Part 17

Miss Morley's own words give the best idea of this most engaging little book:

"Baby Mitchell was an August squirrel. That is, he was born in the month of August. His pretty gray mother found a nice hole, high up in the crotch of a tall chestnut tree, for her babies' nest; and I know that she lined it with soft fur plucked from her own loving little breast,--for that is the way the squirrel mothers do.

"This chestnut tree grew on the side of a steep mountain,--none other than Mount Mitchell, the highest mountain peak in all the eastern half of the United States. It is in North Carolina, where there are a great many beautiful mountains, but none of them more beautiful than Mount Mitchell, with the great forest trees on its slopes."

A. C. McCLURG & CO., PUBLISHERS

FOOTNOTES:

A great deal of confusion exists in many minds as to the origin of pollen and ovule. There seems to be a general and almost ineradicable impression that fertilization has something to do in creating the ovule. This is not so. The ovule is a part of every ovary just as the pollen is a part of every anther. Each will be produced whether they ever come together or not; only if they do not come together, both perish, while if they do, development of the ovule continues.