FOREST LEAVES 107 



red spruce. **It is so stylish to have a black 

 nurse 1'' 



''That was the part given me to fulfill," the 

 black spruce patiently replied. 



*'I shall always call you 'Mother/ " said 

 Picea, lovingly, "and I hope that I may do my 

 part as well as you have done yours." 



"Sleep, little one," repeated the old tree; 

 but in the morning she heard a question : 



"Mother, was paper always made from 

 trees?" 



"No, my child; many vegetable fibers have 

 been used to make it, though now it is made 

 chiefly of wood — so a bookworm told me." 



Vespa, the wasp, was grinding off shreds 

 from an old log with her mandibles and work- 

 ing them in her moist jaws, to add to the edge 

 of her ever-growing nest. 



As she pressed and kneaded the pellet into a 

 cord with her forelegs, she said, "I was the 

 very first to make paper out of wood. For a 

 long while only the Chinese knew how it was 

 done. Then about two centuries ago, ' ' she con- 

 tinued, when she had drawn the cord through 



