BY TELEPHONE

"On January 14th," so announced a circular issued last month by the Ezra Beesly Free Public Library of Baxter, "we shall install a telephone service at the library. Telephone your inquiries to the library, and they will be answered over the wire."

Now, January 14th was last Saturday, and this is undoubtedly the first account of the innovation at Baxter.

Miss Pansy Patterson, assistant reference librarian, took her seat at the telephone promptly at nine o'clock, ready to answer all questions. She had, near her, a small revolving bookcase containing an encyclopÆdia, a dictionary, the Statesman's Year Book, Who's Who in America, Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, The Old Librarian's Almanack, the Catalogue of the Boston AthenÆum, Baedeker's guide book to the United States, Cruden's Concordance, and a few others of the most valuable reference books, in daily use among librarians.

Should this stock fail her she could send the stenographer, Miss Parkinson, on a hurry call to the reading-room, where Miss Bixby, the head reference librarian, would be able to draw on a larger collection of books to find the necessary information.

Mr. Amos Vanhoff, the new librarian of Baxter, stood over the telephone, rubbing his hands in pleasant anticipation of the workings of the new system which he had installed.

The bell rang almost immediately, and Miss Patterson took the receiver from its hook.

"Is this the library?"

"Yes."

"This is Mrs. Humphrey Mayo. I understand that you answer inquiries by telephone? Yes! Thank you. Have you any books about birds?"

"Oh, yes—a great many. Which—"

"Well; I am so much interested in a large bird that has been perching on a syringa bush on our front lawn for the last half hour. It is a very extraordinary-looking bird—I have never seen one like it. I cannot make it out clearly through the opera glass, and I do not dare to go nearer than the piazza for fear of startling it. I only discovered it as I was eating breakfast, and I do not know how long it has been there. None of the bird books I own seem to tell anything about such a bird. Now, if I should describe it to you do you think you could look it up in some of your books?"

"Why, I think so."

"Well, it's a very large bird—like an eagle or a large hawk. And it is nearly all black; but its feathers are very much ruffled up. It has a collar or ruff around its neck, and on its head there is a splash of bright crimson or scarlet. I think it must be some tropical bird that has lost its way. Perhaps it is hurt. Now, what do you suppose it is?"

"You see, I haven't any bird books right at hand—I'll send in to the reading-room. Will you hold the line, please?"

Miss Patterson turned to the stenographer and repeated Mrs. Mayo's description of the strange bird.

"Will you please ask Miss Bixby to look it up, and let me know as soon as possible?"

During the interval that followed, the operator at central asked three times: "Did you get them?" and three times Mrs. Mayo and Miss Patterson chanted in unison: "Yes; hold the line, please!"

Finally the messenger returned, remarking timidly: "He says it's a crow."

"A crow!" exclaimed Miss Patterson.

"A crow!" echoed Mrs. Mayo, at the other end of the wire, "oh, that is impossible. I know crows when I see them. Why, this has a ruff, and a magnificent red coloring about its head. Oh, it's no crow!"

"Whom did you see in there?" inquired Miss Patterson. "Miss Bixby?"

"No," replied the young and timid stenographer, "it was that young man—I don't know his name."

She had entered the library service only the week before.

"Oh, Edgar! He doesn't know anything about anything. Miss Bixby must have left the room for a moment, and I suppose he had brought in a book for a reader. He is only a page—you mustn't ask him any questions. Do go back and see if Miss Bixby isn't there now, and ask her."

A long wait ensued, and as Mrs. Mayo's next-door neighbor insisted on using the telephone to order her dinner from the marketmen, the line had to be abandoned. In ten or fifteen minutes, however, the assistant reference librarian was once more in communication with Mrs. Mayo.

"We think the bird might possibly be a California grebe—but we cannot say for sure. It is either that or else Hawkins's giant kingfisher—unless it has a tuft back of each ear. If it has the tufts, it may be the white-legged hoopoo. But Mr. Reginald Kookle is in the library, and we have asked him about it. You know of Mr. Kookle, of course?"

"What, the author of 'Winged Warblers of Waltham' and 'Common or Garden Birds'?"

"Yes; and of 'Birds I Have Seen Between Temple Place and Boylston Street' and 'The Chickadee and His Children.'"

"Yes, indeed—I know his books very well. I own several of them. What does he think?"

"He is not sure. But Miss Bixby described this bird to him, and he is very much interested. He has started for your house already, because he wants to see the bird."

"Oh, that will be perfectly lovely. Thank you so much. It will be fine to have Mr. Kookle's opinion. Good-by."

"Good-by."

And the conference was ended. It may not be out of place to relate that Mr. Kookle, the eminent bird author, arrived at Mrs. Mayo's a few minutes later. As he heard that the mysterious stranger was on the front lawn, he approached the house carefully from the rear, and climbed over the back fence. He walked around the piazza to the front door, where Mrs. Mayo awaited him.

Mr. Kookle was dressed in his famous brown suit, worn in order that he might be in perfect harmony with the color of dead grass, and hence, as nearly as possible, unseen on the snowless, winter landscape. He had his field glasses already leveled on the syringa bush when Mrs. Mayo greeted him. She carried an opera glass.

"Right there—do you see, Mr. Kookle?"

"Yes, I see him all right."

They both looked intently at the bird. The weather was a little unfavorable for close observation, for, as it may be remembered, Saturday morning was by turns foggy and rainy. A light mist hung over the wet grass now, but the tropical visitor, or whatever he was, could be descried without much difficulty.

He sat, or stood, either on the lower branches of the bush, or amongst them, on the ground. His feathers were decidedly ruffled, and he turned his back toward his observers. His shoulders were a little drawn up, in the attitude usually ascribed by artists to Napoleon, looking out over the ocean from St. Helena's rocky isle. But it was possible, even at that distance, to see his magnificent crimson crest.

Mr. Kookle took a deep breath. "Yes," he said, "I suspected it."

"What?" inquired Mrs. Mayo, eagerly, "What is it?"

"Madam," returned the bird author, impressively, "you have my sincerest congratulations. I envy you. You have the distinction of having been the first observer, to the best of my knowledge, of the only specimen of the Bulbus Claristicus Giganticus ever known to come north of the fourteenth parallel of latitude."

Mrs. Mayo was moved nearly to tears. Never in all her career as a bird enthusiast, not even when she addressed the Twenty Minute Culture Club on "Sparrows I Have Known"—never had she felt the solemn joy that filled her at this minute.

"Are you sure that is what it is?" she asked in hushed tones.

"Absolutely positive," replied the authority, "at least—if I could only get a nearer view of his feet, I could speak with certainty. Now, if we could surround the bush, so to speak, you creeping up from one side and I from the other, we might get nearer to him. I will make a dÉtour to your driveway, and so get on the other side of him. You approach him from the house."

"Just let me get my rubbers," said Mrs. Mayo.

"Please hurry," the other returned.

When the rubbers were procured they commenced their strategic movement. "If I could only be sure that it is the Bulbus!" ejaculated Mr. Kookle.

Mrs. Mayo turned toward him.

"Do you suppose," she whispered, "that it is the great condor of the Andes?"

Mr. Kookle shook his head.

Then they both started again on their stealthy errand. Slowly, quietly, they proceeded until they stood opposite each other, with the syringa and its strange visitant half-way between them. Then Mr. Kookle raised his hand as a signal, and they began to approach the bush. The bird seemed to hear them, for he immediately took interest in the proceedings. He raised his head, hopped out from the bush, and uttered a peculiar, hoarse note that sounded like:

"Craw-w-w-w!"

Mr. Kookle and Mrs. Mayo stopped in their tracks, electrified. Then the bird put its other foot on the ground and gave vent to this remarkable song:

"Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, ker-dar-cut! Ker-dar-cut! Ker-dar-cut!"

Then it gave two or three more raucous squawks, ran toward the fence, flew over it, ran across the street, under Mr. Higgins's fence, and joined his other Black Minorca fowls that were seeking their breakfast in the side yard.

Then Mrs. Mayo returned to the house, and Mr. Reginald Kookle, the author of "Winged Warblers of Waltham" and "The Chickadee and His Children," returned his field glasses to their case, turned up the collar of his famous brown suit, and walked rapidly down the street.

But Miss Patterson had been busy at the library telephone all this time. Scarcely had she ended her conversation with Mrs. Mayo when someone called her to have her repeat "Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night" over the telephone. This was only finished when the bell rang again.

"Hello! This the library?"

"Yes."

"Well, I wish you'd tell me the answer to this. There's a prize offered in the 'Morning Howl' for the first correct answer. 'I am only half as old as my uncle,' said a man, 'but if I were twice as old as he is I should only be three years older than my grandfather, who was born at the age of sixteen. How old was the man?' Now, would you let x equal the age of the uncle, or the man?"

Miss Patterson could not think of any immediate answer to this, nor of any book of reference that would tell her instantly. So she appealed to Mr. Vanhoff, who had returned to the room.

"What was that?" inquired Mr. Vanhoff; "get him to repeat it."

She did so, and the librarian struggled with it for a moment. "Why, it is all nonsense. Tell him that we cannot solve any newspaper puzzles over the telephone. He will have to come to the library."

Then Mrs. Pomfret Smith announced herself on the telephone.

"That the library? Who is this? Miss Patterson? Oh, how do you do? This is so nice of Mr. Vanhoff. I was coming down to the library this morning, but the weather is so horrid that I thought I would telephone instead. Now, my cousin is visiting me, and I have told her about a novel I read last summer, and she is just crazy to read it, too. But I can't for the life of me recall the name of it. Now, do you remember what it was?"

"Why—I'm afraid I don't. Who was the author?"

"That's just the trouble. I can't remember his name to save my life! I'm not even sure that I noticed his name—or her name—whoever it was. I never care much who wrote them—I just look them through, and if they're illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy or anybody like that, I just take them, because I know then they'll be all right. This one had pictures by Christy or Wenzell or one of those men. It was a lovely book—oh, I do wish you could tell me what it was! Where is Miss Anderson? She would know. Isn't she there?"

"No—I am sorry, she will not be here till afternoon. If you could tell me something about the novel—the plot, and so forth, I might have read it myself."

"Oh, of course you've read it. Why, you read all the books that come into the library, don't you?"

"Not quite all."

"You don't? How funny! Why, whatever do you find to do with yourselves down there? You're sure you don't remember the one I want?"

"Why, Mrs. Smith, you haven't told me about the plot of it yet."

"Oh, no, so I haven't. Well—let me see—Um! why, it was about—now, what in the world was it about? Oh dear, I never can think, with this thing up to my ear! What's that, Central? Yes, I got them all right—hold the line, please. Oh dear, I'll have to ring off and think it over, and as soon as I remember, I'll call you up again. Thank you, so much! Good-by."

The next was a man who spoke in a deep voice. "Hello! Is this the library? Have you a history of Peru? You have? Now, that is very fortunate. I do not know how many places I have inquired. I only want a few facts—only a paragraph or two. You can tell them to me over the 'phone, can you not, and I will take them down?"

Miss Patterson had her finger on an article about Peru in the encyclopÆdia. "'Peru,'" she began to read, "'the ancient kingdom of the Incas—'"

"Of the whichers?" interrupted the man.

"The Incas," she repeated.

"Spell it," he commanded.

"Incas," she spelled.

"Oh, Lord!" said the man, "that's South America. I've been hearing about them all day. The principal of the High School gave me a song and dance about the Incas. I mean Peru, Indiana. Here, I'll come down to the library—this telephone booth is so hot I can't get my breath. Good-by."

Mrs. Pomfret Smith, unlike Jeffries, had come back. She greeted Miss Patterson with enthusiasm.

"Oh, Miss Patterson, I've remembered all about it now. You see, it starts this way. There is a girl, a New York girl, who has married an English lord, or, rather, she is just going to marry him—the brother of the first man she was engaged to steps in, and tells her that the lord isn't genuine, and he presents her maid with a jeweled pin which his mother, the countess, received from her husband—her first husband, that is—three days after the battle of—oh, I don't know the name of the battle—the 'Charge of the Light Brigade,' it was, and he was in that—no, his uncle was, and he said to his tent-mate, the night before the battle: 'Charley, I'm not coming out of this alive, and my cousin will be the lawful heir, but I want you to take this and dig with it underneath the floor of the old summer house, and the papers that you will find there will make Gerald a rich man.' And so he took it and when he got to Washington he handed it to the old family servant who hadn't seen him for sixty years, and then dropped dead, so they never knew whether he was the real one or only the impostor, and so just as the wedding was about to take place the uncle—he was a senator—said to the bishop, who was going to marry them: 'Please get off this line, I am using it!' And so it never took place, after all. Now, can you tell me what the name of the book is, Miss Patterson?"

"Why, I am afraid I do not recognize it. It sounds a little like Mrs. Humphry Ward and Ouida and Frances Hodgson Burnett, and someone else, all at once. Was it by any of them, Mrs. Smith?"

"Oh, no, I am sure it was not. Why, I am surprised—I thought you would know it now, without any hesitation!"

"I am sorry."

"Oh, very well, then. Good-by."

The last in a tone as acid and cold as lemon ice. It seemed to express Mrs. Smith's opinion of all librarians. Miss Patterson was much grieved, but the telephone bell rang again before she had time to reflect.

"Is this the library? Oh, yes. I wonder if you have a life of Mrs. Browning?"

"Yes—I think so. What would you like to know about her?"

"Well, there—I am certainly glad. This is Miss Crumpet, you know! Miss Hortense Crumpet. I have had such a time. Have you the book right there? I do wish you would—"

"If you will wait just a minute, I will send for the book—I haven't it here."

"Oh, thank you so much."

The book was fetched, and Miss Patterson informed Miss Crumpet that she now held the volume ready.

"Have you it right there?"

"Yes."

"Well, I want to see a picture of Mrs. Browning. We have a portrait here, and my aunt says it is George Eliot, and I know it is Mrs. Browning. Now, if you could just hold up the book—why, how perfectly ridiculous of me! I can't see it over the telephone, can I? Why, how absolutely absurd! I never thought at all! I was going to come to the library for it, only it is so horrid and rainy, and then I remembered that I saw in the paper about your answering questions by telephone, and I thought, why, how nice, I'll just call them up on the 'phone—and now it won't do me any good at all, will it?"

"I'm afraid not."

"And I'll have to come to the library after all. Oh, dear! Good-by."

"Good-by."

The bell rang again as soon as the receiver had been replaced.

"Hello! How are you for pigs' feet to-day?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Pigs' feet! How many yer got?"

"This is the public library. Did you call for us?"

"Who? The what? No; I'm trying to get Packer and Pickleums. I don't want no public library. What's the matter with that girl at central? This is the third time—"

His conversation ended abruptly as the receiver was hung up. Miss Patterson was soon called again. Mrs. Pomfret Smith was once more unto the breach.

"Miss Patterson? I've remembered some more about that book, now. It had a bright red cover and the name of it was printed in gilt letters. It was about so high—oh, I forgot, you can't see over the telephone, can you? Well, it was about as big as books usually are, you know, and it was quite thick—oh, it must have had a hundred or two hundred pages—perhaps more than that, I am not sure. And the front picture was of a girl—the heroine, I guess, and a man, and he had his arms around her and she was looking up into his face. Now, you can remember what book it was, can't you, Miss Patterson?"