down. "Ah, I've caught
you! Not fair to tell, Celia. Now, Ben, you've _got_ to learn all about
this buttercup, to pay for cheating."

"Werry good, sir; bring on your rhinoceriouses," answered Ben, who
couldn't help imitating his old friend the clown when he felt
particularly jolly.

"Sit there and write what I tell you," ordered Thorny, with all the
severity of a strict schoolmaster.

Perching himself on the mossy stump, Ben obediently floundered through
the following analysis, with constant help in the spelling and much
private wonder what would come of it:

"Phaenogamous. Exogenous. Angiosperm. Polypetalous. Stamens, more than
ten. Stamens on the receptacle. Pistils, more than one and separate.
Leaves without stipules. Crowfoot family. Genus ranunculus. Botanical
name, Ranunculus bulbosus."

"Jerusalem, what a flower! Pistols and crows' feet, and Polly put the
kettles on, and Angy sperms and all the rest of 'em! If that's your
botany I wont take any more, thank you," said Ben, as he paused as hot
and red as if he had been running a race.

"Yes, you will; you'll learn that all by heart, and then I shall give
you a dandelion to do. You'll like that, because it means _dent de
lion_ or lion's teeth, and I'll show them to you through my glass.
You've no idea how interesting it is, and what heaps of pretty things
you'll see," answered Thorny, who had already discovered how charming
the study was, and had found great satisfaction in it since he had been
forbidden more active pleasures.

"What's the good of it, any way?" asked Ben, who would rather have been
set to mowing the big field than to the task before him.

"It tells all about it in my book here--'Gray's Botany for Young
People.' But I can tell you what use it is to _us_," continued Thorny,
crossing his legs in the air and preparing to argue the matter,
comfortably lying flat on his back. "_We_ are a Scientific Exploration
Society, and we must keep an account of all the plants, animals,
minerals and so on, as we come across them. Then suppose we get lost
and have to hunt for food, how are we to know what is safe and what
isn't? Come, now, do you know the difference between a toad-stool and a
mushroom?"

"No, I don't."

"Then I'll teach you some day. There is sweet flag and poisonous flag,
and all sorts of berries and things, and you'd better look out when you
are in the woods or you'll touch ivy and dogwood, and have a horrid
time if you don't know your