And you girls will take no end of trouble if you happen to be sewing for your dolls, or playing at cooking over the kitchen stove, or doing something to which you give the name “play” instead of “work.”
I only ask for just as much patience in your study of plants; and I think I can safely promise you that plants will prove delightful playthings long after you have put aside the games which please you now.
So we must begin to talk about some of the things which you are not likely to see now with your own eyes, but which, when possible, I will show you by means of pictures, and which, when you are older, some of you may see with the help of a microscope.
Every living thing is made up of one or more little objects called “cells.”
Usually a cell may be likened to a tiny bag which holds a bit of that material which is the most wonderful thing in the whole world, for this is the material which has life.
Occasionally a cell is nothing but a naked bit of this wonderful substance, for it is not always held in a tiny bag.
Fig. 135
This picture (Fig. [135]) shows you a naked plant cell, much magnified, that swims about in the water by means of the two long hairs which grow from one end of the speck of life-giving material.
The next picture (Fig. [136]) shows you a seed cut across, and so magnified that you can see plainly its many cells.