14                                 Austin P. Evans

she gave early in the faU semester to small groups of students,
usually seminars, in a personally conducted tour of the reference
library. It was with a real thrill of pleasure that in her Memoir I
found my own name recorded among those who had availed
themselves of that service and had thus afforded my students in
successive seminars this early introduction to a master workman
and to the tools of her craft. It is a pleasure here to record that
that service has been ably continued since Miss Mudge's retire¬
ment by Miss Winchell and her assistants.

What is the key to an understanding of the power and en¬
thusiasm with which Miss Mudge conducted her work? Pre¬
sumably the answer must be found in the ability with which she
was endowed and the natural bent of her mind. But that natural
ability had to be trained and directed. Perhaps the explanation lies
in a conversation which I had with her a short while ago. Finding
ourselves in northern Westchester County with a little free time,
my wife and I decided to satisfy a long-felt desire to see Miss
Mudge. Of late years she has not been able to come to the Univer¬
sity as often as many of us would like. We found her on a wooded
hillside, in a home consisting of a remodelled barn, the hand-hewn
timbers of which were old, as houses are judged nowadays, when
the War of Independence was fought. Much of herself has gone
into that remodeUing during the twenty-five years that she has
owned the place, first as a week-end and summer hideout, but in
recent years as a permanent residence. She ushered us into the
large livingroom with its fine old oak beams and oak panels. One
side of the room consists almost entirely of windows which give
out over the tops of trees in the valley below to the distant hills,
trees brilliant in their fall dress of yellow and orange and red and
brown. Just below the house is an old orchard of apple and pear,
beneath which Miss Mudge has naturalized the daffodils which
form the basis of the almost legendary stories of the wealth of
blooms that she has picked to be sold during the war for overseas
relief—up to 15,000 daffodils alone contributed during the course
of one season—and latterly for other forms of community service.