"Now," said she, "you must have a book to keep them in."
So Mary went and got two sheets of large, light-colored wrapping paper,
and folded them again and again, until the leaves were of the right
size. Then she cut the edges.
"Now," said Mary, "I must make some false leaves."
"False leaves!" said Lucy; "what are they?"
"O, you shall see," replied Mary.
She then cut one of the leaves which she had made into narrow strips,
and put these strips between the true leaves at the back, where they
were folded, in such a manner, that, when she sewed the book, the false
leaves would be sewed in with the true. But the false leaves, being
narrow strips, only made the back thicker. They did not extend out into
the body of the book between the leaves; but Mary showed Lucy that when
she came to put in her flowers between the true leaves, it would make
the body of the book as thick as the back. They would make it thicker,
were it not for these false leaves.
"Yes," said Lucy, "I have seen false leaves in scrap books, made to
paste pictures in. I always thought that they made the leaves whole,
first, and then cut them out."
"No," said Mary, "that would be a great waste of paper. It is very easy
to make them by sewing in narrow strips."
Mary then asked Lucy to sit up at the table, and select some of her
prettiest flowers,--some large, and some small,--enough to fill up one
page of her book; and then to arrange them on the page in such a way as
to produce the best effect; and Lucy did so. Then she gummed each one
down upon the page, by touching the under side, here and there, with
some gum arabic, dissolved in water, but made very thick. When she had
done one page, she turned the leaf over very carefully, and laid a book
upon it, and then proceeded to make selections of flowers for the second
page. In this manner she went on through the book, and it made a very
beautiful book indeed. Mary put a cover and a title-page to it; and on
the title-page, she wrote the title, thus:--
A
COLLECTION
OF
COMMON FLOWERS,
BY
LUCY.
When it was all ready, it was presented to the society, and put into the
cabinet, where it was long known by the name of "_Lucy's Collection_."
She wrote the name of each plant under it, as fast as she could find out
the names; and, whenever visitors came to see the museum, she would ask
them the name of any of the flowers in her collection which she did not
know, and then wrote the name down. Thus, after a time, nearly all the
names were entered; and so, whenever the children found any flower which
they did not know, they would sometimes go and look over Lucy's
collection, and there perhaps they would find the very flower with its
name under it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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