Before I tell you just how the big apple managed to take the place of the pretty, delicate flower, let us take a good look at this flower. But in September apple flowers are not to be had for the asking. Not one is to be found on all these trees. So just now we must use the picture instead. And when May comes, your teacher will bring you a branch bearing the beautiful blossoms; or, better still, perhaps she will take you out into the orchard itself, and you can go over this chapter again with the lovely living flowers before you. [Illustration: FIG. 3] Now, as you look at this picture of the apple flower (Fig. 3), you see a circle made up of five pretty leaves. Sometimes these are white; again they are pink. And in the center what do you see? Why, there you see a quantity of odd-looking little things whose names you do not know. They look somewhat like small, rather crooked pins; for on the tips of most of them are objects which remind you of the head of a pin. If you were looking at a real flower, you would see that these pin heads were little boxes filled with a yellow dust which comes off upon one’s fingers; and so for the present we will call them “dust boxes.” But besides these pins—later we shall learn their real names—besides these pins with dust boxes, we find some others which are without any such boxes. The shape of these reminds us a little of the pegs or pins we use in the game of tenpins. If we looked at them very closely, we should see that there were five of them, but that these five were joined below into one piece. Now suppose we take the apple blossom and pull off all its pretty white flower leaves, and all the pins with dust boxes, what will be left? [Illustration: FIG. 4] This picture (Fig. 4) shows you just what is left. You see what looks like a little cup or vase. The upper part of this is cut into five pieces, which are rolled back. In the picture one of these pieces is almost out of sight. In the real blossom these pieces look like little green leaves. And set into this cup is the lower, united part of those pins which have no dust boxes on top. I fancy that you are better acquainted with the apple blossom than ever before, never mind how many mornings you may have spent in the sweet-smelling, pink and white orchard. You know just what goes to make up each separate flower, for all the many hundreds of blossoms are made on the one plan. And only now are you ready to hear what happened to make the apple take the place of the blossom. [Illustration: Flowers] THE STORY OF THE BEE This is what happened. And it is a true story. One morning last May a bee set out among the flowers on a honey hunt.