Jan 16.-Mr. Downy was eating suet to-day and drove his beak into it in such a manner that he got as much on the outside as he did on the inside, and this disturbed him. He thrust out his long tongue and drew what he could inside, and then tried to rub his beak clean on a twig, but not till he began to pick a hole in the bark of the twig did he succeed in getting his beak clean. Though the wind has blown quite severely the snow is not yet all dislodged from the pines. Jan 17.-One great branch of scarlet oak has retained most of its russet leaves. It makes a brown spot in the white and gray - landscape. I discovered to-day that Sir Hairy has his red cap. parted with a black line. As he sits eating his suet, the wind. blows up his feathers and I can see how long and soft and warm they are. A woodpecker sitting on a limb is a squat looking creature. Jan. 19. It was 22 below zero last night and I look at the world through a beauteous lace curtain of frost all worked in one pattern. I spoil the pattern with alcohol to make a peep-hole and am rewarded by seeing a blue jay eating suet in front of me. The sun glinting on the metallic blue of his topknot, his wing primaries, and his tail make him a beautiful object. That tail is a wonderful one, it seems to me. He drives his beak into the suet like a woodpecker, and though he hammers hard, his beak goes in just far enough. Jan. 20. The first thing I saw was the blue jay eating suet. I had to smile to see him pry it up, he acts as if he were chopping wood. He stands on top of it, stretches back on his toes, and brings his head and beak down hard and consecutively until he loosens a piece. Jan. 21. The blue jay is a great bully and has bad manners. He will not let Mrs. Blue Jay eat until he is full to bursting, and both of them drive away the little birds. The blue jay has heaven on his wings and hell in his disposition. Jan. 23. Some winter days are mighty disagreeable and this is one. We had sleet this morning and fine snow now that has a mind to change to rain. The whole sky and earth are snowy; even the birds seem discouraged and the chickadees fluff up their feathers and do not sing a note. Jan. 25. Such a thick window that I can not see off a space it is soon layer which forms a specoutside through exquisite frost curtain on my double through it! When I clean covered again with a frost trum and I see the world rainbow colors. Afternoon. The sunshine is warmer and brighter and the nuthatches call in polysyllables instead of monosyllables. Jan. 26-A cold day full of snow flurries and rather dreary. I think the blue jays have estranged me more or less from the other birds. They are like some people I have met-the more they are with you, the more other folks aren't. Jan. 30. It has been warmer today though still wintry, but the nuthatches think spring has come. They repeat their notes over and over, and one, probably the male, struts on the tree trunk, his tail spread like a little turkey cock, showing his white feathers. The chickadees sing "phoebe" too, and give their singing yodle. Jan. 31. Another cold wave has been billowing toward us all day, yet I heard the chickadees sing "phoebe" and yodle too, and we heard a Hairy drum and saw him at it. He is surely crowding the season. THE FEBRUARY HUSH Snow o'er the darkening moorlands; Flakes fill the quiet air; Drifts in the forest hollows And a soft mask everywhere. The nearest twig on the pine tree Looks blue through the whitening sky, And the clinging beech-leaves rustle Though never a wind goes by But there's red on the wild rose berries On the cheeks of the child beside me That once were pale as snow. -Thomas Wentworth Higginson. JOHN WALTON SPENCER A bit of sage advice from the unpublished MS. of "Uncle John" In some respects children and bicycles have the same characteristics. Keep them moving and they are all right; check them and they wabble; stop them and they fall down. If you would do a kindness to a child, keep it busy. Blessed be the name of the mother who invented the rattle box. It gives the baby its first employment and happy moments. The best helping hand you can give any and every child is Occupation and Appreciation: two simple things but to be effective, they must be given in a simple way-in a way which the child likes and not in a way which you think the child ought to like. It has as much right to its own way as you have to yours. A child can be led to find as much pleasure in an occupation with utilitarian ends as in one of thrashing the air. When small they never tire of playing with the sand. Good garden soil is just as acceptable. With the soil give some quick germinating seed. Then join with the youngster in the surprise and happiness of having given birth to a plant. No matter if the plant does not reach maturity, you have helped to make the first step in plant growth a pleasure and with it will come the desire to try again. Let the child adopt largely its own methods while you see that the course lies in the right direction. Do not discourage him with a lot of dont's. Government by the negative is the method of the superficial and the lazy. Once upon a time there was a fond mother who no doubt had the best interests of her child at heart but she had the "don't method," thoroughly in her nature. From the child's earliest recollection, he had heard but little else than "Johnny mustn't touch it." When the little fellow first went to school, the teacher said, "Now my little man, can you tell me your name?" The child, embarrassed by the newness of the scenes about him was slow to answer and the teacher repeated the inquiry. Still no answer. So the inquiry was given a variation. "Tell me what your mamma calls you." "Johnny mustn't touch it," came the murmured reply. I leave the question to you mothers and you teachers if Johnnie would not have been happier and had greater development if he had been provided with a lot of things to do than to have suffered deprivation and been made to look prim. Though early results may be somewhat slattern, praise the effort which produced them and the child will be encouraged to try again. Remember the child's first footsteps. You were proud of the attempt and encouraged frequent repetition until at last the firm and confident step was acquired. After providing occupation and stimulation by your approach, next incite wonder. Nothing can be more true than, “Knowledge begins with Wonder." By wonder, I mean a keen, active interest. You then have a hungry mind and a hungry mind is easily fed with information that is fully digested. Children and a comparatively large number of grown people have no relish for acquiring facts for some future use. They do not care to put knowledge into cold storage in the expectation of some coming time when it may be handy to have. If you have some mental wares you wish them to take off your hands, create a problem where those people can use your facts and your goods will be in demand. I lately read an account of an American shoe merchant or manufacturer who wrote our Consul in a tropical town to know if there were many shoe stores in the town where he represented American interest. The Consul wrote back "Not a blessed shoe store in the whole town." He omitted to add that the natives had been barefoot since a thousand years before Columbus discovered this America. The enterprising Yankee sent a large consignment and an agent to dispose of them. The agent, on his arrival, was not long in seeing that the reason no shoes were sold was because the population did not feel the need of them. The agent, instead of shipping the stock back from whence it came, sent a cablegram ordering a hundred bales of cockleburs to be shipped by the next steamer. On arrival, those cockleburs were clandestinely scattered in places where the bare feet trod the most, with the result that the burrs sown not only tortured the pedestrians but grew a crop to continue the misery. Then for the first time, the natives felt the need of shoes and the Yankee established a fine trade. A desire for knowledge can be created after the same method. In these three things, occupation, sympathy and wonder, you have the development of learning by doing. By ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK A suggestion as to a method of teaching history in connection with the life of a tree. I am so old that I have forgotten the number of my years, but I was a middle aged tree before I ever saw a white man. I remember when I was one of twin seeds under a scale of a cone on my mother tree which stood yonder on the hill. One night a terrible wind blew down the lake and tore me from my protecting cone; but I had a little wing of my own and I went whirling around in great glee and finally settled to the ground under an old oak that stood over yonder. My bed was of leaves and very thick, and though I was safe and cosy, I feared I could never send my rootlet down to the earth through those dead leaves. And there I waited and wondered a whole year until one day a black bear came there hunting acorns. He scratched away the leaves with his great paws and though his visit was rather hard on the acorns, to me he was very kind for he threw me down next to the bare earth and pressed me down with great flat feet. So when spring came I nestled into the warm soil and put a little root down so far as I could push it, and then I pushed my head up with my seed cap still on. But I wriggled and shook it off and soon stood up with my tassel of needles free and with a little bud in the center that would reach up into the world. Those first years were full of difficulties. There were around me many other plants that grew faster than I and spread their leaves above me and stole my sunlight. But I was a patient little tree and waited, and when they died with the first frosts of autumn I had all the light to myself and made the most of it. I stretched out my rootlets as far as possible and next year I was not so crowded. Later the great trees tried to crowd me out and shade me down but I would not give up. Once when I was quite young, some red men built a camp fire close to me and if the wind had not |