One day when Hubert was lighting a fire with a safety match, his father told him that the wood of the match had come from the big trees of the forests too. A Swedish man found the way to make safety matches. And Sweden was the first country to make the matches that will not catch fire unless the head of the match is scratched on a certain kind of rough paper. He told Hubert, too, that safety matches from Sweden are used all over the world. In the school which Eric and Hubert attend the boys are taught to plant trees. And every spring they plant little trees to take the places of the big trees which the woodmen have cut down. The school boys learn that about one fourth of Norway’s land and about one half of Sweden’s land are covered with trees. But they are taught too that the people can use up the supply of trees that Nature has given them. So they help obey the laws of their country which require that trees be planted to keep the forests from being destroyed. [Illustration: MEN WITH POLES KEEP THE LOGS MOVING] How the Mountain Was Clothed A Norwegian story-teller wrote a story “How the Mountain Was Clothed.” This is his story: Through a deep cut between two mountains, a river hurried down over the rocks. The mountain walls on either side were high and steep. But one side of the mountain was bare. But at the foot even of this side, and so near the river that it was bathed in its spray, stood a cluster of trees. They gazed upward and outward, but they could not move one way or another. “Suppose we clothe the mountain,” said the juniper to the fir. The fir looked up at the naked mountainside and replied, “If any body is to do it, I suppose it will have to be we.” The fir looked over toward the birch and asked, “What do you think, Birch?” The birch glanced up the bare mountainside. The wall leaned over so that it seemed to the birch as if it could scarcely breathe. “Yes, indeed, let us clothe it,” he said. So the three took upon themselves the task to clothe the bare mountain. That was their goal, and they soon set out to see whether they could reach that goal. The juniper went first. When they had gone but a little way, they met the heather. The juniper seemed to want to pass it by. “No, take it along,” said the fir. So the heather joined them. Before long the juniper began to slip, “Take hold of me,” said the heather. The juniper did so, and whenever the smallest crack could be seen, the heather put its finger into it. Wherever the heather had first pried in a finger, the juniper put a whole hand. They crawled and crept, the fir working hard, the birch always behind the rest. “This is a noble work,” said the birch.