“MAMMA, is an April fool different from any other kind of a fool?” cried Helen Palmer, rushing into the sitting-room on arriving home from school.

“Oh! good-evening, Mrs. Glenn,” she added, as she noticed a lady who sat sewing with her mother.

“What does the child mean?” exclaimed Mrs. Glenn, returning Helen’s nod, then looking her astonishment at Mrs. Palmer, who said: “What do you mean, Helen?”

“Why, the girls are all talking to-day about to-morrow being ‘April Fool Day,’ and they said a lot of things I don’t understand, about calling people ‘April fool.’ They all agreed to see who could make the most fools and tell about it Monday. They said I must too, and I didn’t want to tell them I did not know how to do it, or what it means.”

“You don’t mean to tell me, Helen Palmer, that you don’t know anything about April fool?” cried Mrs. Glenn, in surprise.

“No,” said Mrs. Palmer; “she doesn’t. This is her first year at school, you know; I have taught her at home, and in our country home she heard very little but what we told her. I never saw any sense or fun in the custom of fooling on the first day of April, and did not instruct her in it when I taught her of Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, St. Valentine’s Day, Washington’s Birthday, Decoration Day and Fourth of July.”

“But what is it?” insisted Helen.

“Well, my dear, it is a custom which I’ve read has come down hundreds of years, to send people on ridiculous errands on that day and call it an April fool. It is done all over Europe, and the Hindoos of India do exactly the same thing on the thirty-first of March. As I’ve always known it, people not only send others on foolish errands, but they often play practical jokes, silly and cruel, and actually lie to each other to fool them. It is a custom much better forgotten than kept.”

“I should think so,” cried Helen.

“But, mamma,” she continued, “what shall I do? The girls expect me to tell my share on Monday.”

“We’ll see, dear, by and by. Go and put away your things now.”

Mrs. Glenn went away after tea, and Helen began at once to coax her mother to tell her how to come up to the girls’ plans without doing anything silly or wicked.

“I think, if I were you, I would spend the day surprising people with something good. Do things to help or please, and when they show their surprise say ‘April fool!’”

“O, mamma! that will be delightful,” cried Helen. “Tell me some things to do.”

“No, my dear, that is your business.”

All that evening Helen was very thoughtful, and next day she was unusually busy. At night she declared she had never been so happy. Monday morning she met the girls, and they began to tell their jokes.

“I fooled everybody around the house,” said Carrie Andrews. “I filled the sugar-bowl with salt, and papa got a big spoonful in his coffee. You ought to have seen the face he made. He didn’t more than half like it, even when I called out ‘April fool!’ I sent George out to pick up a package of sand I had dropped near the gate. I rang the doorbell and got Ann to go to the door, and there I stood and said ‘April fool.’ I sent a letter to Louise, and tied mamma’s apron-strings to her chair.”

Helen listened in amazement, as one girl after another told of such silly tricks.

At last they turned to her. “Well, Helen, what did you do?”

“Oh! I fooled every one in the family, but I did a lot of new things,” said Helen.

“What were they?” cried the girls, in chorus.

“Well,” said she, in a low voice, “I got up real early, and crept softly downstairs and set the table in the dining-room, while Jane was starting breakfast in the kitchen. She ’most always has it set at night, but mamma and the sewing woman were using the long table to cut out goods when Jane went to bed. She was hurrying as fast as she could, and rushed in, and when she saw the table set she threw up both hands, and said: ‘Well, now, however did that table get set? Was it witches’ work?’

“Then I jumped out from behind the door and cried: ‘April fool!’

“‘So it is,’ she said; ‘an’ it’s a fine one you’ve given me; I’ll not forget it of you.’

“After breakfast mamma was just going to get Baby to sleep, and some one came to see her on business. She asked me to keep him till she could get back. I took him, and rocked and sung to him, and he went to sleep. I laid him down in his crib, and then hid to see what mamma would do. I heard her hurrying upstairs and into the room. Then she stopped and stared. I stepped up softly behind her and kissed her, and said, ‘April fool!’ She thought it was a nice one.

“Uncle Guy came in and asked mamma to mend his glove when she had time. As quick as I could I got my thimble and needle and silk and mended the glove; and when he came in again in a hurry and said: ‘Well, I can’t wait now for it to be mended,’ he drew it on and said, ‘Why, it is mended.’ Then I called out, ‘April fool, Uncle Guy!’

“‘O, you little rogue!’ he said; ‘I’ll pay you up.’

“Well, then I mended Frank’s sails to his boat when he started to do it and papa called him away, and”—

“What did you do for your father?” asked Marjie Day.

“Oh! papa said he must hunt up some papers in the library at lunch-time, so I looked them up and laid them on his plate, and when he said: ‘Why, how did these get here?’ I said: ‘April fool!’ And that’s all,” added Helen, with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes.

“Well!” exclaimed Carrie Andrews, “if that don’t beat the Dutch.”

“Wasn’t it a good way?” asked Helen, almost crying.

“Of course, you little goose! but who else would ever have thought of it?”

“Mamma said she didn’t like silly jokes, and said I had better try surprising people with pleasant things. I like it so well I am going to do it every day in the year.”

“There’s the bell,” cried Belle Adams; “but hadn’t we all better try it?”

F. A. Reynolds.