The Librarian at Play. Edmund Lester Pearson
German whose name I did not catch) was wholly untrustworthy. I was told by some of the most patient listeners that so far no single thing about Schleswig-Holstein itself had been mentioned, and that it did not appear to be in sight. The course consisted merely of Frugles' opinions of the authorities.
Now the professor came slowly toward me, wiping his face with a large red handkerchief and waving his cane.
"Got any new books?" he shouted.
I told him we had a few, and took him back into one of the workrooms. He examined them.
"This will do; I'll look this over," and he picked up something in German.
I offered him another—in English, and, as I thought, rather interesting in appearance.
"Pah!" he ejaculated, as if I had put some nauseous thing under his nose, "popular!"
He exploded this last word, which was his most violent term of condemnation, and ran through the rest of the books.
"Well, I'll take this into the reading-room and look it through," and he started with the German book.
I prevailed upon him to take the other as well, and he consented, with a grunt. He did not notice that I had slipped an interest gauge into both of them.
After a bit, I followed him into the reading-room. He was in a far corner, hard at work. Mrs. Cornelia Crumpet was engaged in conversation with Miss Bixby, the reference librarian, when I came in.
"Oh, here's Mr. Edwards!" she exclaimed. "Why, what a library you have! I can't find anything at all about the Flemish Renaissance and I do not know what I shall do, for I have to read a paper on it to-morrow afternoon before the Twenty-Minute Culture Club. Miss Bixby was just saying she would get me something. Now what would you advise? There is nothing at all in the books I looked at."
"Perhaps you looked in the wrong books," I suggested, observing that she had a copy of "Thelma" under her arm.
"Oh, Mr. Edwards, how ridiculous of you! I'm carrying this book home for the housemaid; she's sick in bed, and the cook said she was homesick and threatened to leave. So I said I would get her something to read to occupy her mind. This is fearful trash, I suppose, but I thought it would keep her contented until she got well. But I do wish you would tell me what to consult about the Flemish Renaissance."
"Mrs. Crumpet," I said, "Miss Bixby knows more about that subject in one minute than I do all day, and I advise you to let her prescribe."
Mrs. Crumpet agreed to wait, while Miss Bixby went for the books.
"Where's that copy of 'Thelma'? I put it down here. Oh, you have it, Mr. Edwards! Well, you had better let me take it; I'm sure it is too frivolous for you serious-minded librarians to read. I'll sit here and look it over until she comes back with those books."
She took it, interest gauge and all, and sat down.
Miss Larkin came into the room just then and asked me to come over to the children's department.
"I want to show you," she said, "what an interest these children take in serious reading and non-fiction. It is most encouraging."
When we arrived at the children's room she had two or three small persons arranged about the desks.
"Now, Willie," she said, "which do you like best, story-books or nature books?"
Willie answered with great promptness: "Nacher books."
The others all confessed to an extraordinary fondness for "hist'ry" or "biography" or "nacher."
I asked Miss Larkin's leave to try a little experiment, and then explained to her the workings of the interest gauges. We chose Willie as a subject for our investigations, and gave him a copy of one of his beloved "nacher" books, with a gauge attached. Five minutes' reading by Willie sent the arrow up to 30, but the same time on "The Crimson Sweater" sent it up to 110.
"He seems to like Mr. Barbour better than the Rev. Dr. Fakir, Miss Larkin—I'm afraid that his enthusiasm for 'nacher' is in accordance with what he knows will please you. Why don't you use your influence with him to lead him toward truthfulness? It's a better quality, even, than a fondness for non-fiction."
As I went back I met Professor Frugles.
"Let me have this, as soon as it is ready to go out," he said, brandishing the German work; "this other—trifling, sir, trifling!"
And away he went.
But I noticed that the German book had only sent the gauge up to forty, while the "trifling" work, which had caused him to express so much contempt, had registered seventy-five.
At the issue desk was Mrs. Crumpet, having her books charged. As there were no gauges on the books about the Flemish Renaissance, I had no data to go on, except the fact that although she declared she had "skimmed through" them all and found them "very helpful," she had not, so far, cut any of the pages. I did not mention this to her, as she might have retorted that we ought to have cut them ourselves. Which was quite true.
But while she talked with Miss Carey, I managed to extract the gauge from "Thelma." At least, I took away the fragments of it. The arrow had gone up to 140, and trying to get still higher the little glass tube had been smashed to bits.
THE GARDENER'S GUIDE
THE GARDNER'S GUIDE
I was looking over the proof sheets for some Library of Congress catalogue cards when I observed the name of Bunkum—Mrs. Martha Matilda Bunkum was the full name, and I was further privileged to learn that she was born in 1851. Everyone knows Mrs. Bunkum's two great works: "Handy Hints for Hillside Gardens," and "Care and Cultivation of Crocuses." Now, it seemed, she had accumulated all her horticultural wisdom into one book, which was called "The Gardener's Guide, or a Vade Mecum of Useful Information for Amateur Gardeners, by Martha Matilda Bunkum." The Library of Congress card went on to say that the book was published in New York, by the well-known firm of Ponsonby, Perks & Co., in the year 1911. It brought tears to my eyes, recalling the days when I, too, was a cataloguer, to see that the book had "xiv, 7, xv, 27, 316 p., illus., plates.", and moreover was 19 centimeters high.
As soon as I had recovered from my emotion, I pressed the electric bell three times—a signal that brings Miss Anderson, the head of the order department, into my office, unless she happens to be arranging her hair before the mirror in the stack-room at the moment. This time she came promptly.
"Miss Anderson," I said, "we must get a copy of Mrs. Bunkum's 'Gardener's Guide.'"
She instantly looked intelligent and replied, "We have one here now, on approval; it came in from Malkan this morning," and she hurried out to get it.
When I had the book, I regarded it lovingly.
"I wish I knew what the 'A. L. A. Book List' says about this," I pondered.
"It will be along in a couple of months," said Miss Anderson, "and then we can find out."
I told Miss Anderson to keep the book, anyhow, and to have this copy charged to my private account.
That night, on the way home, I expended $1.65 for flower seeds. They were all put up in attractive little envelopes, with the most gorgeous pictures on the front, representing blossoms of tropical splendor. On the backs was a great deal of information, as well as Latin names, confident prediction of what a dazzling mass of bloom the little packets would bring forth, and warnings "not to plant these seeds deeper than one-sixteenth of an inch."
All but the sunflowers. I could not get any sunflower seeds in packets, and finally had to get them in a paper bag—an enormous lot of them, for five cents. But there were no pictures, and no directions about depth. All this, I reflected, would be forthcoming from the pages of Mrs. Bunkum.
On