Part 17

"Then one or two Indians began stringing their bows to shoot the great bird for food. But others said, 'No, let us not harm the stranger. He has come from a far country. And see, the color is golden, like the sun. Perhaps, the sun has sent a messenger, as a good omen.'

"So they did not kill the bird, but even brought it food, little as they had, and the bird ate and rested through the day. Then just at evening he lifted his great wings and flew away into the sunset, and was seen no more.

"But when a week had gone by, there came up where the bird had rested a strange new plant which grew very fast in the warm sun and shower and sent out long graceful leaves, and at last a plume at the top like that of an Indian chief, and from behind the graceful drooping leaves, tufts of silk that became ears, and were like Indian quivers. And when the summer was past, the tribe gathered these ears, and pulled away the husk, and lo, there were the rows of ripened corn, golden like the great bird.

"Then the tribes from far and near were called together, and there was great rejoicing and thanks for this new gift, brought to them by the wonderful bird of the sun. And to each chief was given a few of the grains for planting, so that the next year all the tribes around about were watching and tending the tall green stalks that were to give them abundance of seed against another famine.

"And that is the legend of the corn. After the third year there was seed for all, and corn became the best and surest food for all the Indian tribes. When the white men came, they ate it, too, and by cultivation made new kinds and colors. Now we have the sweet or sugar corn, the Davy's, and we have popcorn, too, which is only a dwarf corn with a hard, flinty shell which pops open with heat."

"Do they raise corn in any other country except America?" asked Davy.

"Oh, yes, there is a great deal raised in other countries now, and I believe they claim to have found some grains of it in a very old tomb in Greece, and a picture of it in a very old book in China, so, perhaps, it was from some place in the far East that the great bird of the Indians came with the seed."

"And does it belong to a family, too?" asked little Prue.

"It is claimed by the grass family, and, of course, it is something like big grass. Wheat and oats and, indeed, all the grains, belong to that wonderful family, too. Then there is broom-corn, useful for making brooms, while sugar-cane, which is also a grass, gives us our best sugar and molasses, but corn not only gives us the ears for food, but the leaves are used for cattle, and the husks for making cushions and mattresses, and for packing fruits. Syrup also is made from the young stalks, and the dry stalks are used for thatching, stable-bedding and fuel. In fact, every part of the corn is valuable, and I think we might call it the king, or, perhaps, being an Indian, the chief of the tribe of Grasses."

"I know the best of all the things that comes from it," said little Prue.

"What?" asked Davy.

"Pop-corn balls," said Prue.

III

CROSS BY NAME AND CROSS BY NATURE

WHAT wonderful things happened to the little window-garden in April! The nasturtium bloomed early in the month--first a red one then a yellow one, then a lot of red and yellow ones. They were so beautiful that almost every meal the little pot stood on the table, and sometimes the pansy-pot, too.

And then the sweet-pease bloomed, beautiful pink and white and purple blooms that were so sweet you could smell them as soon as you came into the room. Davy's garden-pease had bloomed even sooner, and had little pods on them by April. Before many days the tiny pease inside began to swell, and you could see every one quite plainly when you turned the pod flat side to the light. As for the beans and morning-glories, they had bloomed and bloomed, and already had seed-pods hanging all the way up the vines that now reached to the top of the casings and looped down and joined in a long festoon which hung between.

And how proud the children were of their two beautiful windows. And how happy they were when passers-by stopped to look in, and perhaps wondered about the gardens, and maybe thought that the rosy-cheeked boy and girl looking out between the blossoms and leaves and vines were the brightest and best flowers that bloomed there.

And Davy's corn sent out another ear, a little one, and both ears grew and the pollen from above sifted down, and Davy knew that inside the green husks the sweet kernels were forming.

"When can we eat it?" he asked almost every day. "Don't you think it's about big enough now?"

"When the silk turns brown," said the Chief Gardener. "That is about the best rule. I think you'll have pease and beans, too, pretty soon, so you can have quite a feast."

"Just in time for my birthday," said big Prue, who had been an April baby a long time ago.

"It's ever so long till my birthday," said little Prue, rather sadly. "I don't think we'll have anything left by August."

"Oh, but I'll have a fine garden outside by then," said the Chief Gardener, "and you will, too. I'll have radishes and lettuce now before you know it;" for in spite of the cold snow and freeze, the Chief Gardener's first planting had sprouted fairly well, and was rapidly filling his first two little beds.

"Papa, you haven't told us a word about my nasturtiums yet, and they're so lovely. Not a single story or anything, nor about their family relations, or where they came from--not a thing."

"Well, that's so," said the Chief Gardener, "perhaps because I wanted to make a family affair of it. You see, Davy's radish is a sort of a name-cousin of your nasturtium, and I've been thinking that when I told about one I'd tell of the other, too, and that I'd call the story

A PEPPERY FAMILY

"NOBODY seems to know just where the Cross family came from. You can find them in every part of the world now, some of them growing as weeds, some as flowers, and some as very fine vegetables. But wherever they came from, in the beginning, they were certainly of very sharp, biting natures, and never could agree. Why, they were so cross that even their flowers were shaped like little crosses, and people called them cruciferous, which means cross-shaped, and used to say of them,

"'Cross by name and cross by nature, Cross of fibre, face, and feature,'