58 COUSIN CATHERINE’S SERVANTS.

“They do sometimes, but not always,” said Cousin
Catherine. ‘But even when they plough without horses they
cannot carry home the corn’ by steam; the baker cannot bring
the loaves round to the door in a steam engine.”

“ But why is a bee-hive here, and what are all those birds
doing up in the air?”

“Vou don’t want honey for your breakfast, then? If you
do, the bee must get it. No one else can; once, I believe, a
man did try, and it took him months to do what a bee could do
in an hour.”

“Why?” said Edith.

“Well, in the first place, the man could not fly; then he
had great clumsy fingers and tools instead of the marvellous
trunk of a bee. He soon found out that it was the bee’s place
to collect the honey, and his to eat it after.

“As to these birds, if it were not for them many a field of
corn or turnips would be wasted. That is why they are put
into the picture. When the corn is ripe they do eat some ;, that
is quite true; but then all through the winter and early spring
they go on feeding on insects which would devour five or S1X
times as much corn as the little birds do themselves. The
farmer does not think of that, or else he would be ready to
spare them a handful of the corn which they have saved for
him. . .

“There is no room to put into the picture all the other
creatures which help the corn to grow. There are earthworms,
for instance. We shouldn’t like to see one on the breakfast
table, and yet they help to get the food ready. If it were not
for the holes they make in the ground the grain would not grow
nearly so well, perhaps not at all.

“Once the sea came and washed over a piece of land,
killing all the earthworms ; afterwards that piece of land would