54 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE 



rather thin, the blossoms were small and the seeds 

 were large and hard, with only the least bit of the 

 juicy black covering. 



But although the people who tried the fruit did not 

 like it, and only ate it when they were very hungry or 

 when they happened to see an especially large berry, 

 the birds did like the fruit. They ate as many berries 

 as they could find, and often when carrying them off 

 to their baby birds in the nest they dropped many as 

 they flew, just as they do now. 



Many of those berries would fall on other rocky 

 hillsides or on open, dry pastures, and those seeds 

 would sprout and grow into plants like their parent 

 bushes, and bear no better fruit. But some seeds 

 in that long-ago time fell on moist ground. Perhaps 

 the blackberry seeds lay asleep in such a place for a 

 long, long time, just as if it were winter all the year, 

 and never tried to come up at all. It may be that 

 the birds dropped many blackberries in rich, moist 

 pastures before there was one little seed brave 

 enough to sprout. 



''I will try it," thought the seed, ''I cannot lie 

 here asleep forever and live. I might just as well 

 start out." 



So, although the little seed did not feel any more 

 at home in that soft, rich earth than the pauper 

 felt in the palace of the prince, it ventured to send 

 its tiny rootlets cautiously down and then to reach 

 up toward the sun with the first two tiny leaves. 



The rootlets grew fast and sank deeper and deeper 

 into the soft, dark earth, and the leaves opened out 

 one by one, quite large and fresh and beautiful. 



