ROME, ITALY. DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: Last summer, in the Tyrol, going through the fields I often used to see rows and rows

FORE PART OF A MOLE'S BODY.

(Shows the pointed head for pushing through the soil, and the sharp claws and broad paws for digging.)

of dead moles lying there with their tails cut off. I always felt very sorry for the moles, and wondered why they were killed and also where their tails had gone. I also noticed that in pretty nearly every field there were traps. On inquiring, I was told that the Austrian government had offered a certain sum of money to any peasant who should kill a certain number of moles and bring their tails. I asked a good many people if it was true that the moles injured the crops, but people differed in their opinions; so I thought that I just would ask ST. NICHOLAS about it, as there I am sure to get the true answer. Your interested reader,

LAURA ASTOR CHANLER (age 13).

The favorite food of moles is worms and ground insects, but it is claimed, on good authority, that they also eat garden vegetables and almost any soft root. In some Western States the boys claim that the moles eat the seed-corn while it is soft and sprouting in May. On the whole, I think we must admit that moles are a nuisance. They surely are nuisances if only because of the ridges they make across the lawns from the earth pushed up to make the tunnels a few inches below the surface.

USES OF PUFFBALLS.

THE ARLINGTON, BETHLEHEM, N. H. DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I like ST. NICHOLAS very much. I am thirteen years old. Every spring I watch the birds. My sister, a friend, and myself have a place on the edge of the woods we call the "Cove." It is a lovely place, and just like a fairy's court. We each have special places, and I think mine is the best. It is a rock covered with moss, and back of it I have planted violets and adder-tongues. There is a tree on the right side of it, and on my friend's side there is a dead tree which has fallen over on to my tree.

In the ST. NICHOLAS there was an article about puffballs. I always called them "smokeballs "; but it makes no difference. Well, I must tell you that you ought to have added that when you cut yourself, break open a smokeball, and put the inside over the cut; it will stop the bleeding. We always have some in the house. They are generally found in damp ground. Your new friend,

EMMA ISABELL ABBE.

Shake the spores from a puffball on the water in a tumbler, and then put your finger down,

even to the bottom of the tumbler. If carefully done your finger will not be wet. The coating of spores on your finger has the effect of a waterproof plaster. This quality of the spores makes them serviceable in stanching the flow of blood from a wound. Hold a puffball several minutes under water, and then see if the spores are still dry and will puff out in the smoke form. Of what advantage is it to the puffball to have the spores not easily affected by water? Who will send us an answer?

THE PUFFBALL SPORES PREVENT THE WATER FROM WETTING THE FINGER.

and Thanksgiving have passed into history. and holidays are far

enough behind to become only pleasant memories, and in the midst of blast and blizzard and bleak far-lying suns we begin to picture green hillsides and to dream of pleasant lanes. Yet it is good to buffet the head wind and the snow. It makes the blood tingle and the muscles throb with renewed life. It is good to hear the crackle of the open fire when night gathers along the fields. There is so much happiness in every season, if we will only take a little time to realize it as we go along, and not live only in anticipation of joy to come, or in regretting the half-valued days that will not be lived over. Let us prize brief, stormy little February-she has done so much for us all.

tion leaflet, which are sent free.

Remember that to belong to the League or to a League chapter, it is only necessary to be regular readers of the League department, and interested in the League aims and work; and that all who wish to take part in a League chapter entertainment are eligible to membership. Remember also that some of the most profitable entertainments given by chapters heretofore have been given in small towns, and that city chapters have no advantage either in the matter of talent or in obtaining appreciative and profitable audiences. Wherever there is a school there is a field for a chapter and chapter work. On the last League page will be found the prize offer and the rules for this new competition. Those desiring to take part should begin without delay. There is no time to lose.

PRIZE-WINNERS, COMPETITION No. 26.

IN making the awards contributors' ages are considered.

VERSE. Cash prize, Grace Reynolds Douglas (age 11), 240 S. River St., Wilkes Barre, Pa.

Gold badge, Margaret Clemens (age 13), Charles City, Ia.

Silver badges, Edwina L. Pope (age 16), 5218 Hibbard Ave., Chicago, Ill., and Sidonia Deutsch (age 15), 231 E. 122d St., N. Y. City.

PROSE. Gold badges, Ruth Donaldson (age 16), Dalton, Ga., and Meta N. Walther (age 14), 236 E. 76th St., N. Y. City.

Silver badges, Hilda B. Morris (age 13), 611 Spring St., Michigan City, Ind., and Ralph Blackledge (age 9), Caney, Kan.

DRAWING. Cash prize, Gustavus E. R. Michelson (age 16), 301 Massachusetts Ave., Arlington, Mass.

Gold badges, Yvonne Jequier (age 16), Faubourg du Cret 5, Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and Louise Slot van Oldruitenborgh (age 15), 33 Rue d'Arches, Liège, Belgium.

Silver badges, Bessie Barnes (age 17), 60 Bury Old Road, Cheetham Hill, Manchester, England, and Rhoda Elizabeth Gunnison (age 12), Scarborough, Me.

PHOTOGRAPHY. Gold badge, Katherine Romeyn Varick (age 14), Park Hill, Yonkers, N. Y.

Silver badges, Michael Heidelberger (age 13), 51 E. 90th St., N. Y. City, and Margaret Wright (age 11), 1805 Walnut St., Philadelphia, Pa.

WILD-ANIMAL PHOTOGRAPHY. First prize, "Young King-birds," by Dunton Hamlin (age 13), Orono, Me. Second prize, "Possum," by Thomas R. Pooley, Jr. (age 15), 107 Madison Ave., N. Y. City. Third prize, "Wild Ducks," by Mary H. Cunningham (age 13), Field Point Road, Greenwich, Conn.

PUZZLE-MAKING. Gold badge, Reginald Cain-Bartels (age 17), Box 558, St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada. Silver badges, Edward W. Hills (age 16), 1610 John St., Baltimore, Md., and Harold Hering (age 9), 416 Mosher St., Baltimore, Md.

PUZZLE-ANSWERS. Gold badge, Edward Sargent Steinbach, 27 Reynolds Terrace, Orange, N. J.

Silver badges, Agnes Cole (age 13), 582 Pennsylvania Ave., Elizabeth, N. J., and Samuel P. Haldenstein (age 12), 206 W. 132d St., N. Y. City.

Three drawing prizes this month go to League members on the other side of the Atlantic-one to Switzerland, one to Belgium, and one to England. Our young American artists will have to work and think hard to hold their own. American illustration stands at the head to-day. Are we going to keep it there?

(GOLD BADGE.)

BY KATHERINE ROMEYN VARICK, AGE 14.
THE GARDEN AT MOUNT VERNON.
BY GRACE REYNOLDS DOUGLAS (AGE 11).
(Cash Prize.)

I KNOW a quaint old garden
With boxwood bordered round;
And memories most precious
Hang o'er this sacred ground.

In sunshine and in shadow,
For fivescore years and more,
The lilacs and the roses

Have strewn their petals o'er.

The tall and stately lilies

Still scent the summer air,
While hollyhocks and poppies
Are growing everywhere.
Outside the whitewashed palings
The great trees hold their sway;
Beyond, the broad Potomac

Flows, singing on its way.
Bloom on, dear, quaint old garden!
Bloom on till time is done!

In mem'ry of our hero,

Our loved George Washington.

WHEN GRANDMA WENT TO SCHOOL.

BY RUTH DONALDSON (AGE 16).
(Gold Badge.)

SALLY was only four years old, but, like all little girls of her time, she went to school. Now, a school in those days was not like schools are now, for this was in the forties. This school-house was built of logs, with square places cut in them for windows, and the windows had no glass in them-not even paper. The chimney was built of logs and mortar. The interior was very rudely furnished with only the teacher's desk, and benches that reached across the room for the scholars. These benches were minus backs, and had no desks in front of them as we have now. Sally's feet did not touch the floor, and of course sometimes she would get very tired, with nothing to lean against and her little feet dangling down with nothing to rest on. Now, Sally sat right by a window, and she thought the motion of the trees, as the

her lessons.