Sheaves by E.F. Benson — Read

The windows were all wide open, and a hot breeze of July, strong enough almost to be called a wind, and laden with the scents of summer and the hum of bees, poured boisterously into the room, stirring the papers on the table and ruffling the grayish wiry hair of the writer. But this invasion of the wind was clearly a thing often experienced, and, though apparently welcomed, suitably guarded against, for the copious papers that fluttered and rustled so busily to its touch were made secure from disarrangement by stones and various small fragments that were placed on top of their orderly heaps in order to prevent their taking flight. Thus, at the right hand of the writer, on a little shelf of these flutterers bound together by an elastic band and neatly docketed "Parish Accounts," there stood a small piece of basaltic rock, with a paper label gummed to it, lettered in minute old English type, "Ye Sea of Galilee, 1902."

"Ye Dead Sea, 1902," a softer piece of pumice-stone, prevented "Household Accounts (Stables)" from sowing themselves over the room; while a larger slab of white marble -- lay-brother, so to speak, to the first two, and labelled "Acropolis, 1902" in Greek characters -- kept the very small packet of "Letters unanswered" in place; and a fragment, with its ticket "St. Peter's, Rome," not stating, however, from what part of the church it had been pilfered, kept Barr's last list of "Seeds for the Flower Garden" from going there. Bits of Jerusalem and Nazareth were similarly useful.