Dragons, Wagons & Wax

Tom has a question: Whouldn't it be fun to have a live lion cub in the house? Linda warns what live animals do: they grow, move around, and eat. But living things are interesting.

A boy visits Tom and Linda with a couple of puppies. He learns every age has its good side, as illustrated in a story about growing. Tom shows his egg collection.

Linda is surprised looking at her stamps. One of them is apparently from ""Varietyville."" This segues into the story Alice in Varietyville. In it, Alice discovers that different animals have noses, tails, eyes and feet adapted specifically for them.

Robbie and Gary walk into the patio to look for a turtle called Timothy. Tom shows the turtle is camouflaged. It leads him to tell a Barney and Pete story. Pete bumps into all sorts of camouflaged animals on an island, but Barney knows better.

Tom has a mechanism designed to take a book off the shelves. Each part relies on the other for the gadget to work. It's the beginning of a long succession of examples in nature on living things depending on other living things.

A story of silly people who tries to evict animals from their town, is not the only example of how people depend on plants and animals. Linda relates her adventure as a grocery store cashier. She tells one customer that everything he buys, comes from plants and/or animals.

Linda tells a story about the Three Princes of Serendip (later Sri Lanka). Asked if they had seen a lost camel, they reveal the signs they had witnessed. The signs told the three brothers that the camel had a gap in his teeth, one lame leg, and was blind in one eye. Then Linda sheds light on fossils.

What's the matter with Tom? While Linda is trying to clean up a room, asking what things are, Tom answers ""matter"" each time. Tom shares a Barney and Pete story, in which Pete gets a lesson about three of the states of matter.

Tom has a surprise in a box. Instead of three guesses, he gives Linda ""Four S's."" That leads to a fairy tale about a troll and a girl who wants a box. To earn that box, the girl must guess the four properties of matter, all beginning with S. But that's only solids. Liquids, the troll hints, have two S's and a P.

Tom accidentally tips a box of tiles intended for a table top. He and Linda decide to arrange the tiles by shape to make things easier. But objects can be classified in different ways.

Tom asks Linda for ""a handful of raisins"" to add to his bread mix. It tells both how important it is to measure accurately with standard units of measure.

Bored Tom and Linda decide they need change. They envision a ""Change Shop,"" detailing physical and chemical changes that may or may not be changed back.

While straining to move a telephone booth, Linda takes a strange call. She dreams of Alice in Pushpullville. In the story, Alice is surrounded by ""push me"" and ""pull me"" signs. She learns that matter cannot move by itself, only when it is pushed or pulled.

The song Six Simple Machines introduces this program and the next two. In this episode, another Barney and Pete story details the lever and the inclined plane. This time Barney gives Pete advice on how to lift a treasure chest out of sand.

Linda tells Tom all he needs to build a house is a tree and a few wedges. Then she hints to how important the screw is.

Tom and Linda have been moving furniture, exhausting themselves to some extent. Next time, they agreed, they'll make use if wheels and axles. This is much better than the ""roller"" idea of centuries gone by. Twice Tom and Linda think of a little girl trying to move a hippopotamus. Pulleys are introduced in the last of these hippo stories.