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.

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 rocks soften and fall apart. Others are bringing seeds of the grasses and trees that they may take root in the crumbling rock. It is their business to make a carpet of plants over the earth and thus stop my work. But wherever the slopes are steep we rivulets have our way. We pick up and carry away the particles of sand and clay so that only the bare, hard rocks remain.

When the steep slopes become gentle, and we can no longer carry away all the particles of crumbled rock, then the carpet of plants spreads over the surface. Now our waters become clear. We seem like different beings. Once in a while, when the rains fall very heavily, some of us break through the protecting carpet and dig great hollows and gullies into the earth.

Would you like to know how we rivulets get rid of the load we carry from the mountain slopes? When we are muddy and swollen with the heavy rains, we turn the river into a flood. The river then breaks its banks and spreads out over all the lowlands along its course. Now the river flows more slowly and drops a part of the sand and mud which we rivulets brought to it. Finally, when the storm is over and the river goes back into its channel, there is left on the surface of the valleys a layer of earth rich in plant food. We brought the river the finest of the rock particles, together with the leaves and stems of plants that lay in our way.

As year after year we made the river overflow, the soil of the lowlands grew deeper and deeper until it became as you see it today. Now the slopes about the head of the river are not so steep as they were once. Our waters do not run away so rapidly and the river seldom overflows. Thus the farmer can use the land for his crops, which grow so luxuriantly that he is envied by his less fortunate neighbors who live upon the hills.

Upon the slopes about the valleys we rivulets did not leave so much soil. The farther one goes up the slopes the thinner one finds the soil, until at the top the bare rock may appear.

But our work, says the muddy rivulet, was not finished with the making of the fertile valley lands. We carried a part of our load of sand and mud on to the mouth of the river. Here in the bay into which the river empties we began another great task. It seemed hopeless at first to try to turn the bay into dry land, but year after year we kept at work, through a time so long that I have forgotten when we began. At last we succeeded in bringing so much material to the bay that the waters became shallow. Then the soft mud began to show itself when the water was low. At last the water was replaced by dry land, which appeared much like the lowlands which we had made along the river.

Now you who think we muddy rivulets do only harm see what we have accomplished. We have built a great delta of the richest land that extends away on every hand as level as a floor and almost as far as you can see. The soil of the delta is hundreds of feet deep and the richest to be found on the whole earth. It is on such river deltas that the first civilized men made their homes, and became rich and powerful.

Now I have told you what Nature has appointed the muddy rivulets to do. Is not the good that we do far greater than the harm? When we do harm it is because people have not learned how, or have not tried, to obey Nature's laws. If we make people poor, it is their own fault.

We still find much to do upon the earth. Nature is still making mountains which we have to tear down. We are still building deltas which will sometime be inhabited by rich and prosperous people. We do not willingly spoil the lands of the farmers on the hills and make them labor hard for a living.

In those happy lands where people understand Nature we rivulets have a different kind of work to do. We become pure and clear. We furnish a home for the fish, drink for the thirsty flocks, and a never-failing power to turn the mill wheels. Our waters are of service to every living thing.