That afternoon, when the lessons had been all recited, and it was about time to dismiss the school, the boys put away their books, and the master read a few verses in the Bible, and then offered a prayer, in which he asked God to forgive all the sins which any of them had committed that day, and to take care of them during the night.  After this he asked the boys all to sit down.  He then took his handkerchief out of his pocket and laid it on the desk, and afterward he put his hand into his pocket again, and took out the chestnut burr, and all the boys looked at it.

“Boys,” said he, “do you know what this is?”

One of the boys in the back seat said, in a half whisper, “It is nothing but a chestnut burr.”

“Lucy,” said the master to a bright-eyed little girl near him, “what is this?”

“It is a chestnut burr, sir,” said she.

“Do you know what it is for?”

“I suppose there are chestnuts in it.”

“But what is this rough, prickly covering for?”

Lucy did not know.

“Does any body here know?” said the master.

One of the boys said that he supposed it was to hold the chestnuts together, and keep them up on the tree.

“But I heard a boy say,” replied the master, “that they ought not to be made to grow so.  The nut itself, he thought, ought to hang alone on the branches, without any prickly covering, just as apples do.”

“But the nuts themselves have no stems to be fastened by,” answered the same boy.

“That is true; but I suppose this boy thought that God could have made them grow with stems, and that this would have been better than to have them in burrs.”

After a little pause the master said that he would explain TO them what the chestnut burr was for, and wished them all to listen attentively.

“How much of the chestnut is good to eat, William?” asked he, looking at a boy before him.

“Only the meat.”

“How long does it take the meat to grow?”

“All summer, I suppose, it is growing.”

“Yes; it begins early in the summer, and gradually swells and grows until it has become of full size, and is ripe, in the fall.  Now suppose there was a tree out here near the school-house, and the chestnut meats should grow upon it without any shell or covering; suppose, too, that they should taste like good ripe chestnuts at first, when they were very small.  Do you think they would be safe?”

William said “No; the boys would pick and eat them before they had time to grow.”

“Well, what harm would there be in that?  Would it not be as well to have the chestnuts early in the summer as to have them in the fall?”

William hesitated.  Another boy who sat next to him said,

“There would not be so much meat in the chestnuts if they were eaten before they had time to grow.”

“Right,” said the master; “but would not the boys know this, and so all agree to let the little chestnuts stay, and not eat them while they were small?”