Think of the great families of trees, the maple, the beech, the birch, the hemlock, the spruce, the oak, and so on and on and on.  So many alike, and yet each one different.  What a world of wonders!

In the human family there are oddities, you know, and so in the tree family.

There is the whistling tree, for instance.  It grows in the West India Islands.  It bears pods with open edges, and the wind passing through them makes the whistling sound which gives the tree its name.

Then there is the cow tree, which yields a delicious creamy milk.  This tree grows in South America, and often looks like a dead tree, but if it is tapped the milk will flow out freely.  Sunrise is “milking time,” when the natives come with their jugs and fill them with the sweet, nourishing fluid.—­Selected.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

TWENTY VALENTINES

By Marion Mallette Thornton

“Oh,” said Millicent, watching the postman’s blue coat up the street.  “I wish he would come here day after to-morrow and bring me twenty valentines!”

“Will he, Mitty?” Jimmy-Boy asked eagerly.

Millicent shook her head. “’Course not, Jimmy-Boy.  I know only six little girls; I couldn’t get but six.”

Aunt Sara was listening.  She was Millicent’s very prettiest auntie from the city, and she nearly always found a way to help.

“How would you like to send twenty valentines?” she asked.

Millicent laughed.  “Why, auntie, I couldn’t send but six, either.  I don’t know any more girls.  Besides, I haven’t any more valentines.”

“Suppose I should show you how to make twenty valentines, and find twenty little girls to send them to; would you like, to do it?”

Millicent came running from the window with Jimmy-Boy close behind her.

“I’d love to, auntie!  Please show me right away.”

“Love to, auntie, right away,” echoed Jimmy-Boy.

“You can help,” Aunt Sara promised.  “You can bring the mucilage while Millicent gets the scissors.”

When they came back with these, Aunt Sara had a pile of gay pictures on the table, and some sheets of thick white paper.

“We will cut this into hearts,” she said, “and you can cut out these birds and flowers and paste them on.  Let’s see which can make the neatest and prettiest ones.”

Jimmy-Boy had to be helped a little in cutting out pictures, but he had learned to paste neatly at kindergarten, and his valentines were so pretty it was hard for Aunt Sara to choose between his and Millicent’s.

It was such fun making them that Millicent almost forgot about the twenty little girls they were to go to.

[Illustration:  “Let’s see who can make the neatest and prettiest ones.”]

“Who are they, auntie?” she asked when she remembered.  “Where do they live?”