The Librarian at Play. Edmund Lester Pearson

the following evening, in company with Jane, I went forth to sow. Jane had the "Gardener's Guide" and I took certain tools and implements. By the time I had a trench excavated a little shower came up, and Jane retreated to the veranda. I had on old clothes and didn't mind.

      "Jane!" I called, "look up Mrs. Bunkum and see how deep to plant sunflower seeds."

      All the directions on the little packets were so precise about depths—some seeds an inch, some half an inch, and some (the poppies, for instance) only a sixteenth of an inch below the surface—that I was tremendously impressed with the importance of it all. Previously, I had thought you just stuck seeds in any old way.

      But the rain was coming down harder now, and my spectacles were getting blurred. Jane seemed to be lost in admiration of the frontispiece to the "Gardener's Guide."

      She began to turn the leaves of the index rapidly, and I could hear her mutter: "Q, R, S—here it is. Scrap-book, screens, slugs, sowing, spider on box. Oh, I hate spiders! Sunbonnet, sun-dial, sweet peas. Why, there isn't anything about sunflowers!"

      This annoyed me very much.

      "Jane," I said, "how perfectly absurd! Do you suppose an authority like Mrs. Bunkum would write a book on gardening, and not mention such common things as sunflowers? Look again."

      She did so, but presently shouted back: "Well, I don't care! It goes right from sun-dial to sweet peas, and then Sweet William, and then to the T's—Tigrinum and Tobacco Water. I don't see what this 'Sunbonnet' means, do you? Perhaps it's a misprint for sunflower. I'll look it up—page 199."

      Presently Jane found the reference she was hunting, and read it to me, leaning out over the rail of the veranda.

      "Unless a woman possesses a skin impervious to wind and sun, she is apt to come through the summer looking as red and brown as an Indian; and if one is often out in the glare, about the only headgear that can be worn to prevent this, is the old-fashioned sunbonnet. With its poke before and cape behind, protecting the neck, one really cannot become sunburned, and pink ones are not so bad. Retired behind its friendly shelter, you are somewhat deaf to the world; and at the distant house, people may shout to you and bells be rung at you, and, if your occupation be engrossing, the excuse 'no one can hear through a sunbonnet' must be accepted."

      Jane read this with the liveliest interest, and at its conclusion remarked: "I believe I'll get a blue one, in spite of her!"

      I sneezed two or three times at this point, and asked her to try again for sunflowers.

      "Look here," I suggested, "I've noticed that index. Perhaps sunflowers are entered under their class as hardy annuals, or biennials, or periodicals, or whatever they are. Look 'em up that way."

      She did so.

      "Nothing under 'Hardy annuals,'" she announced, "except 'hardy roses'; under 'Biennials' it says 'see also names of flowers.'"

      This made her laugh and say: "Here's a librarian getting a taste of his own medicine. No, it gives a reference to page 117. Here it is: 'There are but few hardy biennials. The important ones, which no garden should be without, are: Digitalis, and Campanula Medium.' Why, I thought Digitalis was something you put in your eye!"

      "Did you look under 'periodicals'?" I retorted. "I could put something in her eye! Did you look under 'periodicals'?"

      Jane referred again to the index.

      "There isn't any such thing," she said presently; "don't you mean perennials? Here's a lot about them. Oh, yes, and a list of them, too. Now, let me see—Aquilegia, Dianthus barbatus, Dicentra spectabilis—gracious! do you suppose any of those are sunflowers?"

      I groaned.

      "Would you mind getting me a rain-coat? I'm afraid these seeds will sprout in my hand in a few minutes, if we don't get some information soon."

      Jane went into the house, but returned in about five minutes with an umbrella.

      "Your rain-coat isn't here," she said, "you left it at the library that day that it cleared during the afternoon. I will send Amanda out with this umbrella."

      "Do so by all means," I replied, "as I have only two hands occupied with the trowel and the sunflower seeds it will be a pleasure to balance an umbrella as well."

      But Jane did not notice the sarcasm, and presently Amanda tiptoed out through the wet grass with the umbrella. I was left trying to hold it, and wondering how Mrs. Bunkum acted in a crisis like this. But of course she never got caught in one. She would know right off the bat just how deep to put the seeds. At any rate, Jane's researches among the Aquilegias had given me an idea.

      "Look here," I called, "Mrs. Bunkum is so confounded classical or scientific, or whatever it is, that I believe she scorns to use such a vulgar word as sunflower. She's probably put it under its scientific name."

      Jane looked as though the last difficulty had been removed.

      "What would the scientific name be?" she inquired.

      "I am trying to think, as well as I can, standing in this puddle." I was sparring for time. "It would be helio something, I suppose," I added.

      "Heliotrope, of course!" exclaimed Jane, with a glad chortle. "Here they are; all about them!"

      "No! no! no!" I shouted, "I do wish you wouldn't jump at conclusions so. Heliotrope means a flower that turns around to follow the sun."

      "Well," she said, "I thought sunflowers did that."

      "So they do," I told her, "but heliotropes are little blue things, as you very well know—or ought to. Now, you go to the telephone, and call up the library, and ask for Miss Fairfax. She is in the reference room now, or ought to be."

      There was a pause, while I could hear Jane at the telephone.

      "North, double six three, please. No, double six three. Yes. Hello! Hello! Is this the library? Yes, the library. Yes; is Miss Fairfax there? Ask her to come to the 'phone, please. I said, ask her to come to the 'phone. Is that Miss Fairfax? Oh, Miss Fairfax, this is Mrs. Edwards. Mr. Edwards wants you to go as quickly as possible to the reference room and look up the scientific name for sunflowers. He says, look it up in Bailey. Do you understand? What? What? No, I said the scientific name for sunflowers, you know, s-u-n-f-l-o-w-e-r-s. The tall things with yellow petals and brown centers. Sunflowers!!! What? Who is this talking? Is this Miss Fairfax? What, isn't this the Public Library? What? Well, where is it, then? Henderson's glue factory? Oh, pardon me! I thought it was the Public Library. Central gave me the wrong number. … Hello, is this central? Well, you gave me the wrong number; you gave me North double six two. I want North double six three—the Public Library. Yes, please. Hello, is this the Public Library? Yes; who is this speaking, please? Oh, Miss Anderson? Is that you? This is Mrs. Edwards, yes. What are you staying so late for? You are? Well, I shall speak to Mr. Edwards about it. It is perfectly ridiculous to have you working overtime night after night, and all for that foolish exhibition, too. I know these librarians; if they would have the courage not to try to do so much when the city is so stingy about giving them assistants! Well, you go right home now and get your dinner. The idea! What? You have accessioned two hundred books this afternoon? If Mr. Edwards doesn't stop that, I shall, that's all. Oh, you have saved me out a copy of 'The Chaperone.' How nice of you! No, I certainly do not. I didn't like 'Cora Kirby' very much, and 'The Players' was horrid! But I did want to see what this was like—it has been very favorably criticised. What? Oh, give it to Mr. Edwards to-morrow night, put it in his bag, at the bottom; he'll never notice it. I hope there are not any more of you there! Oh, Miss Tyler and Miss Hancock, out at the desk, of course, and who? Miss Fairfax? Dear me, that reminds me. Mr. Edwards wants Miss Fairfax to look up something for him. Goodness, I forgot all about it! He is standing out there in all this rain with an umbrella in one hand, a trowel in the other, and a package of sunflower seeds in the other. He'll be furious! Do go and get Miss Fairfax to come to the 'phone right away. Yes, to come to the 'phone. … What's that? Is that central? No, please hold the line; I haven't finished yet. … Is that you, Miss Fairfax? What? Oh, Miss