PROFESSOR LEE, BOTANIST

Miss Virginia Smith knew how to teach arithmetic. Fractions lost their terror for Marian, even the mysteries of cube root were eagerly anticipated. History became more than ever a living story to the child, and geography was a never failing joy. On rainy days every stream and puddle between Mrs. Golding's home and the schoolhouse was named, and if several Mississippi Rivers emptied into Gulfs of Mexico, and if half a dozen Niles overflowed their banks over the country road, what difference did it make? When the sun shone bright and only dew-drops glistened in the shade, Marian saw deserts and plains, mountains and volcanoes along the dusty way.

For a time the game of geography became so absorbing Marian played it at the table, forming snowy peaks of mashed potatoes and sprinkling salt upon the summits until the drifts were so deep, only the valleys below were fit to be eaten. Brown gravy was always the Missouri River winding its way across Marian's plate between banks of vegetables. Ice cream meant Mammoth Cave. A piece of pie was South Africa from which the Cape of Good Hope quickly disappeared. However hungry Marian might be, there was a time when she ate nothing but continents and islands.

Whatever Miss Virginia Smith tried to teach the country children, Marian Lee appropriated for herself. She listened to all recitations whether of the chart class or the big boys and girls. Perhaps if Marian had attended more strictly to her own lessons, she might have made the kind of a record she thought would please Uncle George. As it was, Jimmie Black "Left off head" in the spelling class more times than she did, the first month. Belle Newman had higher standings in arithmetic and geography, and some one carried off all the other honors.

Marian, however, knew something about botany before the end of May, and she gloried in the fact that she could name all the bones in her body. Mr. Golding was proud of her accomplishment and once when she went with him to see old Bess newly shod, he asked her to name the bones for the blacksmith: and the blacksmith thought it wonderful that a little girl knew so much. "Yes, but that's nothing," remarked the child, "all the big boys and girls in the fifth reader class know their bones."

"Ain't you in the fifth reader?" asked the blacksmith.

"No," was the reply, "I can read the whole reader through, but I'm not in that reader class. That's the highest class in the country. I suppose being in the fifth reader here is like being in the high school at home just before you graduate. I won't have to learn bones when I get up to the high school."

"And still you say that ain't nothing," protested the blacksmith.

Marian shook her head. "I haven't done one thing in school better'n anybody else," she said, "and to do something better'n anybody else is all that counts. Don't you try to be the best blacksmither in the country?"

Old Bess flourished her tail in the blacksmith's face and the man spoke to her next instead of to Marian. He wasn't the best blacksmith and he knew it. Some years afterwards when he had won an enviable reputation, he told Mr. Golding that the first time he thought of trying to do unusually good work was when the little Lee girl asked him if he tried to be the best blacksmith in the country.

Concerning botany, Miss Smith knew that Marian was interested in the wild flowers and had told her many a legend of wayside blooms when walking with her through the fields and across the hills: but she had no idea how much the child had learned from listening to the recitations of the botany class, until the Saturday morning when the wax doll went to school. Miss Smith happened to pass the corn-crib unnoticed by teacher or pupil.

The doll was propped in an attitude of attention among the ears of corn.

"Now, little girl," the instructor was saying, "if you ever expect to amount to anything in this world, you've got to use your eyes and ears. I'm the Professor of Botany your mother was reading about last night, who knew nothing about botany until she began to study it. Next winter when we can't get outdoors, I am going to give you lessons on seeds and roots and things and stems and leaves. The Professor of Botany has got to learn the names of the shapes of leaves and how to spell them. She really ought to own a book but she doesn't, and that can't be helped. You're sure to get what you want some time though, if you only try hard enough, and the Botany Professor will get a book. You just wait.

"Don't think, little girl, because we are skipping straight over to flowers this morning that you are going to get out of learning beginnings. We're taking flowers because it is summer. Of course you know this is a strawberry blossom I hold in my hand. Well, if it wasn't for strawberry blossoms you couldn't have strawberry shortcake, remember that. That's the principal thing about strawberries. This little circle of white leaves is called the corolla. Now don't get the calyx mixed with the corolla as some children do. I tell you it makes me feel squirmy to hear some big girls recite. You ought to see this flower under a microscope. I guess I'll go and ask Professor Smith for hers."

Marian turned around so quickly Professor Smith was unable to get out of sight. The doll's instructor felt pretty foolish for a moment, but only for a moment.

"Marian Lee," said Miss Smith, "you shall join the botany class next Monday morning and I'll give you a book of mine to study."

"What will the big girls say?" gasped Marian.

"About as much as your doll in there," laughed Miss Smith, adding seriously, "I won't expect too much of you, Marian, but you may as well be in the class and learn all you can."

On Monday morning, although the big girls smiled and the little girls stared, Professor Lee became a member of the botany class and learned to press the wild flowers.

"I won't have the most perfect lessons of anybody in the class," Marian confided to her doll, "because the big girls know so much; but I'll try and have the best specimens in my herbarium. I can do that, I am sure. I have just got to do something better than any one else in school before I go home."

The following Saturday the doll listened with unchanging face to a confession. "Every one of the big girls can press specimens better than I can. Their violet plants look like pictures but mine look like hay. I guess Uncle George will be discouraged. I don't do anything best. A robin is building a nest just outside the window where my seat is in school and I forgot to study my spelling lesson. Of course I missed half the words. It was the robin's fault. She ought to keep away from school children."