Fig. 5.—Cactus.
In places where the rain-fall is frequent, and the air is always kept soft, plants may be as lavish of their water as we are in the great cities where the supply never fails. Plants growing in such places very often keep their mouths open all the time. If this were the habit of those which grow in very dry places, they would soon perish of thirst. On the high Western plains beyond the Mississippi only a few things are able to live. Among these are some kinds of cactus plants, which you have probably seen in greenhouses or as window plants (Fig. 5). The reason why they manage to grow such bulgy leaves and fat stems where there is so little moisture, is because this plant is so very stingy of its water. It hoards it up as the travellers over the great African deserts do, knowing how hard it will be to get more. The roots of the cactus suck up every drop of water they can find, and the leaves keep their millions of little mouths tight shut so as to hold it all. Only such plants can grow on these plains as are able to do with very little water, or else are wise enough to hoard up all they can get. This water we have been talking about is not sap—that is the blood of the plant—but it is like the water we drink, and which not only helps to make the blood, but keeps all of the parts soft and moist so that it may live. The largest part of every living thing is water. It is not without good reason that the Bible so often speaks of the Water of Life, for without water no life could exist for a single hour.
[THESE MY LITTLE ONES.]
BY MONA NOEL PATON.
I.
One very, very wet evening a forlorn little pigeon, with rumpled feathers and weary wings, came knocking at the door of a nursery in which were two children.
They heard the knock, and going to the window, saw to their astonishment, the poor unhappy bird. It was not long before the sash was thrown up, and the rain-soaked wanderer brought in, and fed and petted to its heart's content.