"Their green is yellower. The tree is full of resin and it makes the finest kind of kindling."
"Is that what the negroes call 'light wood'?" asked Della.
"Yes, that's light wood. In the fields that haven't been cultivated for a long time there spring up what they call in the South 'old field pines' or 'loblolly pines.' They have coarse yellow green needles, too, but they aren't as long as the others. There are three needles in the bunch."
"Don't all the pines have three needles in the bunch?" asked Margaret.
"Look at this white pine," she said, pulling down a bunch off a tree they were passing. "It has five; and the 'Table Mountain pine' has only two."
"Observant little Dorothy!" exclaimed Roger.
"O, I know more than that," laughed Dorothy. "Look hard at this white pine needle; do you see, it has three sides, two of them white and one green? The loblolly needle has only two sides, though the under is so curved that it looks like two; and the 'Table Mountain' has two sides."
"What's the use of remembering all that?" demanded Mary sullenly.
Dorothy, who had been dimpling amusedly as she delivered her lecture, flushed deeply.
"I don't know," she admitted.