ALL THANKS FOR THE PLANTS
Thanksgiving brought the usual good dinner, and upon the table and the sideboard there were many things to remind the little family of their garden and their summer-time. There was a large plate of red apples and a dish of nuts, and there was a pot of pinks, which Prue had saved for her window-garden. Then there was a fine little jar of pickles, made from Davy's tomatoes, besides dishes of tomatoes and turnips, all from the little garden that had come and gone, leaving these good things and many pleasant memories behind.
And after the dinner was over, and the pudding eaten and the nuts passed, the little family sat around the table to talk, as they often did.
"I am sure we have a great deal to be thankful for this year," said big Prue. "Two such nice healthy children, with plenty to eat and wear, and a fire to keep us warm, and a good roof over our heads."
"And all from the plants," said the Chief Gardener. "If we are thankful for the plants, we are thankful for almost everything we have."
Davy sat thinking silently about this, but little Prue did not quite understand.
"I suppose you mean that the plants made us healthy to work in them," she said.
"I mean that, and I mean a great many other things. In the first place, plants furnish all the food in the world. Not only the vegetables, but the animal-food. Our turkey would not have been here to-day if he had not been fed on grain, and even the oysters must live from a sort of plant-food in the sea. Every creature that walks or flies or swims lives either on plants themselves or from some creature that does live on them."
"Do sharks live on plants, too?" asked Prue.
"Of course!" said Davy. "Sharks eat men, and men eat plants."
"I don't suppose sharks live altogether on men," laughed big Prue, "and the little fish they eat may live on other little fish, but if you go far enough you will find that somewhere the beginning is plant-life."
"Plants also warm and light us," went on the Chief Gardener. "Every stick of wood, or bit of coal, or drop of oil we burn, comes from plant-life. The coal was vegetation long ago—very long ago—and the heat and light that come from it were stored there in that far-away time by the green leaves that drew in life and light from the sunbeams."
"Do the leaves really take up light?" asked Davy.
"They really do. With every particle of vegetable matter that is made, a portion of the sun's heat and light is laid up in it. The light is still in the coal, though it looks so black. We have only to burn it, to get back the sunlight."
That was a very wonderful thought to the children, and they had to talk about it a great deal before the Chief Gardener went on.
"Every bit of clothing we wear comes from the plants," he said at last. "The cotton grows like the down about the thistle seed, and the wool that grows on the sheep's back is there because the sheep feeds on the green grass in summer and upon hay and grain in the winter-time. Silk is made by worms from mulberry leaves, linen is from the flax plant, and leather from the cattle that grow in the same way that the sheep grows.
THE WOOL THAT GROWS ON THE SHEEP'S BACK IS THERE BECAUSE THE SHEEP FEEDS ON THE GREEN GRASS IN SUMMER
"Then there is our house. A great deal of it is made from wood, and even the bricks have vegetable matter in them, while the stones are shaped by tools that have wooden handles, and the bricks and stones are hauled in wooden carts."
"But the iron doesn't grow, Papa," said little Prue.
"No, but without heat to forge it—heat that comes from wood and coal—it would be of no use."
"But there is one other thing that is more to us than all the rest. Plants purify the air we breathe. Air that we have breathed once is not fit for us again. We have used the oxygen from it, and turned it into carbonic acid gas. But carbonic acid gas is just what the plants need, so they take our breathed air and turn it into oxygen again and give it back to us fresh and pure, so that we can keep our life and health."
"Don't forget the flowers, Papa," said little Prue.
"I haven't forgotten them. If it were not for the flowers many of the plants would die out, and besides being so useful, the flowers feed the bees and make the world beautiful, and our lives happier and sweeter, by filling them with color and perfume and loveliness. No, I could hardly forget the flowers, Prue. They are the crowning glory of the plants that feed and clothe and warm and shelter us. So let us be thankful for the plants, every part of them, and especially for the flowers."
"We ought to be thankful for the sun that makes them grow, too," said Davy.
"And we must not forget the One to whom all thanks are due," added his mother.
And as the November day closed in they gathered around the big open fire, and were happy and cheerful in the blaze of the same sunbeams that had shone on the great forests which had perished so many ages ago.
DECEMBER