“How curious! will this do so?” and Demi held up a sprig of acacia, which he had broken from a little tree on the lawn, because it was so pretty.
“No; that belongs to the sort that shuts up when you touch it. Draw your finger down the middle of the stem, and see if the leaves don’t curl up,” said Dan, who was examining a bit of mica.
Demi tried it, and presently the little leaves did fold together, till the spray showed a single instead of a double line of leaves.
“I like that; tell me about the others. What do these do?” asked Demi, taking up a new branch.
“Feed silk-worms; they live on mulberry leaves, till they begin to spin themselves up. I was in a silk-factory once, and there were rooms full of shelves all covered with leaves, and worms eating them so fast that it made a rustle. Sometimes they eat so much they die. Tell that to Stuffy,” and Dan laughed, as he took up another bit of rock with a lichen on it.
“I know one thing about this mullein leaf: the fairies use them for blankets,” said Demi, who had not quite given up his faith in the existence of the little folk in green.
“If I had a microscope, I’d show you something prettier than fairies,” said Dan, wondering if he should ever own that coveted treasure. “I knew an old woman who used mullein leaves for a night-cap because she had face-ache. She sewed them together, and wore it all the time.”
“How funny! was she your grandmother?”
“Never had any. She was a queer old woman, and lived alone in a little tumble-down house with nineteen cats. Folks called her a witch, but she wasn’t, though she looked like an old rag-bag. She was real kind to me when I lived in that place, and used to let me get warm at her fire when the folks at the poorhouse were hard on me.”
“Did you live in a poorhouse?”