ll find out as you grow
older) more wonderful far. So there already the old starling has set us
two fresh puzzles about How and Why, neither of which we shall get
answered, at least on this side of the grave.

Come on, up the field, under the great generous sun, who quarrels with no
one, grudges no one, but shines alike upon the evil and the good. What a
gay picture he is painting now, with his light-pencils; for in them,
remember, and not in the things themselves the colour lies. See how,
where the hay has been already carried, he floods all the slopes with
yellow light, making them stand out sharp against the black shadows of
the wood; while where the grass is standing still, he makes the sheets of
sorrel-flower blush rosy red, or dapples the field with white oxeyes.

But is not the sorrel itself red, and the oxeyes white?

What colour are they at night, when the sun is gone?

Dark.

That is, no colour. The very grass is not green at night.

Oh, but it is if you look at it with a lantern.

No, no. It is the light of the lantern, which happens to be strong
enough to make the leaves look green, though it is not strong enough to
make a geranium look red.

Not red?

No; the geranium flowers by a lantern look black, while the leaves look
green. If you don't believe me, we will try.

But why is that?

Why, I cannot tell: and how, you had best ask Professor Tyndall, if you
ever have the honour of meeting him.

But now--hark to the mowing-machine, humming like a giant night-jar. Come
up and look at it, and see how swift and smooth it shears the long grass
down, so that in the middle of the swathe it seems to have merely fallen
flat, and you must move it before you find that it has been cut off.

Ah, there is a proof to us of what men may do if they will only learn the
lessons which Madam How can teach them. There is that boy, fresh from
the National School, cutting more grass in a day than six strong mowers
could have cut, and cutting it better, too; for the mowing-machine goes
so much nearer to the ground than the scythe, that we gain by it two
hundredweight of hay on every acre. And see, too, how persevering old
Madam How will not stop her work, though the machine has cut off all the
grass which she has been making for the last three months; for as fast as
we shear it off, she makes it grow again. There are fresh blades, here
at our feet, a full inch long, which have sprung up in the last two days,