dren cannot understand. So I think we have spent on
stars fifteen dollars more than we needed to spend (but I'm glad we did
it), and I think we have had about two hundred dollars worth of fun!
Yes, when I think what young people spend on ball games, fishing,
tennis, skating, and all the other things that children love, I am sure
our family has had about two hundred dollars worth of fun out of stars.
And there is more to come!

You would laugh to know why I enjoy stars so much. I have always studied
birds and flowers and trees and rocks and shells so much that I was
afraid to get interested in stars. I thought it wouldn't rest me. But
it's a totally different kind of science from any I ever studied! There
are no families, genera, and species among the stars, thank Heaven!
That's one reason they refresh me. Another is that no one can press them
and put them in a herbarium, or shoot them and put them in a museum. And
another thing about them that brings balm to my spirit is that no human
being can destroy their beauty. No one can "sub-divide" Capella and fill
it with tenements. No one can use Vega for a bill-board. Ah, well! we
must not be disturbed if every member of our family has a different
point of view toward the stars; we can all enjoy and love them in our
own ways.

How would you like to start a Star Club like ours? You ought to be able
to persuade your family to form one, because it need not cost a cent.
Perhaps this book will interest them all, but the better way is for you
to read about one constellation and then go out with some of the family
and find it. This book does not tell about wonderful things you can
never see; it tells about the wonderful things all of us can see.

I wish you success with your Star Club. Perhaps your uncles and aunts
will start clubs, too. We have three Star Clubs in our family--one in
New York, one in Michigan, and one in Colorado. Last winter the
"Colorado Star Gazers" sent this challenge to the "New Jersey
Night-Owls:" "_We bet you can't see Venus by daylight!_"

That seemed possible, because during that week the "evening star" was by
far the brightest object in the sky. But father and daughter searched
the sky before sunset in vain, and finally we had to ask the "Moonstruck
Michiganders" how to see Venus while the sun was shining. Back came
these directions on a postal-card: "Wait until it is dark and any one
can see Venus. Then find some tree, or other object, which is in line