"My goodness!" exclaimed the surprised librarian, and she found Tessie all the books which mentioned the islands in the Pacific Ocean. "There!" she said. "If you read all these you'll learn something about your kingdom. The best book," she remembered with a frown, "the one that tells all about the Pacific islands is out. A man came in after dinner and took it."
"What kind of a man?" asked Mr. Bill, not because he cared but because the librarian seemed to expect something to be said.
"A tall man, young and thin, with rough brown hair and brown eyes and rather shabby clothes." The librarian appeared to describe her client by looking at Mr. Bill and seeing his opposite.
"It must have been Joe Cary!" exclaimed Tessie. "It would be just like Joe to learn everything about my kingdom before I can read a word!" She looked vexed.
"Save you a lot of trouble," suggested Mr. Bill. "He can tell you what he learns, and you won't have much time for reading now."
"That's true!" Tessie stopped frowning to smile. "I'll let Joe do my reading for me. That's the way queens do, isn't it?—have some one do things for them? Thank you for the books." She turned politely to the librarian, who was staring at her with unbelieving amazement.
"My goodness! I'm much obliged to you for coming in for those books even if you never read them. I've been librarian at this branch station for three years now, and nothing as interesting as this ever happened. I hope you'll be a very happy queen!" And the librarian drew a long breath. She had never supposed that she would ever tell a queen to her face that she hoped she would be happy. Such things might happen in books, but surely they had never happened before in a real library.
"Thank you," said Tessie, putting out her hand to shake the librarian's lean fingers. "I'm going to try to be a good queen."
"My goodness!" repeated the librarian, as Tessie, Mr. Bill and the books went to join Granny and Johnny. "My goodness, but I'm glad I didn't close up a minute earlier than I did!"