Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-10-15
The Daily Story
The Collectors

II
love to say nothing Of having taken a
wife, was because he had a fad.
Every man has q fad. sven to the fad
Of picking up stray pins on the side
walk. but what all men are ready TO
deny is that they have one. Some other
fellow is Invariably tho guilty party.
Thus. while a score Of persons said that
John Blanchard had fad. hes aid to
himself that he was the only man in a
thousand who steered clear of them.
As a youth. Master Blanchard was in
olined TO serious thought; one OF the
most serious was the preservation OF the
] present for the future He realized that
| all things. even to nations must decay
and leave no more behind them than the
cave dwellers. There must come a time,
maybe 100000 years hence, when new
nation would long TO know how the
American lived in his day and date. They
would 30 hunting around for relics and
! souvenirs, and they would find remains
OF skyscrapers, subways, elevated roads.
Here and there they would uncover a
poem written by a Yankee school ma'am
now and then a speech delivered by
| Senator; but from those things could any
| future historian make out the real life
Of the people7
John Blenohard's name was to be saved
to posterity. The first move he made
was to write out his history from birth
to date, and then begin a diary which
should only close with his death. He
bought books to be inclosed In iron
boxes; he filed away daily papers; he
preserved magazines; he gathered postage
stamps and coins.
John Blanchard was the son of wealthy
parents. When he attained his majority
I =. T.
could and he did erect a building and
stun It from basement to garret with his
collections. He was still at II when he
made a new acquaintance that was bound
to bring about changes in his life.
John Blanchard might have been the
only male faddlst in his town that car
ried the idea to an extreme, and 1t never
occurred to him that a female might
! enter the lists against him. One did,
however. 1t was Miss Myra Day, a young
woman who had dwelt in this vale of
tears almost as long as he had, although
her fad wasn't born so early.
Miss Myra realized that the day must
come when the last trust, the last CRATER
and the last American must go hence
and leave the ruins Of his cities to be
paved over by relic hunters OF a later
| race and to be the hooting place of big
eyed owls, and that she had a duty to
do. Those people who were to come
after would be curious about our bird
life. They would wonder II our robins
had teeth like a grizzly bears, II our
bluebirds carried off and devoured babies,
IL the woodpecker emerged from his cave
at midnight to revel IN human gore.
1t was her mission to leave a leaf of
history behind for their benefit. She,
as well as Mr.. Blanchard, had wealth
and could indulge herself. She began
collecting the eggs of birds and acquiring
stuffed specimens In this she spent
thousands of dollars. She was thorough
in her work, too. She could speak and
write three different languages, and she
never packed up and laid an egg or a
stuffed specimen away without writing
on three different cards:
This is the egg of quail" or This
Is the quail himself" or whatever egg
or bird it was.
When Miss Myra had accumulated
enough specimens to load several trucks
she turned to insects. The race that was
to come would ask what kind of horse
flies, hornets and fleas the lost Americans
did business with. The collection of The
young woman would answer any ques-
tion. She could imagine the investigator
of 100000 years hence inquiring of him
self:
Now, then, wonder if the blamed old
hornet is new thing with us, or IL they
had him in the long ago."
And then her collection would be dis
covered. I'M be hanged If the pesky var
mint isn't right here, as big as life, and
the hossfiy is in the next stall to him."
the investigator would exclaim.
Miss Myra bought insects of small boys,
and she went afield for them personally.
The farmer didn't pay much attention to
the boy running over the fields in search
of the grasshopper, but when II came 20
a woman racing up and down with net
in her hand and her eyes bulging out he
would stop his plow to stare.
Good lands, but 'spose 1 had married
that thing instead of Mirandy!"
Mr. John Blanchard heard Of farmer
who had a valuable collection of manu-
scripts that would give history far in
sight into our ways of doing business in
the 18th and Goth centuries. 1t was
farmer who never paid a debt unless he
was about to be burned at the stake, and
the valuable manuscripts were the dun
ming letters he had received.
You may call it coincidence. You may
call it luck. You may say 1t was the
hand of Providence. Whatever II was II
brought the two collectors face TO face
on that farm. It introduced them, 1t
was a bond between them 1t made Miss
Myra agree that the dunning letters were
the cap-sheaf of the collection, and 1t
made Mr.. Blanchard volunteer to go with
her and help capture a few crickets.
The farmer refused a very liberal offer
for his manuscripts, on the grounds that
II he had money his creditors would pur-
sue him afresh; and when he came to
half understand the business of the col
lectors he was filled with contempt.
THAT feler orter be splittin' wood and
that woman orter be slicin' apples TO
dryl" was the way he looked at II, and
when they came TO ask where the largest
and choicest crickets could be found he
pointed to a bush in the pasture and re-
piled:
You'll find some lively ones down
there"
The farmers wife came out to him at
the plow and asked:
Josiah, what does that woman want?"
why she's one of EN-"
docs she want TO buy them dunning
letters, or the old letters you wrote me
afore we were married?'
mo. She's after bugs"
GOOD lands!"
II couldn't make out exactly what she
! wanted of them, but when they asked