hands were trembling as she stretched them out to him. The policeman came striding over.

"This woman annoying you, your lordship? Now then! Move onmove on!"

"No, no, no. That's all right, constable. She-she ain't annoying me."

Joe Swan was conscious of a great and warm humanity toward all men. It lifted him to golden heights, flooded his being with happiness.

"Here, madam," he said very simply, "take this."

"Oh, Gawd bless yer, sir. Gawd be good to yer-for ever and ever." "Tut, tut," said Joe. He was Lord Marvin just then, like. sorry I can't give you more. night, madam."

"I'm Good

He walked on. Down Oxford Street, along Regent Street, into Piccadilly Circus. Policemen saluted him. Cabbies touched their caps. Pedestrians turned their heads to look at him.

About ten o'clock, foot-sore and weary, he arrived at the mews.

"Hello, Charlie-old 'orse. Don't know me, I suppose? Well, I'm Lord Marvin, Charlie—and I've blinkin'well had the time of me life. Look at me topper! I've been sitting down. with lords and dukes, Charlie-finest dinner you ever saw

Charlie sniffed at his empty man

ger.

"I know," said Joe. "Ain't eaten since morning. I know it, Charlie and me 'eart goes out to you. I had your bloomin' oats in me pocket. I did, straight. I gave 'em to a poor, young woman. I had to, Charlie. She took me for Lord Marvin-so I couldn't 'elp meself, like.

"But just you hold up, Charlie. Lean against the stall, or something. I'm going to take these 'ere duds off me back-and the minute I get out of 'em I'll be plain old Joey Swan again. I'm going to pawn 'em, Charlie and then you'll get your oats. I'd like to keep me topperand I will, if I can get ten shillings for the coat and waistcoat. So hold up, Charlie. I won't be a blessed minute.”

He hurried over to his room in Blackwalls Lane. He lit the stump of candle. He took the silk-lined evening coat and began to fold it. Something crinkled. In the inside breast pocket was a plain envelop. The flap was unfastened. It inclosed five ten-pound notes. Joe looked at them with stricken eyes.

Cripes! Never seen so much money in all his life. Gawd! Five, crisp tenners! Fifty quid! A fortune! His lordship must 'ave forgot 'em. He'd be looking everywhere for that there envelop, he would.

Joe replaced it in the pocket where he had found it, struggled into the coat again, then scrambled as fast as he could back to the mews.

"Charlie," he puffed, "oats or no oats, you'll 'ave to get into your collar. We've got to see Lord Turlington, at once. I'm blinkin'-well sorry but it can't be 'elped. Come on, Charlie. Try to act like a 'orse."

Charlie was willing enough. Perhaps he was too hungry to resist. But it was a weary, mournful-looking steed that drew a cab out of the yard and responded to the exhortations of a master whose splendid habiliments were hidden beneath a weather-worn and ragged driving

coat.

Lord Turlington's residence was dark but for a light in the hall. Joe climbed down from the box, ran up the steps, and pulled the bell. A servant opened the door.

"I've got to see his lordship. Won't keep him but a moment."

"Now then," warned the flunky, "be off. Clear out of here."

"It's very important, sir. I've got something to say to him. I must see him-just for a moment, sir." "Get out of here! Be off with you." The man was closing the door.

"It's something I f-found, sir. In them clothes he lent me. Don't you remember me, sir?" Joe was trying to open his faded top-coat to show his evening things. "I was 'ere-a couple of hours ago dining, like, with his lordship."

The flunky sniffed. "Yes, you were," he said. "Tell me another. Now then, be off with you-or I'll call a policeman and have you arrested."

Joe struggled to get inside. "I've got to see him, sir," he cried. "He'll think I stole the money-and I wouldn't have him think that for anything. I'll only keep him a minute. Please, sir-please-'

"What's all this racket, Thomson?"

Lord Turlington, in dressing-gown and pajamas, was coming down the stairs.

Marvin, you know. They'll tell everybody. No end of fun." Joe produced the envelop.

"I f-found this 'ere, m'lord-in the p-pocket of your coat. There's five ten-pound notes in it, and I-and I-" He was out of breath, like— couldn't speak.

"Do you mean to say you came back here"-Lord Turlington was smiling-"at this hour-just because of that? Look here! you old ass! I put that money there-specially for you. It's yours-you silly old duffer! Now, trot off-and let me get a bit of sleep."

Joe opened his mouth. "Oo, Gawd! All this? Mine?"

"Come and see me again-sometime next week. There may be a small job for you-in my stables. I'll

"Oo-oo-" Joe was trying to say something.

"Good night-and thanks for the speech." Lord Turlington yawned and turned to his servant. "Thomson! kindly show Lord Marvin out, I must have a bit of sleep. And courtesy, Thomson-the greatest courtesy should Lord Marvin, and his 'keb,' ever call on me again."

In a daze, Joe Swan went down the steps, climbed the box, and drove away. In a daze he remained until he found himself passing the Houses of Parliament. Then he straightened and sat up.

"Charlie, old 'orse," he gulped, "let's you and me never say another word against 'em. Lords, Charlie? Why there ain't any better-'earted people on the face of the earth than lords-and don't you forget it."

"I

F YOUR fertilizer is not agreeing with your land, the Government will send a specialist, but if the food is not agreeing with the baby, why we have to find out what's the matter ourselves, and lots of times parents mean well but they don't know much." Thus the national jester, Will Rogers.

The answer is May Day-Child Health Day, designed by the American Child Health Association and fathered by Herbert Hoover, to bring that information to these parents. It is a curiously American solution, one that was discovered during the war. Whenever it is desired that the American people should do anything about anything, we set aside a day. Not, of course, a day to do this thing but a day to ask every one to do it. We have had Thrift Days and Red Cross Days, Anti-Tuberculosis Days, Mother's Days, Father's Days. And the program is ever the same. The schools are approached and the pulpits thunder forth the message. The newspapers are approached and print the releases. The stores are approached and hang the posters. The movies are approached and put on four-minute speeches. The women are approached and put on programs. We are all familiar with the tactics. Another time and another country

might suggest a survey, endow a chair at a university, or pass a law. Not so America. We name a day.

And yet is it as foolish as I make it seem? Is there a quicker or a more effective way to fix an idea in the minds of one hundred million people? Repetition and concentration-are these not the cardinal points in advertising? And what is this but advertising? To another time and another country the survey, the courses of study, the law. But for Americans of to-day advertising is the way. And it is as a piece of advertising a sublimation of advertising, but none the less advertising— that May Day-Child Health Day is set aside.

The Child Health Association desired to improve the health of our children. Before anything could be accomplished it was necessary to focus the thought of the nation upon the need. Now to focus the attention of a preoccupied and rushing people upon one idea is a difficult undertaking. There are a myriad ideas playing upon that mind for attention. There are a myriad channels for reaching that mind, a myriad instruments for impressing it. To use but one of them, even a dozen of them, is to be in competition with other appeals, other instruments.

But if all those channels can have the idea turned into them, if all those instruments can be adjusted to that one use, if only once-a start is made. But the mind of the public is a fickle one. If one channel is used one day and another the next week there will still be competition; but if all these agencies for reaching the thought of the people be turned upon this need of good health for children the very same day, the trick will be done.

And here was the day, made to order, May Day, the festival of spring and youth, when young and old went to the fields to gather the first flowers in which the fairies dwelt who, if welcomed, would bring Plenty, Rain and Sunshine to the homes. What easier than to give it a new significance and meaning, as bringing health and happiness to the childhood of the land?

I have discussed the reason for this idea of May Day at some length because there is abroad in the land a reaction against this day-habit. Breakfast Food Day, and Tea Day, and Roll Your Own Day, and Buttermilk Day, and Bob Your Hair Day, and Brush Your Teeth Day, and Kiss Your Wife Day. Yes, seriously, a man once came to me with a welldefined program to launch a Kiss Your Wife Day. They have been made ridiculous. But there are days and days. There are also Christmas Day, Thanksgiving Day, Easter and the Fourth of July. What are they but days consecrated to a certain idea and purpose? Christmas to the idea of friendliness and love; Thanksgiving to the idea of plenty and gratitude; Easter to the thought of immortality and resurrection; and the

Fourth of July to that of patriotism. True, they and their ideas have come down to us hoary with tradition. They are hallowed by custom and enriched with sentiment. We have no choice but to accept them and give our own interpretation to their meaning. But still, we would not willingly forgo them. They do far more for us than snatch a day from work. Perhaps, all told, they are more potent in determining our national character than pulpit and press combined-they and the ideas which they stimulate and exercise in us. Yet once they were unknown. They had their beginnings. They were initiated and grew into institutions, grew because the idea they celebrated had life, because they filled a need.

But is there any reason why we today must stop with them? Is there any reason why we may not add another to these festal days, another to be devoted to another idea, another need? Oh, but, some one will say, they were not created; they were inherited from paganism and adapted to our Christian faith.

True enough. But so was May Day inherited. It has from pagan times been dedicated to the idea of spring, young budding life. Why not give it a new interpretation, put it to and make it serve our modern needs?

Such, indeed, was the thought of those who chose May Day as the day on which to focus thought upon an ideal of perfected childhood. Surely, thought they, there is room on our calendar for a Children's Day. And surely a Children's Day must be dedicated to the ideal of making all children well and happy.

Not just another day. That was not what they desired. But to add to

the great quartet of Days another that in its turn should gather tradition and so should come to stimulate emotion and stir us to new endeavors. Such things come gradually. But the first step was taken four years ago when the American Child Health Association asked that May Day be celebrated as a day calling attention to the right of every child to joyous positive health. Since then it has expanded in meaning and forms of expression until it has become like the May Pole, a central rallying point for all the diverse activities concerned with the welfare of children.

Many national organizationsamong them the General Federation of Women's Clubs have used it as a pivot about which they build their campaigns for child betterment. The American Federation of Labor has taken it as a medium through which to inject interest in the health of children into its local groups and auxiliaries. At its convention in Los Angeles last October its Executive Council passed a resolution to urge Congress to set aside May First as official Child Health Day. The health officers of the country have indorsed May Day as part of their official year-round health program. To push this movement there is a May Day organization in every State, in thirty-five of which it is centered in the State Boards of Health.

23

The ultimate goal of May Day as set forth by the Child Health Association is a Year-Round-Program-ForHealth. "Better children for our nation and a better nation for our children" is its slogan. And yet it does not offer a definite, formal

program to bring this about. Rather it prefers to offer May Day as an instrument to be used by all organizations and any organization desiring to serve children.

It is this very indefiniteness that gives it purpose. It is this very indefiniteness that gives it strength, for there is no limit to what may come out of May Day, to the spirit that may be loosened nor to the standards that may be set and this though it take years to satisfy the one and reach the other.

Yet it must not be thought that May Day is just an idea, that its inaugurators had no suggestions to make as to its celebration. On the contrary it was stated definitely that May Day was to be the day on which the story of what was happening the other 364 days should be told, that it was the day to look backward and forward, to take an inventory of achievements, challenge weak spots in a community's health work, applaud success as well as make plans for the future. The method, however, by which the community was to do this was left to its own decision, and many and various have they been. The most amusing one was reported from Oklahoma where May Day was the occasion of a Baby Rodeo at the 101 Ranch, Ponca City. It was in reality a model child health conference and was a great success. At Coos River, Marshfield, Oregon the day's program began at eight thirty in the morning, when four boats brought the first load of participants to the school-house, which is at the forks of the Coos River. While the game of baseball and the trackmeet which constituted the entertainment were under way, a free clinic