e book. "This will tell you how to have fun with your
tools," I wrote, when I sent it to the boy.

Except for a laconic note of thanks, I heard nothing from my young
friend about the book. One day last week I chanced to see his mother.
"What do you think I am doing this afternoon?" she said. "I am getting a
_book_ for my son, at his own request! He is engrossed in that book you
sent him. He is making some of the things described in it. But he wants
to make something _not_ mentioned in it, and he actually asked me to see
if I could find a book that told how!"

"So he likes books better now?" I commented.

"Well--I asked him if he did," said the boy's mother; "and he said he
didn't like '_booky_' books any better, but he liked this kind, and
always would have, if he'd known about them!"

Whether my boy friend will learn early to love "booky" books is a bit
doubtful perhaps; certainly, however, he has found a companion in one
kind of book. He has made the discovery quickly, too; for he has had
"Boys' Make-at-Home Things" less than a month.

It was an easy matter for that boy's mother to get for her son the
particular book he desired. She lives in a city; at least three large
public libraries are open to her. As for book-shops, there are more
within her reach than she could possibly visit in the course of a week,
much less in an afternoon.

The mothers who live in the country cannot so conveniently secure the
books their boys and girls may wish or need. I know one woman, the
mother of two boys, living in the country, who has to exercise
considerable ingenuity to provide her sons with books of the "How to
Make" kind. There is no public library within available distance of the
farmhouse which is her home, and she and her husband cannot afford to
buy many books for their children. The boys, moreover, like so great a
variety of books that, in order to please them, it is not necessary to
select a book that is not "booky." Their parents are lovers of great
literature. "I cannot bring myself to buy a book about how to make an
aeroplane, for instance," their mother said to me one day, "when there
are so many wonderful books they have not read, and would enjoy reading!
Since I must limit my purchase of books, I really think I ought to
choose only the _real_ books for the boys; and yet they want to make
things with their hands, like other boys, and there is no way to teach
them how except through books. My husband has no time f