. An hour
spent in the open air under shady trees in this way would draw many a
grateful heart, for there would be less crying, fewer quarrels, and a
little more peace for all around.

"In these days when strikes are so common, many opportunities for social
service offer themselves. It may be a postal strike. Now, not many of us
like to be kept waiting for our mail, and, if the postmen are not
bringing us our letters, we very soon contrive some means of getting
them. I grant it isn't a very enviable job to be standing outside a
delivery window awaiting the sorting of letters by a crew of girl guides
and boy scouts, who are not any too serious about their work. But once
the letters are secured and delivered at the neighboring homes of
friends and others, it is something done, besides the satisfaction of
being able to sit down and read your own letters as well as having the
grateful appreciation from others.

"Again, a picnic has been planned to some far away hill. The party
arrives; tiffin baskets are placed in some shady spot. One of the party
wanders away to a little village not far off. She is soon surrounded by
a group of scrubby children, who watch her with eyes full of curiosity
and wonder. She dips her hand into the bag she has been carrying and
brings out a handful of nuts and oranges, and, before sharing them with
the children, she invites them to wash their scrubby, little hands and
faces in the sparkling stream of clear, crystal water that is flowing
through the valley. She gets to talking to them, and asks about their
homes, and one little child leads her to a meagre, little, grassy hut in
which her sick sister is lying. She hasn't any medicine with her, but
she opens wide the door of the hut and lets the bright sunlight in. She
strokes the little one's feverish brow, and sets to, and fixes up the
bed and soon gets the sickroom, such as it is, clean and tidy. The
mother is touched by the gentle kindliness of the stranger and confides
her sorrows to her. Other homes are visited. People expecting the kind
visitor brush up and tidy their huts.

"So the picnic excursion ends leaving a cleaner and happier spot
nestling in among those mountainsides. Several visits are paid to the
little village. The stranger is no longer a stranger, for she is now
known and loved and is greeted by clean, happy, smiling children, and
blessed by grateful mothers. And so in the home and in the office and in
God's out-of-doors we ca