The Librarian at Play. Edmund Lester Pearson

to her supper? What on earth shall I do? Who is in the reference room? David? Who's he? Oh, that new page. … David, Mr. Edwards wants you to look up the scientific name for sunflowers; look it up in Bailey, David. What? Bailey who? I don't know. Ask some of them there. … Oh, well, wait a minute. Hold the line. …

      "Sam!" And she came out to the veranda again. "Sam, what Bailey is it they are to look it up in?"

      "Liberty Hyde," I yelled. "Cyclopædia of American Horticulture! But any dictionary will probably do. And, for the love of Mike, get a move on! I'm drowned, paralyzed! I'll have rheumatism for a week!"

      But she was already back at the telephone.

      "David, are you there? Mr. Edwards says it's Liberty Hyde Bailey's Cyclopædia of Horticulture. And you are to hurry, hurry! What is that? You don't know where it is? Well, look it up in the catalogue. … Oh, ask Miss Anderson to come back. … Is that you, Miss Anderson? Will you look it up, please? Yes, the scientific name for sunflowers. In Freedom Bailey's Cyclopædia of Agriculture, or any dictionary. … Did you find it? Yes? What? Spell it. Oh, Helianthus. Thank you so much! Good-by! And don't forget to send 'The Chaperone' home by Mr. Edwards to-morrow night. Thank you for keeping me a copy. Good-by. … "

      She came back to the veranda.

      "I've got it at last, Sam. It's Helianthus. Where's Mrs. Bunkum? Oh, I left her in the study. Just wait a minute, now. … Yes, here it is, Helianthus, sure enough. How silly! Why doesn't she call 'em sunflowers? There, page 189. This is what Mrs. Bunkum says: 'The Helianthus Grandiflora, or common sunflower, is one of the most attractive and satisfactory of the perennials. Nothing is so suitable to place against a wall, or to employ to cover a shed or any other unattractive feature of the landscape. The stalks grow sometimes as high as eight to ten feet and bloom from July to September. It is well not to plant Delphiniums too near the Helianthus, as the shade from the former is too intense and it would not do to risk spoiling the lovely blossoms of the Delphinium. The latter … why!" broke out Jane, "she goes on about Delphiniums now, and doesn't tell any more about sunflowers!"

      "Do you mean to say," I asked—and there was a hard, steely ring in my voice, "do you mean to say that Mrs. Bunkum does not tell how deep I am to plant these cussed seeds?"

      Jane was about to laugh or to cry—I am not sure which.

      "Not a word more than what I read," she answered.

      "Jane," I said solemnly and firmly, "go into the house. What is going to happen is not a fit sight for your eyes. Praise be, that book is mine, and not the library's, and I can deal with it justly. Give it here. And if you have any affection for Martha Matilda Bunkum, kiss her good-by. I do not know how deep these seeds go, but I know how deep she goes." And I began to dig a suitable hole.

      I rejoined my wife at dinner after a bath and certain life-saving remedies.

      "Milton uttered curses on him who destroyed a good book, but what do you think will come up in ground fertilized by Mrs. Bunkum?" I asked.

      Jane giggled.

      "I do not know," she said, "but if you erect a tombstone to her, I can suggest an epitaph."

      "What is it?" I questioned.

      "The Gardeners Guyed," said Jane.

      VANISHING FAVORITES

       Table of Contents

      VANISHING FAVORITES

      It is nearly twelve months since anyone has lamented the disappearance of our old favorite characters of fiction. While these expressions of sorrow are undoubtedly sincere, they are seldom practical. No one, for instance, has ever suggested any method for the perpetuation of the heroes and villains of the old plays and romances. No one has urged that when the government subsidizes authors, and pensions poets, a sum shall be set aside for such writers as will agree to stick to the old-fashioned characters. Yet it would prove effective.

      Of its desirability nothing need be said.

      It is no answer to those who regret the passing of their old friends to say that they can still be found in the old books. That is like sending to a museum to view dried bones, some person who yearns to behold the ichthyosaurus splashing among the waves, or the pterodactyl soaring overhead. Indeed, the cases are similar for more than one reason. How greatly would the joy of life increase if we only had a few extinct animals left! The African hunter returns with an assortment of hippopotamuses, elephants, and jubjub birds. It would be more delightful if he could also fetch the mighty glyptodon, the terrible dinotherium, and the stately bandersnatch.

      There are few of the old characters of fiction more generally missed than the retired colonel, home from India. He was usually rather portly in figure, though sometimes tall and thin. Always his face was the color of a boiled lobster, and his white moustache and eyebrows bristled furiously. For forty years he had lived exclusively on curries, chutney, and brandy and soda, so his liver was not all it should be.

      His temper had not sweetened. He was what you might call irritable.

      During forty years he had been lord and master over a regiment of soldiers, and a village of natives, and he had the habit of command.

      His favorite remark was: "Br-r-r-r!!"

      That is as near as it can be reproduced in print, but from the manner in which his lips rolled when he delivered it, and the explosive force with which it ended, you could see that he had learned it from a Bengal tiger. His was an imposing presence, but his speaking part was not large. In fact, his only contributions to social intercourse were the exclamation which has been quoted, and one other.

      This sounded like "Yah!" but it was delivered with a rasping snarl which must be heard to be appreciated. Such was his manner toward his equals; toward servants and underlings he was not so agreeable. On the whole, there was reason to think that he was somehow related to the celebrated personage who "eats 'em alive," or to that other individual called Gritchfang, who "guzzled hot blood, and blew up with a bang."

      The colonel was a genial and interesting old "party," and we lament his disappearance.

      There was a turtle-dove to coo, however, in the same stories where the colonel roared. This was the dying maiden. She has not altogether left us—her final struggles are protracted. Her dissolution is expected at almost any moment now.

      Her specialty was being wan.

      Come what might, at any hour of the day or night, under all circumstances, she was very, very wan. You could never catch her forgetting it. She reminded you of Bunthorne's injunction to the twenty lovesick maidens—she made you think of faint lilies.

      Usually she lay on a couch in the drawing-room, but she could, with assistance, make her way to the window to wave her handkerchief to Cousin Harry departing to the war. She was in love with Cousin Harry, but knew that he cared most for proud, red-cheeked Sister Gladys. So she suffered in silence, and when Cousin Harry forged a few checks, she bought them up, and arranged a happy marriage between Harry and Gladys—who was in love with someone else.

      This was so that she could be a martyr. She loved being a martyr, and was willing to make everyone else intensely uncomfortable in order to accomplish her object. She was very gentle and sweet, and even the Colonel would cease to bellow and snort in her presence.

      The really learned heroine has gone for good. She is as rare as the megatherium. Her successors—the women who can discuss a little politics, or who know something about literature—are only collateral descendants. There is some doubt about even that degree of kinship. They are not the real things.

      Our old friend had stockings of cerulean blue—though she would have died had she shown half an inch of one of them. Her idea of courtship was to get the hero in a woodland bower and then say something like this:

      "Perhaps you have never realized, Mr. Montmorency, how profoundly