Here is a word for those who are always planning what great things they will do—­who think so much about doing that no time is left for the doing: 

“The end of man is an action, and not a thought, though it were the noblest.”

Now, for our final crumb, comes a well-clothed thought that I like better than quarreling Indians or familiar wonders.  It is the reason why selfish people are never really happy.  Carlyle thinks they have only themselves to blame, for he says: 

“Always there is a black spot in our sunshine; it is even, as I said, the shadow of ourselves.”

[Illustration:  “JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT.”]

JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT.

Hurrah for June!—­bright, rosy June!  “Joy rises in me like a summer’s morn!” as one of those pleasant people, the poets, has said.

Let everybody be glad!  But most of all, you, my youngsters!  The month properly belongs to you.  Don’t I know?  Wasn’t it set apart by Romulus, ages and ages ago, especially for the young people, or “Juniores,” as they then were called?  And hasn’t their name stuck to it ever since?  Yes, indeed!  So, be as merry as you can, my chicks; but, with all your fun and frolic, be thankful, and make June weather all about you.  June time—­any time—­is full of joy when hearts, brimming over with thankfulness, carry cheer to other hearts, making

  “A noise like of a hidden brook
     In the leafy month of June,
  That to the sleeping woods all night
     Singeth a quiet tune,”—­

like the little stream that bubbles by the foot of our meadow.

Now to business.  First comes a letter about

    A ROPE OF EGGS.

    Brooklyn, N.Y.

My Dear Jack-in-the-Pulpit:  I know about a rope of eggs, and I will tell you.  It is in Japan.  The eggs are plaited and twisted into ropes made from straw, and so it is safe and easy to handle them.  Just think how queer it would seem to buy eggs by the yard!

    AMY M.

CONVERSATION BY FISTICUFFS.

After being flurried by clouds of paragrams about sphygmographs, and phonographs, and pneumatic telegraphs, and scores of other extraordinary scientific ways of communication, I’m not in the least surprised to learn that ants converse by one tapping another’s head.

I’m told that an Englishman named Jesse once put a small caterpillar near an ants’ nest, and watched.  Soon an ant seized it; but the caterpillar was too heavy to be moved by one ant alone, so away he ran until he met another ant.  They stopped for a few moments, during which each tapped the other’s head with his feelers in a very lively manner.  Then they both hurried off to the caterpillar, and together dragged it home.

    A HORSE THAT LOVED TEA.

    Roxbury, Mass.