selected a shaded place, Mary sat down on the stump of a tree, and they gathered round her. Mary looked over the leaves and flowers which they had collected during their walk, and chose from them a plant which Carry Deacon had pulled up out of the earth. Mary selected this for the first lesson in botany, because it was a perfect plant, having a root, stem, branches and leaves. Mary had a way of her own of teaching her scholars, and when she presented a new subject before them, her first object was to awaken their interest in it, so that they would desire to know more about it. She held up the plant before them, and asked who could tell her what it was? The scholars all looked and seemed puzzled. Charles Linn said it was a flower; Eddy Forester said it was a flower and something more than a flower; for it had green leaves; another said, “Yes, and it has a root and stems.” Mary told them it was a plant; that a flower with root, stem, leaves and branches, was called a plant. “And now,” said she, “I will explain to you the uses of these parts of a flower. “The root holds it fast in the earth; and the root sucks drink from the earth, which keeps the plant alive, very much as the calf sucks milk from the cow to sustain it.” Eddy Forester looked attentively at Mary while she was speaking, and she asked him if he understood her. “Yes,” said Eddy, “and I was thinking about the verse you say sometimes, which has ‘Mother Earth’ in it. Is the earth the mother of all plants?” “Yes,” said Mary, “because they get their drink from her bosom, as very little children get their food from the bosom of their mother. “Now,” said Mary, “I wish you to remember that the root of a plant is called an _organ_. The plant has other organs besides the root, and can you tell me what they are?” No one answered, and Mary said, “The stem is an organ, and the branches and leaves are organs. I will tell you what the stem is for. The stem is a pipe, which conveys the nourishing drink that the root sucks in from the earth, up into the leaves and branches.”