“The what?” she asked, not believing her ears. She had been thinking of the past, the present and the future as she watched her three friends’ faces, but that was quite a different matter.
“I have to write a paper on that subject,” said a complacent young woman, rather showily dressed, “and I thought I’d maybe better read up on it a little.”
“I should think it would be wise,” murmured Catherine. “But I hardly know–the Past, the Present, and the Future of what?”
“Why, not of anything. Just the Past, the Present and the Future,” said the other, with a shade of impatience in her tone. “Maybe I’d better wait till the real librarian is at liberty. He always knows what to give out.”
“Perhaps that would be best,” faltered Catherine. “It is such a very large subject, you know.”
“Yes, that’s why I chose it. I like a large subject. There is so much more to say on it. I wrote on ‘Woman’ last year, but it wasn’t broad enough!”
A little girl, who came in wanting a fairy story, gave Catherine a chance to turn away and hide her amusement. The child wanted to know what the story was about, and before Catherine realized what she was doing, she had her arm about the little girl’s waist, and, kneeling beside the low 217 table, was showing her the pictures in a beautiful illustrated Tanglewood Tales, telling the story of Persephone as that sweet sad tale has seldom been told.
Some one came in and wanted a book, but Catherine did not know it. Alice, who had had some library experience at college, stepped quietly to the desk and served the customer. Hannah dropped her magazine and stole nearer the alcove, listening to the story. Frieda looked up from her writing, as Catherine’s voice, full of wistfulness, came to her ear:
“And Mother Ceres wandered and wandered over the face of the earth, but there was not any Persephone anywhere. And the grass forgot to grow, and the flowers forgot to blossom, and the wheat withered and died, for Mother Ceres’ heart was broken. How could she care for other things, when Persephone was gone?”
The members of the program committee, one by one, paused in their busy searching through Poole’s Index, and waited while the sweet voice went on: