When we know that under a Geyser the water is boiling in a great reservoir which communicates with the surface by a natural tube or spout, we need not wonder that occasionally a volume of steam bursts forth, sending a column of water far into the air.

A GIANT PUFF-BALL.

[Illustration]

I suppose you have all seen puff-balls, which grow in the fields like mushrooms and toadstools, but I am quite sure that you never saw anything of the kind quite so large as that one in the picture.  And yet that engraving was made from a drawing from the puff-ball itself.  So we need not suppose that there is anything fanciful about it.

The vegetable in question is a kind of fungi called the Giganti Lycoperdon, and it attains its enormous size in one night!  It springs from a seed so small that you could not see it, and grows, while you are asleep, to be bigger, perhaps, than you are yourself!

Think of that!  How would you like to plant the whole garden, some afternoon, with that kind of seed?  Would not your father and mother, and everybody else, be astounded when they woke up and saw a couple of hundred of those things, as big as barrels, filling up every bed!

They would certainly think it was the most astonishing crop they had ever seen, and there might be people who would suppose that fairies or magicians had been about.

The great trouble about such a crop would be that it would be good for nothing.

I cannot imagine what any one would do with a barnful of Lycoperdons.

But it would be wonderfully interesting to watch the growth of such a fungus.  You could see it grow.  In one night you could see its whole life, from almost nothing at all to that enormous ball in the picture.  Nature could hardly show us a more astonishing sight than that.

TICKLED BY A STRAW.

[Illustration]

    From his dreams of tops and marbles,
      Where the soaring kites he saw,
    Is that little urchin wakened,
      Tickled by a wheaten straw.

    How do you suppose he likes it,
      Young one with annoying paw? 
    If I only were your mother,
      I’d tickle you with birchen straw.

    Soon enough, from pleasant dreaming,
      You’ll be wakened by the law,
    Which provides for every vision
      Some sort of provoking straw.

    In dreams of play, or hope, or loving,
      When plans of happiness you draw,
    Underneath your nose may wiggle
      Life’s most aggravating straw

THE LIGHT IN THE CASTLE.

On a high hill, in a lonely part of Europe, there stood a ruined castle.  No one lived there, for the windows were destitute of glass; there were but few planks left of the floors; the roof was gone; and the doors had long ago rotted off their hinges.  So that any persons who should take up their residence in this castle would be exposed to the rain, when there was a storm; to the wind, when it blew; and to robbers, if they should come; besides running the risk of breaking their necks by falling between the rafters, every time they attempted to walk about the house.