so that the fish died.

When these people at last discovered their mistake, they strove by hard
labor to repair the damage which they had done through years of
ignorance and greed. This was such slow, difficult work that the land
still remains a dreary place in which to live. It is known as the Land
of the Poor People.

CHAPTER SIX

WHAT THE MUDDY RIVULET HAS TO SAY

Would you like to know something about what I am doing? Would you like
to know why my waters are yellow with mud? I am accused of being a
noisy, roistering fellow, of robbing people of their wealth and of doing
all sorts of wicked deeds. But, worst of all, I am accused of carrying
away the tiny particles of soil in which the plants find their food and
of dropping them in the depths of the sea.

Perhaps, when you really understand my work, you will say that I have no
evil intentions at all. I am only one of Nature's servants. Each one of
us has a work to do. Sometimes we have to do things that seem to be bad,
but that is because some one on the earth has broken Nature's laws.

Nature has many servants. To each one of us is given a different kind of
work. I am the great leveler of the land. No mountain is too great or
too high for me to tear down. I can carry it all away grain by grain and
leave it in the lowlands or in the sea. Many mountains I have destroyed
so completely that you would hardly believe they ever existed. Long
before there were any animals and men on the earth I was busy, and I
shall be busy when they are all gone.

The farmer believes me his enemy, but if I do injure his fields it is
because I cannot help it. The work that has been given me to do is the
carrying away of the loose earth wherever I can find it. If the farmer
does not want his hillsides made poor, he should take care of them.

The farmer does not know that he has me to thank for the richest of his
lands, those lands where the soil is deep and dark, and filled with
plant food. I and my brother rivulets have been thousands of years in
collecting the soil which forms the fertile lowlands in the valleys
through which we flow. We all unite to form the mighty river which
finally ends in the sea.

[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
Because some farmer was careless, a rivulet has nearly destroyed this
rich valley.]

Upon all the slopes which drain toward the river we rivulets are at
work. Other servants of Nature are working here. Some of them are making
the ro