What at the first was so hard to attempt, became grand and beautiful in the doing; and little Alba, instead of serving merely for a squirrel’s breakfast, as he might have done had he not bravely ventured on his journey, stands before us a noble tree, which is to live a hundred years or more.

Do you want to know what kind of a tree?

Well, Lillie, who studies Latin, will tell you that Quercus means oak.  And now can you tell me what Alba’s rustic cradle was, and who were his cousins Rubra and Coccinea?

We all have our treasure-boxes.  Misers have strong iron-bound chests full of gold; stately ladies, pearl inlaid caskets for their jewels; and even you and I, dear child, have our own.  Your little box with lock and key, that aunt Lucy gave you, where you have kept for a long time your choicest paper doll, the peacock with spun-glass tail, and the robin’s egg that we picked up on the path under the great trees that windy day last spring,—­that is your treasure-box.  I no less have mine; and, if you will look with me, I will show you how the trees and flowers have theirs, and what is packed away in them.

Come out in the orchard this September day, under the low-bowed peach-trees, where great downy-cheeked peaches almost drop into our hands.  Sit on the grassy bank with me, and I will show you the peach-tree’s treasure-box.

What does the peach-tree regard as most precious?  If it could speak in words, it would tell you its seed is the one thing for which it cares most; for which it has worked ever since spring, storing food, and drinking in sunshine.  And it is so dear and valued, because, when the peach-tree itself dies, this seed, its child, may still live on, growing into a beautiful and fruitful tree; therefore, the mother tree cherishes her seed as her greatest treasure, and has made for it a casket more beautiful than Mrs. Williams’s sandal-wood jewel-box.

See the great crack where this peach broke from the bough.  We will pull it open; this is opening the cover of the outside casket.  See how rich was its outside color, but how wonderfully beautiful the deep crimson fibres which cling about the hard shell inside.  For this seed cannot be trusted in a single covering; moreover, the inner box is locked securely, and, I am sorry to say, we haven’t the key:  so, if I would show you the inside, we must break the pretty box, with its strong, ribbed walls, and then at last we shall see what the peach-tree’s treasure-box holds.

Here, too, are the apples, lying on the grass at our feet; we will cut one, for it too holds the apple-tree’s treasure.  First comes the skin, rosy and yellow, a pretty firm wrapping for the outside; but it sometimes breaks, when a strong wind tosses the apples to the ground, and sometimes the insects eat holes in it:  so, if this were the only covering, the treasure would hardly be very safe.  Therefore, next we come to the firm, juicy flesh of the apple,—­seldom to be broken through by a fall, not often eaten through by insects; but lest even this should fail, we come at last, far in the middle, to horny sheaths, or cells, built up together like a little fortress, surrounding and protecting the brown, shining seeds, which we reach in the very centre of all.