Every Girl's Book

“Stamen!” said Elsie.

“Yes, each of these stems is called a stamen, and they form the male part of the plant, the father part. Many plants, those of the simpler kinds, have only one stamen and it grows in the flower so that its head hangs right above the ovary. Here you see that all of the stamens are above the ovary, and the reason why they are placed there by nature you will see very soon. What I wish now is to show you why the bee came to the flower.”

“I know – it was for honey! Isn’t that what you said before, mamma?”

“Yes, darling, but do you see any honey here?”

“No, mamma, and I never knew before that buttercups had honey. I always thought honey came from a beehive.”

“It does come to us from a beehive, but it comes from flowers first, and one of the many kinds that furnish it is this buttercup. The bee sips it from the flowers, just a tiny bit from each blossom that he visits, and when he has enough he takes it home to the hive and puts it away to eat by-and-by, in the winter, when there are no flowers growing for him to rifle. He does it just as men lay away money for ‘a rainy day,’ as we say, and as squirrels lay up a store of nuts for the cold weather. Now, suppose you count those flattened, round-cornered parts of the buttercup – how many are there?”

“Five,” said Elsie quickly.

“Yes, there are five of them, and they are called petals. You will notice that they are much narrower and slighter at the bottom than they are at the top. It is at the bottom that they are joined to the central part of the flower. Now, just where they are connected with this central part there is a tiny sack of honey.”

“It must be very tiny,” said Elsie, regarding the slender connection earnestly, “for there isn’t room enough for much, I’m sure. And it must be all covered up, for I can’t see any signs of it.”

“It is covered up. There is a very small scale, or leaf, over it to protect it from those insects who have no right to the honey. But the bee knows how to get at it, and he does so very quickly, once he alights on the blossom, as we have just seen one do. For while he appeared as if he were merely tumbling clumsily around on the flower he was sampling those honey-sacks, and we saw how speedily he finished all five of them on this flower and then buzzed busily away to the other.”

“He was just the same as at dinner, then, wasn’t he mamma! But why did he go to the other flower – didn’t he get all he wanted from this one?”

“No, darlingest, he gets but very little from each flower. If he could take all he wanted from one he would never fly right to another. And then, if all the other insects should do the same, the whole plan of nature would fall through and there would soon be no life on earth.”

Elsie’s eyes looked very large when she heard this.

“Would I die, and you, mamma, and all of us – Alice and Rosie, and, oh, everybody we know?”

“Yes, dearie, all of us. Those few simple plants which still, in the primitive way, fertilize themselves, are not enough and are too weak to carry on the vegetation of the earth, and without the insects and birds and the wind we never should have been born at all; for they are necessary to make the plants reproduce their kinds and grow, and the plants are necessary food for us as well as for the animals that we eat, such as the hens and ducks and sheep and cows. So nature has given each flower only a little honey, not enough for the bee, and he is compelled to fly to many before he becomes satisfied. And this brings us back to the stamen and ovary again, to show what they are for and how the bee marries the two plants together after he has collected his fee of delicious honey.”

“I am all ’tention,” said Elsie, in so quaint an imitation of older folks that her mother was forced to smile, knowing that she had a listener that was interested, to say the least – a listener who felt the importance and gravity of the study which they were now pursuing. Elsie never attempted big words except when she felt dignified.

IV

THE PAPA AND MAMMA PARTS OF THE PLANTS

“Now,” said Mrs. Edson, taking hold of the buttercup again, “you see here, at the top of each stamen, the slight enlargement that I mentioned. It looks like a kind of knob, and it really is a hard, hollow sack, or bag, containing a fine yellow powder, which is called pollen. Is that plain so far, dearie?”

“Pollen, yes, mamma! And do you wish me to remember that name too?”

“Yes, it is very necessary that you should do so. You will soon learn why. Now look again at the green ovary. That is also hollow, and contains seeds or eggs, as I said before. In plants we call them seeds and in animals eggs. And it is these seeds that grow into the baby plants. But they cannot grow alone, without help. With a certain kind of help they can and do grow, and what do you suppose that help is?”

Elsie gazed earnestly at her mother, trying to think it out. But she was compelled to shake her head after all.

“I can’t imagine,” she said.

“Nothing but that some of the pollen shall be mixed with them,” said her mother.

“Oh, I see, I see!” Elsie cried delightedly. “That is why the stamens with the pollen in them are right over the ovaries.”

“Yes, dear, you have guessed it. The ripe pollen, falling into the ripe ovary, would fertilize the seeds. And with some plants, the earlier and simpler kinds, this is just what happens. But here you can see that the ovary is not ripe. It is hard and green. When it is ripe its color is yellow. But the pollen is ripe now, you can see it all over the anthers, as the knobs or sacks are called. If the pollen should fall upon the ovary now it would roll off without entering, and would be wasted. Now what do you suppose happens?”

“The – the – ”

Elsie hesitated, looking with very bright eyes at her mother, almost sure enough to go on, but not quite. It seemed so peculiar, the thought that had come to her, and she did not see just how it could be.

“You were going to say the bee, weren’t you?” her mother smiled.

“Oh yes – and would that have been right?” Elsie cried in delight.

“Yes, that would have been exactly right. If we had been near enough to examine the bee’s motions closely we should have seen that he alighted on the ovary, and then began to turn here and there in order to get at the honey at the base of each petal. As he did so he brushed off some of the pollen, for he was right in amongst the stamens, and this powdery pollen stuck to his fuzzy body and he carried it away with him.”

“But if he carried it away how could it get into the flower’s ovary?” Elsie asked, puzzled.

“It did not get into this flower’s ovary,” her mother answered. “Nature did not intend that it should, and that is why the bee is introduced. For the other buttercup that he flew to, or some other one that he would visit afterward, would have its ovary ripe, and when he alighted on it in search of honey some of the pollen would be brushed off his body right into this ovary that was all ready to receive it.”

“Oh! But what would happen then? The little baby buttercups would begin to grow right away, mamma?”

“Yes, the ovary would close up and the seeds would begin to grow, very slowly. They would keep on growing until they were ripe and then they would burst their covering and fall out on the ground. Those of them that were fortunate enough to become embedded in the soil, so that they would not freeze in the winter, would come out in the spring as little plants, which would soon bring forth buttercups. That is the way with the wild flowers. But with the cultivated ones, like cucumbers, apples, beans, and the like, all of those that are valuable for eating, we are careful to save the seeds and plant them where they will be safe. Instead of leaving them to chance we make a garden and plant them in it where they will be snug and warm.”

“And wouldn’t the seeds grow, or the little plants come up, if the bee hadn’t gone to the flowers, mamma?”

“No, darling, it is the bee, or some other insect, or the birds, that marry all the bright-colored plants in this way, as the wind marries the soberhued ones. Without these we should have no vegetation.”

“But, mamma, marry! Why do you say they marry? I thought only men and women married.”

“The marriage that takes place between men and women, dear, is only a repetition of the marriage of plants. Its object is the same – to reproduce the race. Plants began to marry long, long before men and women ever came on earth and have been doing it ever since, fortunately for us, because if they should give up the practice we should have to follow suit. The earth would go back to the barren state in which it was before life came to it.”

“It seems so strange,” said Elsie. “Why, I never heard of anything so funny! A bee, just a little bee, and without him – ”

“Funny is scarcely the word,” Mrs. Edson smiled, “but it is certainly wonderful. The pumpkin, the bean, the pear, the squash, the orange, all the fruits and vegetables that we eat, and which the animals eat, must be fertilized in order to reproduce their kind, and all the fertilizing is done either by the wind, which blows the pollen from one plant to another, or by birds and insects. But this is only a small part of the secret I have to tell you, just the beginning. There are many more wonderful things to come than I have told you yet, but I think this is enough for the first time. You would better think over what you have heard until tomorrow, when I will tell you the next step, which is about the animals. There are four things in this lesson that you must remember:

“First, every male plant has at least one stamen, which bears pollen.

“Second, every female plant has one ovary which contains seeds.

“Third, the seeds in the ovary must be fertilized by the pollen in the stamens in order to be able to grow and bear children.

“Fourth, flowers are fertilized by birds, insects and the wind.

“Do you think you can remember all that, darling?”

“Oh, yes, mamma, I’m sure I can!” said Elsie. She thought a moment and then added: “It was very nice of that bumble-bee to mistake my nose for a flower, I’m sure, for it was almost as if he should say, ‘Doesn’t she look sweet – there must be honey there!’ But I guess he didn’t think I was very sweet when I almost scared him to death, poor fellow!”

V

THE FIRST LIFE ON EARTH

The next day Elsie was so eager for the hour to come when she should learn the secret of the animals that she had been waiting in the hammock quite a little while when her mother came down stairs and as soon as she appeared in sight Elsie clapped her hands joyously, crying out:

“Now I shall hear how the animals get their honey, sha’n’t I, mumsey? But, mumsey, there isn’t anything like the petals of a buttercup on an animal, unless it’s his ears – do animals have their honey there – where they join the body – like the buttercups?”

Mrs. Edson could not help laughing at this funny notion.

“No, darling,” she answered, “animals have no honey anywhere. In the plants there is honey because they must have something to attract the insects to them, for they are rooted in the ground and can’t move around to carry their pollen to the other plants. And this pollen must be carried, you remember, for that is the way, and the only way, in which little ones are made to be born. So the flower has the honey in order to pay the insect for marrying it. But animals can move around. They can go to each other and carry their own pollen, so they do not need honey or anything but themselves to attract each other. In animals there is love instead of honey. They love each other, in their way, and so come together and mingle their eggs and pollen. Only it is not called pollen in animals, as I said before. It is called zoösperms, pronounced ‘zoo-o-sperms.’ That is another name that you must not forget, for it is to the animal what pollen is to the plant. And in order that little animals may be born it is quite as necessary that the zoösperms cover or fertilize the eggs, as, with the plants, it is for the pollen to fertilize the seeds.”

“But, mamma,” said Elsie, wonderingly, “you said, I think, that every plant had an ovary – ”

“No, darling, I said that every female plant had an ovary.”

“Oh, yes, female plant! That has an ovary, and every male plant has a stamen, and I think you said that they must have, didn’t you?”

“Yes, dear, in order to reproduce their kind they must have – why?”

“Well, then, does every male animal have a stamen and every female an ovary?”

“Certainly darling! And let me repeat that the products of the two must be mingled in order to bring forth little animals. That is just what I am going to tell you about today.”

“And do you mean, mamma, that honey in the plants grows into love in the animals?” Elsie asked, her eyes very wide.

“Oh, that is a very beautiful thought for my little girl to have!” Mrs. Edson exclaimed, smoothing Elsie’s hair lovingly. “And, yes, that is the truth, put very poetically. Love is sweet, like the honey that it replaces – at least it is for us human beings. Probably with the animals it is not of just the same quality that it is with us, for they do not act as if it were, but at least the animals are an improvement on the plants in this respect, and the love that they feel for each other finally evolves, in us, to become the sweet thing that we find it to be.”

“Isn’t that lovely – and so strange!” exclaimed Elsie.

“Yes, darling, it is lovely, and very strange. There are various kinds of love, as well as various degrees of the same kind, but this is a subject a little too deep for us to take up just yet. What I wish now is to teach you how the animals marry. And I will begin by saying that all forms of reproduction, which is the name given to having children, follow the same principle. The animals marry in a way that is only a variation of the plant way, and men and women marry in a way that is a variation of the plant and animal ways. But let us begin right, with the first appearance of life on earth.”

“Yes, mamma,” Elsie cried eagerly. “But the first life! That must have been very, very long ago, wasn’t it?”

“It was so far back in the history of the world that we can scarcely more than guess how long ago it must have been. We do not even know where it first appeared or just how it came to be. Some scientists believe that it occurred at the mouth of the Nile River, in Africa, in the rich soil that the river deposits there when it overflows its banks. Others think it was in the sea, or along the shores of some ocean in a tropical country. But we need not go into that here. What we do know is that the hot sun, shining on a certain spot on the earth or sea, which was just in the right condition, produced the first body containing life that the globe ever had, and that this body was only a little speck of jelly-like substance, which we call protoplasm, pro-to-plas-m. The word means ‘first growth’, for it was the first thing that ever appeared that was capable of growing. We also call it a cell. Now there was only one cell in the world. It had no companions. And what do you suppose happened?”

“It must have been very lonesome,” suggested Elsie, sympathetically.

“Yes, it must have been – certainly it must if it could feel or think. But, at all events, whether or not it did feel lonely, it began right away to make companions. Of course you can’t think how it did that, can you, dear?”

“I – I am afraid not,” Elsie hesitated.

“Yet it was the very simplest way imaginable. It merely divided itself into two parts, each of which was just like the other.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Elsie. “But, then, mamma, who could tell which was the father or mother, and which was the child? Or were they just brother and sister, or two brothers?”

“There was not then what we now call ‘sex’, for that was only the beginning of families, so to say, and it was very crude, as all things are when they are first started. But perhaps we might call one cell the mother of the other, since it is always the female, and not the male, that brings forth children, though nobody could tell which was the mother and which was the child.”

“Well,” said Elsie, “that is the strangest thing yet!”

“It seems so to us, because it is so different from our way of reproducing, but it was the natural way, and the same process is going on to this day. Even little girls are born in a manner which, though it appears very different, is the same in principle, as we shall see.”

“But, mamma, I thought that all living beings were obliged to have a stamen or an ovary!”

“So they are obliged, dear! This cell grew until it was too large and heavy to be supported by its structure, or lack of structure, and then it fell apart. Force, or growth, was the stamen here, and the cell itself was the ovary.”

“Oh, then force or growth was the first stamen, mamma?”

“No, darling, it was not, unless we should call growth the stamen of today – which we might do, in a way. But the first stamen was, in form, a ray of the sun, and the first ovary was the earth, soil. For don’t you recall that this cell, which was the first life-form, was produced by the sun shining on the earth or sea?”

Elsie pondered on this a moment. Then her face brightened.

“Oh, now I see!” she exclaimed. “And what a beautiful set of changes, like real poetry! The stamen in a flower, and growth, and a ray of sunlight are all one at bottom!”

“Yes, darling, it is beautiful poetry, when one comes thoroughly to understand it. And when we find that love is the source of all these different forms and processes it becomes more beautiful than ever. Now let us go on a little further and you will see how that is.”

“Please hurry, mamma!” said Elsie. “I wish to find out where I came from, and you are going to tell me that, aren’t you?”

“Certainly, darling! That is what I have been leading up to all this time. Now we will speak of a number of higher growths than the single cells are, for there are several things yet to be made plain before you will be able to understand the highest growth of all, which is that of a human being like yourself.”

VI

WHERE BABY ANIMALS COME FROM

At that moment there sounded a hoarse noise near by, which was followed by a splash, as if some body had tumbled into the pond. Elsie looked at her mother roguishly and said:

“Old Croaky!”

Old Croaky was a granddaddy bullfrog with whom they were very well acquainted, for he sang for them every evening.

“I am glad that he spoke just as he did,” Mrs. Edson smiled, “for he reminds me that frogs are as good an example as I can take next. He belongs to one of the lower classes of animals, not so very much higher than the plants. Now, in the plants, you will remember, it was necessary for the pollen to enter the ovary in order to reach and fertilize the seeds. But with the frog it is not so. The female lays the eggs first, and just as she is doing so the male places himself in such a position towards her that he can mingle his zoösperms with her eggs as they come out. That fertilizes them and they immediately begin to grow. First they become tadpoles, and then little frogs.”

“What, was Old Croaky ever a little tadpole, mumsey?”

“Yes, darling, he was. Every frog was once. And before that he was an egg, one of many, in his mother’s ovary, and it is so with all animals. They all of them have eggs and zoösperms, just as the plants have pollen and seeds. Only, with most of the animals, the zoösperms must enter the ovary in order to fertilize the eggs, as is the way of the plants. And it is the same with the birds. They are higher, that is later, in the scale of life than the frogs are. Now the higher the creature the more complicated becomes the process of reproduction, even though the principle is always the same. It is always growth, always the life within, forcing itself out to take form, and it is only the forms that change. The life and force within are the same that the first single cell had.”

“It is very wonderful, mamma,” Elsie said, awed by the mystery, even though she was very far from grasping the whole of it. “And the birds, mamma, have they stamens, and eggs inside? I thought their eggs were outside, in a little nest. And some of them are, mumsey, because, you know, I have seen them lots of times.”

“Yes, the eggs come out where you can see them, in time, as the frog’s do, but at first they are inside the mother bird, as they are with the frogs and all animals. Only, it is not with the birds as it is with the frogs, for the bird’s eggs must be fertilized by the male zoösperms while they are still within the mother bird. The zoösperms must enter the ovary as the pollen must enter the ovary of the plant. So the male bird, like most male animals, has a stamen which is a repetition of that of the flower, made of such a shape that it can reach the eggs in the mother bird’s ovary and fertilize them there. Then they come out, they are ‘laid’ as we say, and we see them in the nest which the mother and father birds have prepared for them. And just as the seeds need to be covered and kept warm, when they have fallen from the ripe pods to the ground, in order that they may live and grow into baby plants, so the bird’s eggs must be covered and kept warm and safe in order that they may grow into birdies. It is just here that you may see where the honey of the plants begins to become love in the higher species. For instead of leaving the eggs to be protected or not, according to chance, as is the way of the plants, the mother bird covers and warms and protects them herself. She sits on the nest and keeps them safe with her own body and feathers. Isn’t that lovely! And the father bird goes to market in the woods and fields and brings her the daintiest and best food he can find.”

“Isn’t he nice!” said Elsie appreciatively.

“Yes, he is nice, and so is his wife, the mother bird. Just think! A bird is the most energetic and tireless creature in all animated nature. It is always on the move, urged by the force and overflowing life within its body, and to sit there quietly all alone on the eggs day after day and night after night – oh, it must be hard, so hard that we can scarcely realize the extent of the sacrifice she is making for her little children. That is what love is like. And the higher a creature is in the scale of life the more love it has, until, in men and women, the acme is reached and they not only give up their comfort for each other, and especially for their children, but even their lives themselves. With human beings one can tell how high a given one is in the scale of humanity by the amount of love he has. Some persons have very little, and they are nearer the animal plane: some have a great deal, and the more they have, the less selfish they are, the higher they have risen. For love is the real stamen that fertilizes the world and makes it grow, and the more one has of it the more life one gives to the universe.”

Elsie felt very grave for some moments, thinking out this deep matter. It was too complex for her to realize wholly, but she caught glimpses of the immortal beauty of the ideas and she was awed by it. Suddenly she threw her arms around her mother’s neck and kissed her passionately. It had occurred to her all at once how much her mother loved her and how much she must have sacrificed for her sake during all the years of her little life, and though she had no conception of the full extent of the sacrifice she saw enough to make her feel like crying for very love of that dear and sweet mamma. Her mother understood her and taking her in her arms hugged her closely, sitting in silence with her for a long time, both of them too full of love for each other to speak. And so the lesson for the day ended.

VII

WHERE BABY GIRLS COME FROM

“Now, mumsey,” cried Elsie the next day, running to her mother at the hour set aside for their baby-talks, “I know what comes next – it’s I, isn’t it?”

“Yes, darling, it’s you. And it’s I, too. Isn’t that a beautiful thought, that you and I held the same relation to each other that the mother bird holds to the egg from which the birdies come! For once you were a tiny, tiny egg inside mamma just as it was with the birds.”

“Oh-h!” gasped Elsie, gazing at her mother in bewilderment. She could not realize such an astounding thing at once.