Flowers that turn Night into Day 228 Horrid Habits 230 The Story of the Strawberry 232 A Cousin of the Strawberry 235 Another Cousin 238 Pea Blossoms and Peas 240 The Clover’s Trick 243 More Tricks 244 An Old Friend 247 The Largest Plant Family in the World 248 Robin’s Plantain, Golden-rod, and Aster 251 The Last of the Flowers 254 PART VII.—LEARNING TO SEE A Bad Habit 257 A Country Road 261 A Holiday Lesson 264 PLANTS AND THEIR CHILDREN PART I—FRUITS AND SEEDS [Illustration: Fruit] IN THE ORCHARD Is there a nicer place in which to play than an old apple orchard? Once under those favorite trees whose branches sweep the ground, you are quite shut off from the great, troublesome, outside world. And how happy and safe you feel in that green world of your own!—a world just made for children, a world of grass and leaves and birds and flowers, where lessons and grown-up people alike have no part. In the lightly swinging branches you find prancing horses, and on many a mad ride they carry you. The larger ones are steep paths leading up mountain sides. Great chasms yawn beneath you. Here only the daring, the cool-headed, may hope to be successful and reach the highest points without danger to their bones. Out here the girls bring their dolls, and play house. Nothing can make a more interesting or a more surprising house than an apple tree, its rooms are so many and of such curious shapes. Then, too, the seats in these rooms are far more comfortable than the chairs used by ordinary people in everyday houses. The doings of the Robin family are overlooked by its windows. One is amazed to see how many fat worms Mother Robin manages to pop down the yawning baby throats, and wonders how baby robins ever live to grow up. From these windows you watch the first flying lesson; and you laugh to see the little cowards cling to the branch close by, paying little heed to their parents’ noisy indignation. All the same, you wish that you too might suddenly grow a pair of wings, and join the little class, and learn to do the one thing that seems even more delightful than tree climbing.