If nature is to be a resource in a man's life, one's relation to her must not be too exact and formal, but more that of a lover and friend. I should not try directly to teach young people to love nature so much as I should aim to bring nature and them together, and let an understanding and intimacy spring up between them.--_The Outlook._ JOHN'S HAWK. EMMA YARNALL ROSS. John came home one evening from a ramble in the country with a peach-box under his arm. He set the box very carefully on the back porch and then sat down himself on the top of the box. His mother was watering some geraniums in a bed near by and paused in her work to look at the lad. "Where did you get those peaches, John?" she asked, coming toward him with a pleasant smile. John gave a low laugh. "This is a peach _box_, mother," he said, "but if what is in it is a _peach_, it belongs to a new variety, I think. Look at him, he is a beauty!" "John Bonham, I hope you have not brought another pet to this house! Where in the world are we to stow away all these creatures on one little town lot? There is your groundhog, your owl, the crow, the coot, the tub of fish, the big dog, the little dog, and three Christopher Columbus cats." "Now, mother, please stop; poor Chuck stays most of the time in his hole under the corner of the house, and the owl keeps the mice out of the cellar, and Jim Crow has not stolen anything for a month except that half dollar and your piece of lace and sister's red ribbon. You said I might have the wash boiler to make a swimming-pool for the coot, and I am going to feed the fish to him, so they will soon be gone and you can have your tub again. I heard you tell Mrs. Bland that our dogs guarded the whole neighborhood from burglars, and my Christopher Columbus cats are cute enough for anyone to be glad to have them. Mrs. Goodall says she 'wants one of them real bad.' You see, mother," said John, persuasively, "this fellow was such a beauty I just had to bring him home. Jake Timmons shot him through the wing as he was carrying off a dove; he was going to wring the hawk's head off, but I told him I would give him ten cents for it, for I wanted to try an experiment with the bird. I know I can tame him and make a pet of him; see, he can move around even if his wing is broken." John's mother looked through the bars of the peach crate and saw a full-grown hawk with a beautiful brown head, eyes with blood-red rims, a strong, hooked beak, and long talons which he struck angrily into the stick John thrust at him through the bars. "I never saw a more fierce, cruel-looking bird," she said. "See him tear at that stick! He will be tearing you next." "I shall give him no chance to tear me, mother, for I intend to tame him." "You might as well try to tame a tiger."