After breakfast, Ruth said that Kate and she were going into the cabin to study Mrs. Yates’s sea library and collections.
“We’ll all go,” proclaimed Polly at once. “It will never do to let these two know so much more than the rest of us.”
So all the forenoon they pored over the pressed seaweed folios, excepting the hour for morning service, when the Senator called all hands into the cabin and read the dear, familiar words they all loved.
After dinner they went back to the collections and the library, and this time Mrs. Yates herself joined them, and explained many things they did not know about. Besides the seaweed folios, there were glass cases hanging against the walls, containing shells and all manner of sea curiosities. Ruth was in her element. With her eyeglasses clipped firmly in place on her nose, she traced the pedigree of the rarest specimens, and told the other girls all about sea urchins, Japanese trumpet shells, chambered nautili, and jellyfish, that Mrs. Yates called the phosphorescent mushrooms of the sea.
“Just wait till we reach our island,” Ruth told the rest. “Every morning early I shall hunt along the beach and in the enchanted gardens the tide leaves in the rock hollows, and I shall get results.”
“What sort of shells are those, Ruth?” asked Crullers, in her slow sleepy way. “I don’t remember hearing about them.”
“Results, Crullers, results,” repeated Ruth, patiently, but forcibly. “The effects of a cause. The shells and things left by the tide. Then after we have classified, and studied them, we’ll arrange them for preservation. Which tint would the sea weed look best against, Polly? I brought brown cards and gray and green, for mounting.”
“Brown,” Polly told her, “biscuit brown. Don’t you know what beautiful colors the seaweed dries to, purples, and lavenders, and deep maroons, and woodsy browns. Save your green boards for ferns, and shore flowers, and your gray ones for the mosses and lichens.”
“And, by the way, Polly,” added Mrs. Yates, “here is a hint that may prove useful. Don’t use any glue or mucilage to fasten your seaweed or other vegetation to the boards. Marbury has some fine wire brads that answer the purpose admirably. They are sharp and flexible, and nearly invisible after they are fastened to the boards, and your specimens are held securely in place.”
“That’s a splendid idea, Mrs. Yates,” cried Kate and Polly in one breath. “We wondered how we could fasten them.”