What power there is in a gentle word.  Kind actions, too, are opposed to anger; the good will drive out the bad.

“Do your duty as if you enjoyed it.”

—­Selected.

Why should soldiers be rather tired on the first of April?

Because they have just had a march of thirty-one days.

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| Knowledge Box |
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Strange Little Duckbill.

If you lived in Australia, you would hear the natives call the little duckbill by three different names—­Tambreet, or Tohunbuck, or Mallangong.  Are they not queer-sounding names?

But the little duckbill is a queer animal, too.  Its mouth looks like a duck’s bill.  Some people name it the Water Mole, because its fur looks like the mole’s coat, and because it is fond of the water.

When dogs first see Master Duckbill, they watch him waddle along in his funny, awkward way and bark at him, but they will not touch him.  When cats first see this queer creature, they scamper quickly out of sight.

Master Duckbill is a skillful burrower and makes long tunnels in the earth with his strong claws.  His round body is thickly covered, first, with woolly fur and then with long hairs.  A leathery hanging protects his round eyes from the earth in which he burrows.

Being fond of the water, he always builds near a stream—­usually by some quiet pond or the still, wide part of a river.  He makes two doorways.  One he reaches by land; the other, by diving into the water.  The land door is always carefully hidden under weeds or bending plants, so that no stranger can find it.  Yet, often you can see the footprints of this little worker in the wet soil.

To look at Master Duckbill, you would not think he is so active:  and he is so strong that you could not hold him in your hands.  He is a wonderful climber; so that, if you had him in your house, you would soon see him running up your bookshelves or clambering along some other piece of furniture.  He would put his back against the wall, his feet against the bookcase, and thus he would travel upward to the top.  Sometimes boys try to climb up a barn that way.

When Master Duckbill is swimming, he looks like the bunches of weeds floating in the water.  But he cannot stay there too long, for he grows very tired trying to float.  He will leave the water and travel through his curving hallway till he comes to the end where his nest is.  There, resting on a soft bed of grasses and dry weeds, he finds his two baby duckbills.  They are only ten inches long, but Master Duckbill is proud of them.  And well he might be.  Do you not think so?

—­Written for Dew Drops by Susanne C. Umlauf.

GOOD-NIGHT