the door-step under the old elm.

"When your father broke up the ground with his plough, and scattered in
the seed-corn, the crows were watching from the old apple-tree, and they
came down to pick up the corn; and, indeed, they did carry away a good
deal. But the days went by, the spring showers moistened the earth, and
the sun shone; and so the seed-corn swelled, and, bursting open, thrust
out two little hands, one reaching down to hold itself firmly in the
earth, and one reaching up to the light and air. The first was never
very beautiful, but certainly quite useful; for, besides holding the
corn firmly in its place, it drew up water and food for the whole plant:
but the second spread out two long, slender green leaves, that waved
with every breath of air, and seemed to rejoice in every ray of
sunshine. Day by day it grew taller and taller, and by and by put out
new streamers broader and stronger, until it stood higher than Willie's
head. Then, at the top, came a new kind of bud, quite different from
those that folded the green streamers; and when that opened, it showed a
nodding flower, which swayed and bowed at the top of the stalk like the
crown of the whole plant. And yet this was not the best that the corn-
plant could do; for lower down, and partly hidden by the leaves, it had
hung out a silken tassel of pale sea-green color, like the hair of a
little mermaid. Now, every silken thread was in truth a tiny tube, so
fine that our eyes cannot see the bore of it. The nodding flower that
grew so gayly up above there was day by day ripening a golden dust
called pollen; and every grain of this pollen--and they were very small
grains indeed--knew perfectly well that the silken threads were tubes,
and they felt an irresistible desire to enter the shining passages, and
explore them to the very end: so one day, when the wind was tossing the
whole blossoms this way and that, the pollen-grains danced out, and,
sailing down on the soft breeze, each one crept in at the open door of a