Chapter I: Front Matter

THE STORIES MOTHER NATURE TOLD HER CHILDREN

BY

JANE ANDREWS AUTHOR OF "SEVEN LITTLE SISTERS," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

1888, 1894.

CONTENTS.

THE STORY OF THE AMBER BEADS

THE NEW LIFE

THE TALK OF THE TREES THAT STAND IN THE VILLAGE STREET

HOW THE INDIAN CORN GROWS

WATER-LILIES

THE CARRYING TRADE

SEA-LIFE

WHAT THE FROST GIANTS DID TO NANNIE'S RUN

HOW QUERCUS ALBA WENT TO EXPLORE THE UNDERWORLD, AND WHAT CAME OF IT

TREASURE-BOXES

A PEEP INTO ONE OF GOD'S STOREHOUSES

THE HIDDEN LIGHT

SIXTY-TWO LITTLE TADPOLES

GOLDEN-ROD AND ASTERS

THE STORY OF THE AMBER BEADS

Do you know Mother Nature? She it is to whom God has given the care of the earth, and all that grows in or upon it, just as he has given to your mother the care of her family of boys and girls.

You may think that Mother Nature, like the famous "old woman who lived in the shoe," has so many children that she doesn't know what to do. But you will know better when you become acquainted with her, and learn how strong she is, and how active; how she can really be in fifty places at once, taking care of a sick tree, or a baby flower just born; and, at the same time, building underground palaces, guiding the steps of little travellers setting out on long journeys, and sweeping, dusting, and arranging her great house,--the earth. And all the while, in the midst of her patient and never-ending work, she will tell us the most charming and marvellous stories of ages ago when she was young, or of the treasures that lie hidden in the most distant and secret closets of her palace; just such stories as you all like so well to hear your mother tell when you gather round her in the twilight.

A few of these stories which she has told to me, I am about to tell you, beginning with this one.

I know a little Scotch girl: she lives among the Highlands. Her home is hardly more than a hut; her food, broth and bread. Her father keeps sheep on the hillsides; and, instead of wearing a coat, wraps himself in his plaid, for protection from the cold winds that drive before them great clouds of mist and snow among the mountains.

As for Jeanie herself (you must be careful to spell her name with an ea, for that is Scotch fashion), her yellow hair is bound about with a little snood; her face is browned by exposure to the weather; and her hands are hardened by work, for she helps her mother to cook and sew, to spin and weave.

One treasure little Jeanie has which many a lady would be proud to wear. It is a necklace of amber beads,--"lamour beads," old Elsie calls them; that is the name they went by when she was young.

You have, perhaps, seen amber, and know its rich, sunshiny color, and its fragrance when rubbed; and do you also know that rubbing will make amber attract things somewhat as a magnet does? Jeanie's beads had all these properties, but some others besides, wonderful and lovely; and it is of those particularly that I wish to tell you. Each bead has inside of it some tiny thing, incased as if it had grown in the amber; and Jeanie is never tired of looking at, and wondering about, them. Here is one with a delicate bit of ferny moss shut up, as it were, in a globe of yellow light. In another is the tiniest fly,--his little wings outspread, and raised for flight. Again, she can show us a bee lodged in one bead that looks like solid honey, and a little bright-winged beetle in another. This one holds two slender pine-needles lying across each other, and here we see a single scale of a pine-cone; while yet another shows an atom of an acorn-cup, fit for a fairy's use. I wish you could see the beads, for I cannot tell you the half of their beauty. Now, where do you suppose they came from, and how did little Scotch Jeanie come into possession of such a treasure?

All she knows about it is, that her grandfather,--old Kenneth, who cowers now all day in the chimney-corner,--once, years ago when he was a young lad, went down upon the seashore after a great storm, hoping to help save something from the wreck of the "Goshawk," that had gone ashore during the night; and there among the slippery seaweeds his foot had accidentally uncovered a clear, shining lump of amber, in which all these little creatures were embedded. Now, Kenneth loved a pretty Highland lass; and, when she promised to be his bride, he brought her a necklace of amber beads. He had carved them himself out of his lump of amber, working carefully to save in each bead the prettiest insect or moss, and thinking, while he toiled hour after hour, of the delight with which he should see his bride wear them. That bride was Jeanie's grandmother; and when she died last year, she said, "Let little Jeanie have my lamour beads, and keep them as long as she lives."

But what puzzled Jeanie was, how the amber came to be on the seashore; and, most of all, how the bees and mosses came inside of it. Should you like to know? If you would, that is one of Mother Nature's stories, and she will gladly tell it. Hear what she answers to our questions:--

"I remember a time, long, long before you were born,--long, even, before any men were living upon the earth; then these Scotch Highlands, as you call them, where little Jeanie lives, were covered with forests. There were oaks, poplars, beeches, and pines; and among them one kind of pine, tall and stately, from which a shining yellow gum flowed, just as you have seen little drops of sticky gum exude from our own pine-trees. This beautiful yellow gum was fragrant; and, as the thousands of little insects fluttered about it in the warm sunshine, they were attracted by its pleasant odor,--perhaps, too, by its taste,--and once alighted upon it, they stuck fast, and could not get away; while the great yellow drops oozing out surrounded, and at last covered, them entirely. So, too, wind-blown bits of moss, leaves, acorns, cones, and little sticks were soon securely imbedded in the fast-flowing gum; and, as time went by, it hardened and hardened more and more. And this is amber."

"That is well told, Mother Nature; but it does not explain how Kenneth's lump of amber came to be on the seashore."

"Wait, then, for the second part of the story.

"Did you ever hear that, in those very old times, the land sometimes sank down into the sea, even so deep that the water covered the very mountain-tops; and then, after ages, it was slowly lifted up again, to sink indeed, perhaps, yet again and again?

"You can hardly believe it, yet I myself was there to see; and I remember well when the great forests of the North of Scotland--the oaks, the poplars, and the amber-pines--were lowered into the deep sea. There, lying at the bottom of the ocean, the wood and the gum hardened like stone, and only the great storms can disturb them as they lie half buried in the sand. It was one of those great storms that brought Kenneth's lump of amber to land."

If we could only walk on the bottom of the sea, what treasures we might find!

THE NEW LIFE

It is May,--almost the end of May, indeed, and the Mayflowers have finished their blooming for this year. It is growing too warm for those delicate violets and hepaticas who dare to brave even March winds, and can bear snow better than summer heats.

Down at the edge of the pond the tall water-grasses and rushes are tossing their heads a little in the wind, and swinging a little, lightly and lazily, with the motion of the water; but the water is almost clear and still this morning, scarcely rippled, and in its beautiful, broad mirror reflecting the chestnut-trees on the bank, and the little points of land that run out from the shore, and give foothold to the old pines standing guard day and night, summer and winter, to watch up the pond and down.

Do you think now that you know how the pond looks in the sunshine of this May morning?

If we come close to the edge where the rushes are growing, and look down through the clear water, we shall see some uncouth and clumsy black bugs crawling upon the bottom of the pond. They have six legs, and are covered with a coat of armor laid plate over plate. It looks hard and horny; and the insect himself has a dull, heavy way with him, and might be called very stupid were it not for his eagerness in catching and eating every little fly and mosquito that comes within his reach. His eyes grow fierce and almost bright; and he seizes with open mouth, and devours all day long, if he can find any thing suited to his taste.

I am afraid you will think he is not very interesting, and will not care to make his acquaintance. But, let me tell you, something very wonderful is about to happen to him; and if you stay and watch patiently, you will see what I saw once, and have never forgotten.

Here he is crawling in mud under the water this May morning: out over the pond shoot the flat water-boatmen, and the water-spiders dance and skip as if the pond were a floor of glass; while here and there skims a blue dragon-fly, with his fine, firm wings that look like the thinnest gauze, but are really wondrously strong for all their delicate appearance.

The dull, black bug sees all these bright, agile insects; and, for the first time in his life, he feels discontented with his own low place in the mud. A longing creeps through him that is quite different from the customary longing for mosquitoes and flies. "I will creep up the stem of this rush," he thinks; "and perhaps, when I reach the surface of the water, I can dart like the little flat boatmen, or, better than all, shoot through the air like the blue-winged dragon-fly." But, as he crawls toilsomely up the slippery stem, the feeling that he has no wings like the dragon-fly makes him discouraged and almost despairing. At last, however, with much labor he has reached the surface, has crept out of the water, and, clinging to the green stem, feels the spring air and sunshine all about him. Now let him take passage with the boatmen, or ask some of the little spiders to dance. Why doesn't he begin to enjoy himself?

Alas! see his sad disappointment. After all this toil, after passing some splendid chances of good breakfasts on the way up, and spending all his strength on this one exploit, he finds the fresh air suffocating him, and a most strange and terrible feeling coming over him, as his coat-of-mail, which until now was always kept wet, shrinks, and seems even cracking off while the warm air dries it.

"Oh," thinks the poor bug, "I must die! It was folly in me to crawl up here. The mud and the water were good enough for my brothers, and good enough for me too, had I only known it; and now I am too weak, and feel too strangely, to attempt going down again the way I came up."

See how uneasy he grows, feeling about in doubt and dismay, for a darkness is coming over his eyes. It is the black helmet, a part of his coat-of-mail; it has broken off at the top, and is falling down over his face. A minute more, and it drops below his chin; and what is his astonishment to find, that, as his old face breaks away, a new one comes in its place, larger, much more beautiful, and having two of the most admirable eyes!--two, I say, because they look like two, but each of them is made up of hundreds of little eyes. They stand out globe-like on each side of his head, and look about over a world unknown and wonderful to the dull, black bug who lived in the mud. The sky seems bluer, the sunshine brighter, and the nodding grass and flowers more gay and graceful. Now he lifts this new head to see more of the great world; and behold! as he moves, he is drawing himself out of the old suit of armor, and from two neat little cases at its sides come two pairs of wings, folded up like fans, and put away here to be ready for use when the right time should come: still half folded they are, and must be carefully spread open and smoothed for use. And while he trembles with surprise, see how with every movement he is escaping from the old armor, and drawing from their sheaths fine legs, longer and far more beautifully made and colored than the old; and a slender body that was packed away like a spy-glass, and is now drawn slowly out, one part after another; until at last the dark coat-of-mail dangles empty from the rushes, and above it sits a dragon-fly with great, wondering eyes, long, slender body, and two pairs of delicate, gauzy wings,--fine and firm as the very ones he had been watching but an hour ago.

The poor black bug who thought he was dying was only passing out of his old life to be born into a higher one; and see how much brighter and more beautiful it is!

And now shall I tell you how, months ago, the mother dragon-fly dropped into the water her tiny eggs, which lay there in the mud, and by and by hatched out the dark, crawling bugs, so unlike the mother that she does not know them for her children, and, flying over the pond, looks down through the water where they crawl among the rushes, and has not a single word to say to them; until, in due time, they find their way up to the air, and pass into the new winged life.

If you will go to some pond when spring is ending or summer beginning, and find among the water-grasses such an insect as I have told you of, you may see all this for yourselves; and you will say with me, dear children, that nothing you have ever known is more wonderful.

THE TALK OF THE TREES THAT STAND IN THE VILLAGE STREET

How still it is! Nobody in the village street, the children all at school, and the very dogs sleeping lazily in the sunshine. Only a south wind blows lightly through the trees, lifting the great fans of the horse-chestnut, tossing the slight branches of the elm against the sky like single feathers of a great plume, and swinging out fragrance from the heavy-hanging linden-blossoms.

Through the silence there is a little murmur, like a low song. It is the song of the trees: each has its own voice, which may be known from all others by the ear that has learned how to listen.

The topmost branches of the elm are talking of the sky,--of those highest white clouds that float like tresses of silver hair in the far blue, of the sunrise gold and the rose-color of sunset that always rest upon them most lovingly. But down deep in the heart of the great branches you may hear something quite different, and not less sweet.

"Peep under my leaves," sings the elm-tree, "out at the ends of my broadest branches. What hangs there so soft and gray? Who comes with a flash of wings and gleam of golden breast among the dark leaves, and sits above the gray hanging nest to sing his full, sweet tune? Who worked there together so happily all the May-time, with gray honeysuckle fibres, twining the little nest, until there it hung securely over the road, bound and tied and woven firmly to the slender twigs? so slender that the squirrels even cannot creep down for the eggs; much less can Jack or Neddy, who are so fond of birds'-nesting, ever hope to reach the home of our golden robin.

"There my leaves shelter him like a roof from rain and from sunshine. I rock the cradle when the father and mother are away and the little ones cry, and in my softest tone I sing to them; yet they are never quite satisfied with me, but beat their wings, and stretch out their heads, and cannot be happy until they hear their father.

"The squirrel, who lives in the hole where the two great branches part, hears what I say, and curls up his tail, while he turns his bright eyes towards the swinging nest which he can never reach."

The fanning wind wafts across the road the voice of the old horse- chestnut, who also has a word to say about the birds'-nests.

"When my blossoms were fresh, white pyramids, came a swift flutter of wings about them one day, and a dazzlingly beautiful little bird thrust his long, delicate bill among the flowers; and while he held himself there in the air without touching his tiny feet to twig or stem, but only by the swift fanning of long, green-tinted wings, I offered him my best flowers for his breakfast, and bowed my great leaves as a welcome to him. The dear little thing had been here before, while yet the sticky brown buds which wrap up my leaves had not burst open to the warm sunshine. He and his mate, whose feather dress was not so fine as his, gathered the gum from the outside of the buds, and pulled the warm wool from the inside; and I could watch them as they flew away to the maple yonder, for then the trees that stand between us had no leaves to hide the maple, as they do now.

"Back and forth flew the birds from the topmost maple-branch to my opening buds; and day by day I saw a little nest growing, very small and round, lined warmly with wool from my buds, and thatched all over the outside with bits of lichen, gray and green, to match what grew on the maple-branches about it; and this thatch was glued on with the gum from my brown buds. When it was finished, it was delicate enough for the cradle of a little princess, and the outside was so carefully matched to the tree by lichens, that the sharpest eyes from below could not detect it. What a safe, snug home for the humming-birds!

"By the time the two tiny eggs were laid, I could no longer see the nest, for the thick foliage of other trees had built up a green wall between me and it. But for many days the mother-bird staid away, and the father came alone to drink honey from my blossom-cups: so I knew that the eggs were hatching under her warm folded wings, for I have seen such things before among my own branches in the robins' nests and the bluebirds'.

"Now my flowers are all gone, and in their place the nuts are growing in their prickly balls. I have nothing to tempt the humming-bird, and he never visits me: only the yellow birds hop gayly from branch to branch, and the robins come sometimes." And the horse-chestnut sighed, for he missed the humming-bird; and he flapped his great leaves in the very face of the linden-blossoms, and forgot to say "Excuse me." But the linden is now, and for many days, full of sweetness, and will not answer ungraciously even so careless a touch.

Yes, the linden is full of sweetness, and sends out the fragrance from his blossoms in through the chamber windows, and down upon the people who pass in the street below. And he tells all the time his story of how his pink-covered leaf-buds opened in the spring mornings, and unfolded the fresh green leaves, which were so tender and full of green juices that it was no wonder the mother-moth had thought the branches a good place whereon to lay her eggs; for as soon as they should be all laid, she would die, and there would be no one to provide food for her babies when they should creep out.

"So the nice mother-moth made a toilsome journey up my great trunk," sung the linden, "and left her eggs where she knew the freshest green leaves would be coming out by the time the young ones should leave the eggs.

"And they came out indeed, somewhat to my sorrow; for instead of being, like their mother, sober, well-behaved little moths, they were green canker-worms, and such hungry little things, that I really began to fear I should have not a whole leaf left upon me; when one day they spun for themselves fine silken ropes, and swung themselves down from leaf to leaf, and from branch to branch, and in a day or two were all gone.

"A little flaxen-haired girl sat on the broad doorstep at my feet, and caught the canker-worms in her white apron. She liked to see them hump up their backs, and measure off the inches of her white checked apron with their little green bodies. And I, although I liked them well enough at first, was not sorry to lose them when they went. I heard the child's mother telling her that they had come down to make for themselves beds in the earth, where they would sleep until the early spring, and wake to find themselves grown into moths just like their mothers, who climbed up the tree to lay eggs. We shall see when next spring comes if that is so. Now, since they went, I have done my best to refresh my leaves, and keep young and happy; and here are my sweet blossoms to prove that I have yet within me vigorous life."

The elm-tree heard what the linden sung, and said, "Very true, very true. I, too, have suffered from the canker-worms; but I have yet leaves enough left for a beautiful shade, and the poor crawling things must surely eat something." And the elm bowed gracefully to the linden, out of sympathy for him.

But the linden has heard the voices of the young robins who live in the nest among his highest boughs; and he must yet tell to the horse- chestnut how sad it was the other day in the thunder-storm, when the wind upset the nest, and one little bird was thrown out and killed; while the father and mother flew about in the greatest distress, until Charley came, climbed the tree, and fitted the nest safely back into its place.

How much the trees have to say! And there is the pine, who was born and brought up in the woods,--he is always whispering secrets of the great forest, and of the river beside which he grew. The other trees can't always understand him: he is the poet among them, and a poet is always suspected of knowing a little more than any one else.

Sometime I may try to tell you something of what he says; but here ends the talk of the trees that stood in the village street.

HOW THE INDIAN CORN GROWS

The children came in from the field with their hands full of the soft, pale-green corn-silk. Annie had rolled hers into a bird's-nest; while Willie had dressed his little sister's hair with the long, damp tresses, until she seemed more like a mermaid, with pale blue eyes shining out between the locks of her sea-green hair, than like our own Alice.

They brought their treasures to the mother, who sat on the door-step of the farm-house, under the tall, old elm-tree that had been growing there ever since her mother was a child. She praised the beauty of the bird's- nest, and kissed the little mermaiden to find if her lips tasted of salt water; but then she said, "Don't break any more of the silk, dear children, else we shall have no ears of corn in the field,--none to roast before our picnic fires, and none to dry and pop at Christmas-time next winter."

Now, the children wondered at what their mother said, and begged that she would tell them how the silk could make the round, full kernels of corn. And this is the story that the mother told, while they all sat on the door-step under the old elm.

"When your father broke up the ground with his plough, and scattered in the seed-corn, the crows were watching from the old apple-tree, and they came down to pick up the corn; and, indeed, they did carry away a good deal. But the days went by, the spring showers moistened the earth, and the sun shone; and so the seed-corn swelled, and, bursting open, thrust out two little hands, one reaching down to hold itself firmly in the earth, and one reaching up to the light and air. The first was never very beautiful, but certainly quite useful; for, besides holding the corn firmly in its place, it drew up water and food for the whole plant: but the second spread out two long, slender green leaves, that waved with every breath of air, and seemed to rejoice in every ray of sunshine. Day by day it grew taller and taller, and by and by put out new streamers broader and stronger, until it stood higher than Willie's head. Then, at the top, came a new kind of bud, quite different from those that folded the green streamers; and when that opened, it showed a nodding flower, which swayed and bowed at the top of the stalk like the crown of the whole plant. And yet this was not the best that the corn- plant could do; for lower down, and partly hidden by the leaves, it had hung out a silken tassel of pale sea-green color, like the hair of a little mermaid. Now, every silken thread was in truth a tiny tube, so fine that our eyes cannot see the bore of it. The nodding flower that grew so gayly up above there was day by day ripening a golden dust called pollen; and every grain of this pollen--and they were very small grains indeed--knew perfectly well that the silken threads were tubes, and they felt an irresistible desire to enter the shining passages, and explore them to the very end: so one day, when the wind was tossing the whole blossoms this way and that, the pollen-grains danced out, and, sailing down on the soft breeze, each one crept in at the open door of a sea-green tube. Down they slid over the shining floors; and what was their delight to find, when they reached the end, that they had all along been expected, and for each one was a little room prepared, and sweet food for their nourishment! And from this time they had no desire to go away, but remained each in his own place, and grew every day stronger and larger and rounder, even as baby in the cradle there, who has nothing to do but grow.

"Side by side were their cradles, one beyond another in beautiful straight rows; and as the pollen-grains grew daily larger, the cradles also grew for their accommodation, until at last they felt themselves really full of sweet, delicious life; and those who lived at the tops of the rows peeped out from the opening of the dry leaves which wrapped them all together, and saw a little boy with his father coming through the cornfield, while yet every thing was beaded with dew, and the sun was scarcely an hour high. The boy carried a basket; and the father broke from the corn-stalks the full, firm ears of sweet corn, and heaped the basket full."

"O mother," cried Willie, "that was father and I! Don't you remember how we used to go out last summer every morning before breakfast to bring in the corn? And we must have taken that very ear; for I remember how the full kernels lay in straight rows, side by side, just as you have told."

Now Alice is breaking her threads of silk, and trying to see the tiny opening of the tube; and Annie thinks she will look for the pollen- grains the very next time she goes to the cornfield.

WATER-LILIES

The stream that crept down from the hills, three miles away, has worn a smooth bed for itself in the gravel; has watered the farmer's fields, and turned the wheel of the old grist-mill, where the miller tends the stones that grind the farmer's corn. But down below here the stream has something else to do. It has been working hard, up and away from dam to dam again; and as always in life there should be something besides business,--something beautiful and peaceful,--so the stream has swept round this corner, behind the wooded point of land which hides the mill, and spread itself out in the hollow of Brown's meadow, where farmer Brown says his grandfather used to tell him some Indian wigwams stood when he was a boy. The land has sunk since then, and there is something more beautiful than Indian wigwams there now.

Where the old squaws used to sit weaving baskets, and the papooses rolled and played, is now thick, black mud, in which are great tangled roots, some of them bigger than my arm.

All winter they lie there under the ice, while the children skate over them. In the spring, when every thing stirs with new life, they, too, must wake up: so, slowly and steadily, they begin to put up long stems to reach the surface of the water. Chambered stems they are, each having four passages leading up to the air, and down to the root and black mud. The walls of these chambers are brown and slimy, and each stem bears at its top a slimy bud,--slimy on the outside, brownish-green as it pushes up through the water; for this outer coat is stout and waterproof, and can well afford to be unpretending, since it carries something very precious wrapped up inside.

Not days, but weeks,--even months, it is working upon this hidden treasure before we shall see it. And the July mornings have come while we wait.

Can you wake at three o'clock, children, and, while the birds are singing their very best songs, go down the road under the elms, across the little bridge, and through the hemlock grove at the right? It is a mile to walk, and you will not be there too early. The broad, smooth pond, that the brook has made for its holiday pleasure, is at our feet. At its bottom are the tangled roots; on the surface, among the flat, green leaves, float those buds that have been so long creeping towards the light.

One long, bright beam from the sun just rising smiles across the meadow, and touches the folded buds. They must, indeed, smile back in reply; so the thick sheath unfolds, and behold! the whitest, fairest lily-cup floats on the water, and its golden centre smiles back to the sun with many rays.

We watched only one, but perhaps none is willing to be latest in greeting the sun, and the pond is already half-covered with a snowy fleet of boats fit for the fairies,--boats under full sail for fairy- land, laden with beauty and fragrance.

And this is what the dark mud can send forth. This is one of Mother Nature's hidden treasures. Perhaps she hides something as white and beautiful in all that seems dark and ugly, if only we will wait and watch for it, and be willing to come at the very dawn of day to look for it.

The lilies will stay with us, now that at last they are here, all through the rest of the summer, and even into the warm, sunny days of earliest October; but it will be only a few who stay so late as that And where have the others gone, meanwhile? You see there are no dead lilies floating, folded and decaying, among the pads.

The stem that found its way so surely to the upper world knows not less surely the way back again; and when its white blossom has opened for the last time, and then wrapped its green cloak about it again, not to be unfolded, the chambered stem coils backward, and carries it safely to the bottom, where its seed may ripen in the soft, dark mud, and prepare for another summer.

THE CARRYING TRADE

Who wants to engage in the carrying trade? Come, Lottie and Lula and Nina and Mary, all bring your maps, and we will play merchants, and see what is meant by the carrying trade.

Lottie shall have the bark "Rosette," and sail from Boston to Calcutta; Lula, the steamer "North Star," from New York for Liverpool; Mary shall take the "Sea-Gull," from Philadelphia to San Francisco; and Nina is owner of the "Racer," that makes voyages up the Mediterranean. Are we all ready for our little game?

Lottie begins, and she must find out what Boston has to send to Calcutta. Don't send indigo or saltpetre or gunny-bags or ginger; for, even should you have these articles to spare, Calcutta has an abundance at home, and you must discover something that she needs, but does not possess. "Ice," says Lottie. "Yes, that is just the thing, because Calcutta has a hot climate, and does not make her own ice: so load the 'Rosette' with great blocks well packed, and start at once, for your voyage is long."

And now we will go with Lula to the North River pier, where her great steamer lies, and see what she intends to carry to Liverpool. Bales of cotton, barrels of flour, of beef, and of petroleum. All very good, so good-by to her. In a few weeks we will see what she brings back.

Come, Mary, what has Philadelphia for San Francisco? Oh, what a load the "Sea-Gull" must take of machinery, steam-engines, tobacco, and oil; and such a quantity of other things, that the "Sea-Gull" will need to make many voyages before she can take them all. We load her at this busy wharf, where the coal-vessels are passing in and out for New York and Boston, and the steamers are loading for Europe, and the little coasters crowding in one after another; and away we go for the voyage round the "Horn," where the "Sea-Gull" will meet her namesakes, and perhaps some stormy winds besides.

Meantime Nina's "Racer" has been stored full of cotton cloths and hardware, and has raced out of Boston Harbor so swiftly that fair winds will take her to Gibraltar in three weeks.

And so you have all engaged in the carrying trade; but as yet you have carried only one way. To complete the game, we must wait for Lottie to bring the "Rosette" safely home with salt-petre and indigo and hides and ginger and seersuckers and gunny-cloth. And the "North Star" must steam her quick way across the Atlantic, and return with salt and hardware, anchors, steel, woolens, and linens. Mary must beat her way round Cape Horn, and home again with wool and gold and silver. And the swift "Racer" must quickly bring the figs and prunes and raisins, and the oranges and lemons, that will spoil if they are too long on the way.

So children may play at the carrying trade, and so their fathers and uncles may work at it in earnest: and so also hundreds of little workers are busy all the world over in another carrying trade, which keeps you and me alive from day to day; and yet we scarcely think; at all how it is going on, or stop to thank the hands that feed us.

England and Italy are kingdoms, and the United States a republic, and they all engage in this business, and are constantly sending goods one to another; but there are other kingdoms, not put down on any map, that are just as busy as they, and in the same sort of work too.

The earth is one kingdom, the water another, and there is the great republic of the gases surrounding us on every side; only we can't see it, because its inhabitants have the fairy gift of being invisible to us. Each of these kingdoms has products to export, and is all ready to trade with the others, if only some one will supply the means; just as the Frenchmen might stand on their shores, and hold out to us wines and prunes and silks and muslins, and we might stand on our shores, and hold out gold and silver to them, and yet could make no exchange, because there were no ships to carry the goods across. "Ah," you may say, "that is not at all the case here; for the earth, the air, and the water are all close to each other, and close to us, and there is no need of ships; we can exchange hand to hand."

But here comes a difficulty. Read carefully, and I think you will understand it. Here is Ruth, a little growing girl, who wants phosphate of lime to build bones with; for as she grows, of course her bones must grow too. Very well, I answer, there is plenty of phosphate of lime in the earth; she can have all she wants. Yes, but does Ruth want to eat earth?--do you?--does anybody? Certainly not: so, although the food she needs is close beside her, even under her feet, she cannot get it any more than we can get the French goods, excepting by means of the carrying trade. Where now are the little ships that shall bring to Ruth the phosphate of lime she needs, and cannot reach, although it lies in her own father's field? Let me show you how her father can build the ships that will bring it to her. He must go out into that field, and plant wheat-seeds, and as they grow, every little ear and kernel gathers up phosphate of lime, and becomes a tiny ship freighted with what his little daughter needs. When that wheat is ground into flour, and made into bread, Ruth will eat what she couldn't have been willing to taste, unless the useful little ships of the wheat-field had brought it to her.

Now let us send to the republic of the gases for some supplies, for we cannot live without carbon and oxygen; and although we do breathe in oxygen with every breathe we draw, we also need to receive it in other ways: so the sugar-cane and the maple-trees engage in the carrying trade for us, taking in carbon and oxygen by their leaves, and sending it through their bodies, and when it reaches us it is sugar,--and a very pleasant food to most of you, I dare say.

But we cannot take all we need of these gases in the form of sugar, and there are many other ships that will bring it to us. The corn will gather it up, and offer it in the form of meal, or of cornstarch puddings; or the grass will bring it to the cow, since you and I refuse to take it from the grass ships. But the cow offers it to us again in the form of milk, and we do not think of refusing; or the butcher offers it to us in the form of beef, and we do not say "no."

Alice wants some india-rubber shoes. Do you think the kingdoms of air and water can send her a pair? The india-rubber tree in South America will take up water, and separate from it hydrogen, of which it is partly composed, and adding to this carbon from the air, will make a gum which we can work into shoes and balls, buttons, tubes, cups, cloth, and a hundred other useful articles.

Then, again, you and I, all of us, must go to the world of gases for nitrogen to help build our bodies, to make muscle and blood and skin and hair; and so the peas and beans load their boat-shaped seeds full, and bring it to us so fresh and excellent that we enjoy eating it.

This useful carrying trade has also another branch well worth looking at.

You remember hearing how many soldiers were sick in war-time at the South; but perhaps you do not know that their best medicine was brought to them by a South-American tree, that gathered up from the earth and air bitter juices to make what we call quinine. Then there is camphor, which I am sure you have all seen, sent by the East-Indian camphor-tree to cure you when you are sick; and gum-arabic and all the other gums; and castor-oil and most of the other medicines that you don't at all like,--all brought to us by the plants.

I might tell you a great deal more of this, but I will only stop to show a little what we give back in payment for all that is brought.

When England sends us hardware and woollen goods, she expects us to repay her with cotton and sugar, that are just as valuable to us as hardware and woolens to her; but see how differently we treat the kingdoms from which the plant-ships are all the time bringing us food and clothes and medicines, etc. All we return is just so much as we don't want to use. We take in good fresh air, and breathe out impure and bad. We throw back to the earth whatever will not nourish and strengthen us; and yet no complaint comes from the faithful plants. Do you wonder? I will let you into the secret of this. The truth is, that what is worthless to us is really just the food they need; and they don't at all know how little we value it ourselves. It is like the Chinese, of whom we might buy rice or silk or tea, and pay them in rats which we are glad to be rid of, while they consider them good food.

Now, I have given you only a peep into this carrying trade, but it is enough to show you how to use your own eyes to learn more about it. Look about you, and see if you can't tell as good a story as I have done, or a better one if you please.