"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 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."