306 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [12:7-Oct. f 1916 



John answers that he found it under a big beech tree upon the 

 hill. 



" I will tell you how I came to be there on the ground under the 

 tree. Last spring, when the leaves came out on the tree, I was 

 down inside a little green blossom, so small one could hardly see 

 me away up on the top branch of that big beech tree John found 

 me under. One day the wind blew some pollen from another 

 blossom to me. Then I began to grow. I had a little twin sister, 

 exactly like me, and we were tightly packed inside a little green 

 prickly bur. We could not even see out. Nothing could harm us 

 for our prickly bur kept us safe, and no one but the birds came 

 near us up there among the leaves. But the sunlight shone on 

 us and we grew and grew. As fast as we grew our little bur house 

 grew too, so there were we shut fast inside, more snug than the 

 beans in a bean pod. After a long time the night began to get 

 colder and we stopped growing. One very cold night Jack Frost 

 came and opened our bur house, so we could look out. From up 

 in the top of our mother tree we could see all over the hillside, for 

 we were very far above the ground." 



' ' We saw a lot of our sister beechnuts looking out of their bur 

 houses too, and saying good morning to us. Then the wind be- 

 gan to blow and shook our branch. Our bur house was open and 

 couldn't hold us in, so we fell out and tumbled down through the 

 branches to the ground. But our fall didn't hurt us for we had 

 such hard brown coats. I lost my twin sister, but I found a lot 

 of other sisters on the ground that had fallen too. In a little while 

 a chipmunk came along picking up nuts and stuffing them in his 

 cheek pockets to carry away to his home for food in the long win- 

 ter. But he didn't see me. A red squirrel came too, and ran 

 right over me. The next day some boys and girls came to gather 

 beechnuts. John found me and here I am. I am glad he didn't 

 eat me, for I should like to be planted in the school yard." 



"My nice sweet meat is really a little seed, and if you should 

 plant me this fall, next spring I would come up and grow, and if 

 you took good care of me, I would sometime become a big tree 

 like my mother. Then boys and girls could play in my shade, 

 and climb me and gather my nuts. Will you go up on the hillside 

 and see my mother tree? Then you will know how I shall look 

 when I am grown up and then you will want to plant and care 

 for me." 



