those little wings! What a play of little tongues! It's, "How is this?" "Why is that?" "What makes this do that?" all day long.

After the period of babyhood and early childhood, the growth of our minds the increase of information, the development of the powers of memory, imagination, invention, reasoning, and so on-is left largely in our hands. Nature, having given us such a good start, seems to say:

"Now my son, my daughter, I have endowed you with a fortune and shown you how to use it-you must do the rest."

Not even the schools, nor our fathers and mothers, nor anybody, can help us much after that unless we help ourselves. The very using of our brains keeps them young, while the rest of the body may be showing the advance of age. People who don't use their brains become "set in their ways," to use a common expression, and they grow old before their time. But the brains of people who go on thinking, learning-always remaining alive and interested in the living worldremain young. "Interest," says an eminent physician, "has a remarkable power of resisting bodily exhaustion." You know what a big day's work you can put in on the football or baseball field and still feel fresh after a little rest and a bath-all because you 're intensely interested. It's so in the game of life. Of Gladstone it was said that to the last his mind was twenty years younger than his body. And so with all such men. Their interest in life and life's duties and privileges instead of decreasing, increases with the years.

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made. That's the way Browning puts it. There is the biggest difference in the world between working because you have to and working because you want to. It's not only a thousand times more agreeable to be interested in your work in school, or in the larger school we call life, but interest increases efficiency, and increases it enormously. You can not only do twice as much if you put enthusiasm-"pep"-into what you are doing, but you can do things you could n't otherwise do at all. This principle seems to run through inanimate as well as animate nature. As the men of science put it,"The transportation power of a stream varies as the sixth power of its velocity." In other words, when the velocity of a stream is doubled, its power is sixty-four times as

great as it was before-two multiplied by itself five times!

"Work," I know, is n't a very popular word with many who think of it as "the daily grind"; but whether it's pleasant or not depends on whether it's work of your own choosing, work really suited to your tastes and talent-so many drop into this or that from mere accident or whim. But assuming that you have chosen wisely, or, in your school-days, have the proper attitude toward your studies,-for these are a general preparation for whatever you do in life,you 're sure of a good time with yourself if you put interest into what you are doing.

The Greeks, great people that they were, were so impressed with the wonder, the delight, or the thing we call "enthusiasm❞ that they thought it was caused by the spirit of some god entering into your body along with your "every-day" spirit. Indeed, our word "enthusiasm" is from the Greek "enthusiasmos," which means, "possessed by a god."

Stevenson, speaking of his own work, said that writing is poorly paid, as compared with the money rewards of industry in commercial pursuits. "But," he added, "any one who has experienced its delights might well wonder why it is paid at all. Fortunes are daily spent for less."

So much as to keeping the mind young and growing, in the sense of developing, all our lives, and our big mistake if we think we can have half as much fun doing anything else.

As to the relation between the size of the brain and the character of the mind, there is a popular notion that big brains and big minds go together, but the size does n't seem to matter. It 's only necessary that you have a good healthy place for the mind to live in and that you do your part. Then Nature will do the rest. While large brains and mental power go together to some extent "the exceptions," as a great English judge once said of the cases bearing on a certain point of law,"well nigh eat up the rule." Wagner, the great composer, had an immense head-600 millimeters in circumference. Napoleon, who almost overturned the world, had a head of only 564. Darwin, who actually did turn the world upside down, so far as the scientific views of it were concerned, had only a 563 millimeter brain.

When Lincoln was asked how long a man's legs ought to be, in proportion to his body, he replied dryly:

"Oh, I should say they ought always to be long enough to reach the ground."

"AND yet-" Pud Randall's voice expressed the disgust he felt,-"and yet, fellows, they' don't permit hazing!" The others nodded, sympathetically. "They let a thing like that come in, and then absolutely refuse to let us show him his place!".

"It is tough," agreed Paddy Dugan. "But what are we going to do? If they did n't put us on our honor-dog-gone it! If we just knew we 'd get a whaling if we did, it would be worth it to take him down a peg or two." He broke off and for a few minutes remained deep in thought, his lips twitching with fun. The others waited hopefully.

The three friends were gathered in the room shared by Pud and Paddy. Bob Randall, known as Pud, was sunk deep into his Morris chair by the window; Paddy Dugan, so nicknamed because of the nationality of the last half of his name, leaned against the wall by the window. The third, Bert Evans, for some unknown reason called Scratchy, was stretched out on the windowseat. They were a good-looking crowd, all about seventeen, all lively and full of fun, fond of sport, with all a boy's contempt for a boy that was inclined to be a student rather than an athlete.

And that is just what the new boy seemed to be. The fact that he was named Wilberforce Winters and was the only son of a missionary in Japan filled the boys with a mixture of curiosity and contempt. However, they were prepared to like him if he was their type, Pud having remarked wisely that he knew a minister's son that was the leader of the worst gang of boys in his home town. But the new-comer was worse than their worst dreams had painted him.

He was tall and slender, with delicate features as clean-cut and fine as a girl's, and he had a peculiar, dog-trot of a walk that made his legs appear even longer than they were, while his arms hung loosely from the shoulders like those of a jointed doll.

Add

don't pretend to be goody-goody, but when I'm asked, in the nice way Mr. Granger has, not to do a thing, and then he does n't watch to see if I do it or not, but takes it for granted that I won't-why-why-I just can't do it, that's all!"

They agreed again. Still, their thoughts went back to the way Wilberforce had impressed them as he met them at the station and asked them if they could "direct him to the Mill Brook School or advise him if there was some conveyance that would transport him to that place."

"The poor stew!" murmured Pud. "Do you know, Paddy, when I saw him I thought, does n't he look just like a kangaroo?"

"A kangaroo?" laughed Paddy. "Why a kangaroo, and where have you seen one?" "A kangaroo, my son, because he is so tall and loose jointed, and because of the way his arms flop when he walks. And I have seen a kangaroo in the zoo. Not living in the backwoods-" Paddy came from Montana and Pud from Philadelphia, so that the remark might be considered a goodnatured slam for the former,—“not living in the backwoods, I do meet other animals besides those that are natives of this country."

Scratchy chuckled. "Don't compare your friends to animals, Pud. I know three myself that have general outlines resembling yours. If you throw that cushion and it goes out the window, you 'll go out after it."

"If I were n't so comfortable," threatened Pud, "I'd throw it if I wanted to, and we 'd see who 'd go after it. Wonder if he 's coming out for football?"

"No," said Scratchy, "he says he does n't understand the game. I think he must be some kind of a nut-"

Paddy interrupted with a shout of laughter. "Excuse my unseemly mirth," he gasped; "I thought of something."

"Think outside if that 's the way it affects you," suggested Pud, sweetly.

see that he was hurt, he kept a little aloof from them, mixing with them in their trips to the athletic-field to watch practice, and on their afternoon hikes, but never presuming to begin a conversation with any one. Toward the middle

of December, after the school had settled down following the Thanksgiving vacation and the end of the football season, a letter came for Wilberforce which changed his whole outlook on the school. Perhaps his father had an idea that he would meet with just such treatment, for his letter stiffened the boy's backbone and made him sit thoughtfully for a few moments, staring into space.

Suddenly he sat up and looked around him at the boys who were busily preparing the next day's lessons in the big old library. Over in one corner, Pud Randall was having his daily tussle with Cicero, tugging at his hair with both hands as though by pulling some of it out by the roots he would let some light in.

The kangaroo rose and went to him, dropping into a vacant chair by his side. "Don't do that," he laughed. "You'll want that hair when you grow old! Can I help you?" Pud looked up, and his face flushed a dull red. He hesitated. "Hang it all!" he burst out. "If I don't pass this test to-morrow, I fail for the quarter; and I can't do the stuff. I don't even know what the guy 's talking about; and I have a suspicion that he does n't know himself."

Pud assented, and before long they were going ahead at a great rate. The kangaroo had a droll sort of humor, and Pud was noted for his strikingly original translations, so that they were soon chuckling together,

"Maybe not. I have n't done mine yet. Let's do it together?"

and Pud decided he was n't such a bad fellow after all.

As they were going upstairs that night, the kangaroo stopped Pud. "If you 'd care to come up to my room some time, I 'd be glad to help you prepare for that testif I can "