wn in the burrs--maybe only "peeping" out; and
getting them wholly out of the burrs was not so pleasant an occupation.

"Why is it," complained Dot sucking her fingers, stung by the prickly
burrs, "that they put such thistles on these chestnuts? It's worse than
a rosebush--or a pincushion. Couldn't the nuts grow just as good without
such awfully sharp jackets on 'em?"

"Oh, Dot," said Tess, to whom the smallest Corner House girl addressed
this speech. "I suspect the burrs are made prickly for a very good
reason. You see, the chestnuts are not really ripe until the burrs are
broken open by the frost. Then the squirrels can get at them easily."

"Well, I see _that_," agreed Dot.

"But don't you see, if the little squirrels--the baby ones--could get at
the chestnuts before they were ripe, they would all get sick, and have
the stomach-ache--most likely be like children, boys 'specially, who eat
green apples? You know how sick Sammy Pinkney was that time he got into
our yard and stole the green apples."

"Oh, I see," Dot acknowledged. "I s'pose you're right, Tess. But the
burrs are dreadful. Seems to me they could have found something to put
'round a chestnut besides just old prickles."

"How'd they do it?" demanded Tess, rather exasperated at her sister's
obstinacy. Besides, the "prickles" were stinging her poor fingers, too.
"How do you suppose they could keep the little squirrels from eating the
chestnuts green, then?"

"We--ell," said Dot, thoughtfully, "they might do like our teacher says
poison ought to be kept. She read us about how dangerous it is to have
poison around--and I read some in the book about it, too."

"But chestnuts aren't poison!" cried Tess.

"They must be when they are green," declared the smaller girl,
confidently, possessing just enough knowledge of her subject to make her
positive. "Else the squirrels wouldn't have the stomach-ache. And you
say they _do_."

"I said they _might_," denied Tess, hastily.

"Well, poison is a very dang'rous thing," went on Dot, pleased to air
her knowledge. "It ought to be doctored at once and not allowed to run
on--for _that's_ very ser'ous indeed. And we mustn't treat poison rough;
it's li'ble to run into blood poison."

"Oh!" gasped Tess, who had not had the benefits of "easy lessons in
physiology" when she was in Dot's grade, that being a new study.

"You ought to keep poison," went on Dot, nodding her dark little head
vigorously, "in a little room un