eep them fresh and cool in the cellar."

"The picking does not trouble us so much as the feeding, Josef. We have
never done that. How many times must we feed the worms?"

"At the beginning three times a day; and never forget that the young
worms must have the youngest and most tender leaves. Later they will
need the tougher ones, with more solid food elements in them, but not at
first."

"They are pretty fussy, aren't they, Josef?" laughed Marie. "Lots more
particular about their food than we are. Mother makes us eat what is set
before us, and never allows us to argue as to whether we like it or not;
sometimes it isn't what we'd rather have, either."

"But you manage to live and grow fat on it just the same," grinned the
old servant. "Now your silkworms wouldn't. They'd die, and that would be
the end of them. Of course some varieties are more robust than others;
but they all have to have the same care."

"I didn't know there was more than one kind of silkworm!" exclaimed
Marie in surprise.

"Of course there are," Pierre retorted. "Even I knew that. There are
lots of kinds, and some make much better silk than others."

"Some give more silk, too," Josef put in. "Their cocoons are much
larger. The big white worm such as we raise here is one of the most
profitable. It has four moultings."

"You mean it changes its skin four times?" Marie said.

"Just that. It's a queer life it has, isn't it?" mused the man. "First
there is the tiny egg; then comes the caterpillar with all its moultings
and its ravenous appetite--then follows the spinning of the cocoons; and
the long sleep of the chrysalis, or aurelia, as the slumberer inside the
cocoon is sometimes called. And last of all is the moth that comes out
of the cocoon--when we will let it--and lays hundreds of eggs for future
crops of silkworms. What a short, hard-working life it is!"

"They are funny creatures anyway," observed Pierre thoughtfully. "They
don't seem to want to do any of the things other animals do. Silkworms
never crawl about as most caterpillars would. Shouldn't you think that
after they were hatched they would like to see where they were and would
go crawling all round the room?"

"You would think so," replied Josef. "But they don't. They seem to have
no wish to move. Perhaps they realize that all their strength must be
saved for eating and spinning. Now and then, of course, if they do not
find food near at hand when they are first hatched they will