it has the cross-piece at the top, and so is more easily thrust into the ground without hurting the hand. Saw it off to a length of ten or twelve inches, then sharpen the lower end into a long, slim point, just like a long, slim, huge lead-pencil point-and there you are. Just how to use it you will find out later, when some of the seeds that you will sow shall have made plants and be ready for moving.

Last summer, you learned what a float is, and how to make and use one. Be sure and include it, for it is greatly needed at sowing time. These sixteen things are a really businesslike and complete gardener's equipment-seven tools and nine incidentals-and every one of them will be used in the course of a season many, many times. So you must arrange to give them proper care, and housing that is suitable and convenient.

All the tools should hang upon a wall-space in the cellar or an outer storage room, or wherever you may be able to have them, in a dry place; the long stakes must be kept in a bundle, tied at top and bottom; and all the other things should have a shelf, or table, for the baskets or other receptacles which they occupy to stand upon. Arrange the tools in the best order and relation to each other, in hanging, and then always put each one on its proper nail, every time when you are through with it. Have one basket for short stakes, garden line, pencil, small labels, raffia (or the ball of torn cloth which may take the place of this for tying plants up to their stakes)-a common market-basket answers nicely-and have another basket just like it, or a little smaller, for seeds. Divide this into two sections by lacing tape across the middle of it-or else use a small basket to stand in it, to provide the section for seed packets that have not been opened. Always make sure that you put the packets from which you have planted into the space reserved for them; and always mark the date of planting on each packet, when you sow seed from it. The sprayer and the powder-gun will go on the shelf or table, of course; and here also the materials for sprays are to stand, except those that are poisonous and so must be taken care of for you, very carefully, by some one grown up and careful enough to handle such dangerous things as they should be handled. We shall not use many such, but once in a while there is need for one or two which grown-ups only must apply.

You can sow now indoors, if you like, many kinds of seed, to have the little plants ready to put out when garden-making days come. I put them into flat cigar-boxes, which make very good little seed-beds, I assure you, and are delightfully light and easy to handle. Sift the earth through a wire basket such as the cook uses sometimes, to lower things into boiling water or fat, and then use some of the screenings to make a layer over the bottom of the box, before putting the earth in. This is for drainage, and to keep the soil light. Sometimes it is well to mix the screenings with some coal ashes, to be quite sure that no water can linger in the earth above and make it soggy.

When you get the earth ready, water the little box very thoroughly, and then sprinkle a sifting of earth over this moistened soil, and sow the seeds on that, covering them to twice their depth only, instead of three times, as you do out of doors. This is because you are going to be able to watch them more closely, and keep just the right degree of moisture in the soil all the time-which you cannot be sure of doing out of doors. So we put them deeper there, to be sure they do not dry out from above, between waterings. The wind and the air dry them, you see, much faster than we imagine.

After the seeds are sown, cover the surface of the earth with a layer of cotton batting, and keep this moist until the seeds come up. This is much better than a pane of glass, I think, for it does not shut the air away from them, as the glass does.

If you want to raise a very interesting and delightful plant that will last from year to year, once it gets started in your garden-the kind that plant people and gardeners call a perennial-I should get this same Aquilegia that we have been learning about, if I were you. It is easy to raise from seed-oh, such a tiny seed!-and it will grow almost anywhere you put it, especially in shady spots where other things will not. The blue ones are lovely, but somehow to me the gorgeous scarlet and gold are more pleasing, especially in shade. That, of course, is only because I happen to like them better; perhaps you would not. Why not get several kinds, and raise some of each, and see for yourself which you think is the prettiest-and be sure to learn who is who among them, please!

WHEN Some one tells you a funny story, your face wrinkles with laughter. At a sad story, your face wrinkles in weeping. Smiles and tears are such commonplaces that we never give a thought as to how or why we laugh or cry. Yet the ability thus to express emotions is one of the most wonderful faculties in our physical make-up. Upon the manner in which we make use of this gift may depend in large measure our success or failure in life.

How do you smile? You had to learn to walk and to throw a ball. You have never consciously learned to smile, and yet, when you feel happy, you smile without effort. How do you do it?

Years ago, Sir Charles Bell and Charles Darwin, the great scientists, found that, in addition to the muscles used in walking or ball-throwing, we have sets of face muscles to produce expression. Some of these muscles make us look sad, some happy, and so on.

Every time a set of these face muscles is used, the face assumes some expression. Try it and see. When you exert your muscles to smile, your face looks pleasant. When you use your muscles to frown, your face is unpleasant. You cannot exert any face muscle without producing an expression on your face.

The muscles you use most will naturally become the strongest. And the strongest muscles will determine the habitual expression of the face. To be sure, you cannot make your nose longer or your ears shorter. But if your face is unpleasant, you can make it agreeable by altering the expression. If you use your smiling muscles most, your face will gradually become pleasant to look upon. On the other hand, if you allow yourself habitually to think mean things, your face will reflect that meanness. The face muscles that you use most will finally determine the cast of your countenance. So you see that man is more than the maker of his destiny. He is the architect of his face.

Wonderful as this provision seems, nature has provided another rule governing expression that is more wonderful still. As we have seen, we do not consciously have to learn to use our muscles of expression. That knowledge is born in us. Even the smallest baby can laugh and cry. By this wonderful provision of nature, the brain is so intimately associated with the muscles of expression that they react upon one another involuntarily. A certain frame of mind inevitably produces a certain facial expression. Test this before a mirror. Try to feel happy, and see how

pleasant your face looks. Try to feel cross, and see how disagreeable your face becomes.

Conversely, a certain expression of the face will produce a corresponding frame of mind. Try this too. Smile, and right away you feel pleasant. Frown and look ugly, and immediately you feel mean and disagreeable. When actors want to simulate any emotion, they exert the muscles that express that emotion, and straightway they feel the desired emotion. You see the mind and the facial muscles always act alike. You cannot continue to laugh and smile without soon beginning to feel happy. You cannot feel worried and disagreeable without making your face very unpleasant to see.

If you stop to think about this for a moment, you see what a tremendously important thing it is. Just as surely as you have a face, the story of your life will be written on that face. If you are mean and crabbed and disagreeable, your face will settle into a disagreeable expression, and everybody will avoid you. If your disposition is sunny and kind and gracious, your face will beam with goodness, and everybody will know at a glance that you are lovable. And the older you grow the more distinctly your face will tell the story.

When you go out into the world to earn your living, the first thing that people will ask is this: What kind of a boy is he? Or what kind of a girl is she? Under our present industrial system the employer has to teach young persons their trade after he hires them. So he is more interested in the applicant's character than in his present ability. And the character he will learn from the face.

It is just as the director of the employment bureau of a great department store said to me: "We base our choice largely on the applicant's looks. To be sure, the faces of boys and girls are not deeply marked. Many applicants have only begun to outline on the blank page of their cheek the picture that will eventually appear there. But even a sketch tells much. We know that almost inevitably a child will continue the facial development it has begun. The sullen, shiftless, don't-care kind of a face we don't want. When we see a child with a face full of courage, hope, truth, good-cheer, and kindliness, we pick that child quick. That is the sort we are after." If, then, our faces have so much to do with our future success, is n't it worth while to try to make them attractive by being attractive ourselves?

THE BIRTHDAY PICNIC

JUST as Mother Blair declared that she had "such a bright idea!" a caller came in, and it was dinner-time before Mildred had a chance to ask her what it was. And then her mother put her finger on her lip and shook her head; so Mildred knew, of course, that it was a secret, and waited till later on to hear what it was.

"Now I will tell you all about it," Mother Blair said, after she had read Brownie a fairy story and tucked her up for the night. "Jack, you can hear, too, and Father, if he wants to." So they all drew up around the fire to listen.

"You remember how much Brownie loved the picnics we had last summer," she began. "She used to say that she would rather eat plain bread and butter out of doors than ice-cream in the dining-room; and whenever we took our supper and went off for the afternoon, she was SO happy!"

"So she was," said Father Blair. "Brownie is her father's own daughter; I love picnics too."

"But, Mother, we can't have a picnic at this time of year!" exclaimed Mildred. "Just listen

OF

to the rain and snow coming down together this minute; and the slush on the sidewalk is so deep you have to wade to school."

"But this is just where my bright idea comes in! You see, next week will be Brownie's birthday, and every year since she was two, she has had some sort of a party; now this year, for a real change, I think it would be fun to have a picnic for her, a lovely in-door picnic, for ten boys and girls; and we 'll have it up in the attic!" "Is n't that just like Mother!" Jack exclaimed, laughing. "Who else in the world would ever have thought of such a thing!"

"But think what fun it will be!" Mother Blair went on, her cheeks growing pink as she explained all about it. "The attic is nice and large, and empty except for the trunks and old furniture which are tucked away around the eaves. The children will all come in their every-day clothes, and wear their coats and hats, so they won't take cold up there. And we can spread down in the middle of the open space the two old green parlor carpets, for grass; they are all worn out, but nobody will notice that. And then, Jack, you can carry up the two palms and the rubber plant, and