302 NUTTING TIME 



paper and stuck them on to the bushes for a joke. 

 No one spoke about them, and then Tommy called 

 out: 



" You're a great lot of girls. We've passed 

 Witch-hazel twice and you never noticed It." 



" Witch-hazel," Kate Hood said, " comes in 

 bottles." 



" And It's made out of that shrub," Tommy 

 replied. 



The next time we saw these yellow flowers we 

 climbed on the fence to look at them more closely. 

 We couldn't understand why they should wait to 

 bloom until all the other flov/ers were gone, and 

 the trees were nearly bare. They were not exactly 

 pretty flowers, although when many of them grew 

 together they gave a soft, yellow look to the 

 branches. But most often there were only a few 

 of them together, and It was hard to see them be- 

 cause they were hidden by the large leaves which 

 had turned yellow. 



" Witch-hazel has its flowers when all the others 

 are dead," Tommy said, " and in summer when 

 flowers are everywhere It sows Its seeds. These 

 seeds," he went on to tell us, " are like little nuts. 

 As soon as they are ripe the husks burst open, and 

 the nuts shoot out as If they had come from a pop- 

 gun. If you are standing near-by then, they are 

 just as likely to shoot you In the eye as on the hand. 

 Sometimes they shoot out farther than across the 

 road. Of course witch-hazels want to plant their 



