"What a great world it is!" she said. "It is all so wide and high. I am a little afraid." "This is only a bit of the world," said Billy Button. "I know, for the Flying Beetle told me. He has travelled far, and has seen wonderful sights. Ah! how I should like to travel!" "I would rather stay at home," said Milly. She was trembling a little; everything seemed strange up here in the strong light. "Grow close to me," said a friendly Thistle. "I will shelter you with my long arms." She stretched out one of her arms, and Milly nestled beneath it and was comforted. All that day and night she and Billy Button grew so fast that when the next morning came they hardly knew one another. "How big you are, Billy!" said Milly. "So are you," said Billy. "You are quite a mushroom lady now. But goodness gracious! Whatever is that? What a monster! And how it shakes the ground!" A boy was walking over the field with a basket in his hand. He was gathering mushrooms. He stooped and pulled Billy Button from the ground. "Oh, the cruel monster! Oh, poor, poor Billy!" sobbed Milly Mushroom. But Billy was not at all frightened. "Hurrah! I am going to travel at last!" he cried. "Good-bye, Milly. I shall see the world now." He was popped into the basket and carried off, while Milly was left shivering under the thistle's arm. She soon forgot her fright, however, though she often wondered what happened to Billy Button, and whether he enjoyed his travels. She grew taller and bigger every day, and changed her hood for a big flat hat so wide and shady that the little field-mouse could sit under it and talk to her. And the thistle covered her from sight with its friendly arms, so no monster ever found her to put her in his basket and carry her off. WIGGLE-WAGGLE Mrs. Earth-worm made a hole under the ground and put an egg in it. Round the egg she wrapped clear jelly to serve as food for the little one when it should hatch. Then she went back to her burrow. Soon Wiggle-Waggle came out of the egg. He was the tiniest worm you could imagine, but he had a fine appetite; he ate all the jelly his mother had left for him. Then he began to nibble at the earth, and he liked it so much that he went on nibbling. There were all sorts of nice things in it--scraps of leaf and stalk and root and seed--just the things he liked best. The more he ate the bigger he grew; soon you would hardly have known him. One day he thought: "I wonder what it is like above the ground? I will go up and see."