30 
But there was still one thing they could do to prevent 
your eating many more green apples, and wasting more 
half-ripe seeds. They could punish you so severely for 
having disobeyed their warnings, that you would not be 
likely very soon to do the same thing again. 
And this is just what they did. 
When feeling so ill and unhappy that summer night 
from all the-unripe fruit you had been eating, perhaps 
you hardly realized that those apples were crying out to 
you, — 
“You would not listen to us, and so we are punishing 
you by making you ill and uncomfortable. When you 
saw how green we were, we were begging you not to 
eat us till our young seeds were ripe. When you felt 
how hard we were, we were trying to make you under- 
stand that we were not ready for you yet. And, now 
that you “ave eaten us in spite of all that we did to save 
ourselves and our seeds, we are going to make you just 
as unhappy as we know how. Perhaps next time you 
will pay some heed to our warnings, and will leave us 
alone till we are ready to let our young ones go out into 
the world.” 
So after this when I show you an apple, and ask you 
what you know about it, I fancy you will have quite a 
story to tell, —a story that begins with one May day in 
the orchard, when a bee went flower visiting, and ends 
with the little brown seeds which you let fall upon the 
ground, when you had finished eating the rosy cheeks 
and juicy pulp of the apple seed case. And the apple’s 
story is also the story of many other fruits. 
