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ms the pollen could not fall on the stigma.
We must then look at all flowers as expressions of welcome to some insect--day-flowering blossoms mostly to bees and butterflies, and night-bloomers to moths. And not only expressions of welcome, but each with some perfect little plan of its own to make this insect guest the bearer of its pollen to the stigma of another flower of the same species. And how endless are the plans and devices to insure this beautiful scheme! Some flowers make it certain by keeping the stigma closed tight until all its pollen is shed; others place the anther so far away from the stigma as to make pollen contact impossible; others actually imprison these pollen-bringing insects until they can send them away with fresh pollen all over their bodies.
Take almost any flower we chance to meet, and it will show us a mystery of form which the insect alone can explain.
Another beautiful provision is seen in the difference in size of the pollen grain of the two flowers, those of the high anthers being much larger than those from the lower anthers. These larger grains are intended for the high stigma, which they are sure of reaching, while those of smaller size, on the top of the tongue, which should happen to be wiped off on the high stigma, are too small to be effective for fertilization.
HOW RUFUS TRAPPED THE BURGLARS.
BY WILLIAM HEMMINGWAY.
The squealing of dry snow under horses' hoofs awakened Rufus Walker. His room was the nearest to the turnpike crossing. Perhaps that was why he was the only sleeper in the railroad station at Winona to be aroused by the approaching sleigh. It was a sleigh, that was certain; for now Rufus could hear the smooth, easy, half-shuffling sound of the runners on the well-packed snow. Who could it be travelling at that time of night? The horses were going at a walk. Neither of them wore a bell. "Maybe some one has come to wake up father and send a telegram," thought Rufus, sleepily. But no, the sleigh bumped over the railroad tracks and passed on. The boy heard the shrill crunching of the snow a few times more, and then he fell asleep again. If he had only felt enough curiosity to get up and look out of the window he would have seen something to make his heart beat very fast indeed; but the cold air nipped the tip of his nose and made it numb, and he buried his face in the blankets and slept.
Rufus Walker's father was the station agent and telegraph operator at Winona, in the heart of a vast wheat-raising section of Dakota. For miles the country stretched away in gentle undulations. In the spring you looked out on a sea of waving, tossing green, crinkled and fretted by every passing breeze. In the fall the green sea had turned to gold, and those noisy ships, the mowing-machines, went clattering through it. Now the vast expanse lay white and still under its frosty blanket. The wheat harvest had been gathered into the barns, and for weeks little Rufus had heard the farmers talking about "number one hard," and "number one," and all the other varieties of the grain. Right opposite the station and across the railroad track stood a grain elevator. Its gigantic shape rose over the little station like a castle towering above a tiny cottage. The farmers for miles around would begin to haul wheat to the elevator to-morrow, for Mr. Price, Pillsbury's elevator superintendent, had arrived that day. He had brought a satchel full of packages of new crisp bank-notes, and fat little rolls of gold eagles and double-eagles. He always paid cash for the wheat as he bought it. That is the custom all through the wheat country.
The thick black bag of alligator-skin that held more than five thousand dollars was locked in the safe that stood in the office of the grain elevator. The money was the attraction that had brought the three men, who silently got out of the sleigh in the shadow of the tall building. They tied their horses to a ring near the office door, then stealthily crept through the snow to the railroad station.
Little Rufus Walker woke up with a start. A big man with a handkerchief tied across the lower part of his face was shaking him by the shoulder.
"How old are you, sonny?" asked the stranger.
"Ten years last August," Rufus answered, huskily.
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