The seed-children needed the pollen; they could not grow into seeds without it, and they needed the pollen from another flower, not that from their own. So the pollen the bees brought them was better far than caps or boots or carpets or any of those things the fairies used to bring to human children. And this is why the morning-glories made the bees so welcome. They could not take their pollen to each other, for they could not leave their stems; so they employed the bees to carry it for them. The morning-glories nodded to each other across the garden. “I will send my bee to you,” one said to another, and the bee came and left a few grains of pollen from the friendly flower. In this way the morning-glories exchanged pollen all day long, so that each had plenty of fresh neighbors’ pollen to give the seed-children. [Illustration: [Morning-Glory]] The flowers lasted all day, from sunrise to sunset, and the nectar lasted all day, and the snow-white pollen. But when night came the bees went home to sleep, and the morning-glories, too, slept. They rolled in the edges of their corollas so that the way to the nectar cups was closed. Next day the morning-glories did not open again. There was no more nectar in their cups and no more snow-white pollen in their anther cells. Other morning-glories came out of their buds and invited the bees, but these staid shut. Soon the corollas, faded now and no longer lovely to look at, fell off. Their work was done. They had been beautiful to show how happy they were and how lovely life was; by their beauty, too, they had brought the bees and gained the pollen they wanted to make other lovely flowers live. Now, their messages of love and happiness given, they fell off, and the pollen boxes, empty and withered, fell with them. But they left behind life and hope, for each tiny seed had received its grain of life-assuring pollen. For only the corolla and the stamens fell. The seed-children still clung to the stem; they lay in their cradles, nicely wrapped up by the green calyx leaves. And then the little stems that held the seed-babies’ cradles turned down and hid the little cradles under the leaves. The seed-babies grew and grew. They would soon have outgrown their cradles, only the strange thing is, the cradles grew too! They grew as fast as the seeds and kept them snug and safe. [Illustration: [Morning-Glory]]