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Four Girls at Chautauqua

<h2 id="id00266" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER VI.</h2> <h5 id="id00267">FEASTS.</h5> "He doesn't look in the least as I thought he did." It was Eurie who whispered this, and she nudged Marion's arm by way of emphasis as she did it. Marion laughed. "How did you think he looked?" "Oh, I don't know—rough, rather." Whereupon Marion laughed again. "That is the way some people discriminate," she whispered back. "You think because he wrote about rough people he must be rough; and when one writes about people of culture and elegance you think straightway that he is the personification of those ideas. You forget, you see, that the world is full to the brim with hypocrisy; and it is easier to be perfect on paper than it is anywhere else in this world." "Or to be a sinner either, according to that view of it." "It is easy enough to be a sinner anywhere. Hush, I want to listen." For which want the people all about her must have been very thankful. Our young ladies gave Dr. Eggleston their attention at the moment when he was drawling out in his most nasal and ludicrous tones the hymn that used to be a favorite in Sunday-schools ninety years ago: "Broad is the road that leads to death, And thousands walk together there, But wisdom shows a narrow path, With here and there a traveler." The manner in which part of these lines were repeated was irresistibly funny. To Eurie it was explosively so; she laughed until the seat shook with mirth. To be sure, she knew nothing about modern Sunday-schools; for aught that she was certain of, they might have sung that very hymn in the First Church Sunday-school the Sabbath before; and it made not the least atom of difference whether they did or not; the way in which Dr. Eggleston was putting it was funny, and Eurie never spoiled fun for the sake of sentiment. Presently she looked up at Marion for sympathy. That young lady's eyes were in a blaze of indignation. What in the world was the matter with her? Surely she, with her hearty and unquestioning belief in nothing, could not have been disturbed by any jar! Let me tell you a word about Marion. Away back in her childhood there was a memory of a little dingy, old-fashioned kitchen, one of the oldest and dreariest of its kind, where the chimney smoked and the winter wind crawled in through endless cracks and crannies; where it was not always possible to get enough to eat during the hardest times; but there was a large, old-fashioned arm-chair, covered with frayed and faded calico, and in this chair sat often of a winter evening a clean-faced old man, with thin and many-patched clothes, with a worn and sickly face, with a few gray hairs straggling sadly about on his smooth crown: and that old man used often and often to drone out in a cracked voice and in a tune pitched too low by half an octave the very words which had just been repeated in Marion's hearing. What of all that? Why, that little gloomy kitchen was Marion's memory of home; that old, tired man was her father, and he used to sing those words while his hand wandered tenderly through the curls of her brown head, and patted softly the white forehead over which they fell; and all of love that there was in life, all that the word "tenderness" meant, all that was dear, or sweet or to be reverenced, was embodied in that one memory to Marion. Now you understand the flashing eyes. She did not believe it at all; she believed, or thought she did, that the "broad" and "narrow" roads were all nonsense; that go where you would, or do what you would, all the roads led to death; and that was the end. But the father who had quavered through those lines so many times had staked his hopes forever on that belief, and the assurance of it had clothed his face in a grand smile as he lay dying—a smile that she liked to think of, that she did not like to hear ridiculed, and to her excited imagination Dr. Eggleston seemed to be ridiculing the faith on which the hymn was built. "They are more thorough hypocrites than I supposed," she said, in scorn, and hardly in undertone, in answer to Eurie's inquiring look. "I don't believe the stuff myself, but I always supposed the ministers did. I gave some of them at least credit for sincerity, but it seems it is nothing but a fable to be laughed to scorn." "Why, Marion!" Eurie said, and her look expressed surprise and dismay. "He is not making fun of religion, you know; he is simply referring to the inappropriateness of such hymns for children." "What is so glaringly inappropriate about it if they really believe the Bible? I'm sure it says there that there are two roads, one broad and the other narrow; and that many people are on one and but few on the other. Why shouldn't it be put into a hymn if it is desirable to impress it?" "I'm sure I don't know," Eurie said, unaccustomed to being put through a course of logic. "Only, you know, I suppose he simply means that it is beyond their comprehensions." "They must have remarkably limited comprehensions then if they are incapable of understanding so simple a figure of speech, as that there are two ways to go, and one is harder and safer than the other. I understood it when it was sung to me—and I was a very little child—and believed it, too, until I saw the lives of people contradict it; but if I believed, it still I would not make public sport of it." At this point Ruth leaned forward from the seat behind and whispered: "Girls, do keep still; you are drawing the attention of all the people around you and disturbing everybody." After that they kept still; but the good doctor had effectually sealed one heart to whatever that was tender and earnest he might have to say. She sat erect, with scornful eyes and glowing cheeks, and when the first flush of excitement passed off was simply harder and gayer than before. Who imagined such a result as that? Nobody, of course. But how perfectly foolish and illogical! Couldn't she see that Dr. Eggleston only meant to refer to the fact that literature, both of prose and poetry, had been improved by being brought to the level of childish minds, and to reprove that way of teaching religious truth, that leaves a somber, dismal impression on youthful hearts? Apparently she could not, since she did not. As for being absurd and illogical, I did not say that she wasn't. I am simply giving you facts as they occurred. I think myself that she was dishonoring the memory of her father ten thousand times more than any chance and unmeant word of the speakers could possibly have done. The only trouble was, that she was such an idiot she did not see it; and she prided herself on her powers of reasoning, too! But the world is full of idiots. She sat like a stone during the rest of the brilliant lecture. Many things she heard because she could not help hearing; many she admired, because it was in her to admire a brilliant and charming thing, and she could not help that, either; but she could shut her heart to all tenderness of feeling and all softening influences, and that she did with much satisfaction, deliberately steeling herself against the words of a man because he had quoted a chance line that her father used to sing, while she lived every day of her life in defiance of the principles by which her father shaped his life and his death! Verily, the ways of girls are beyond understanding. Eurie enjoyed it all. When Dr. Eggleston told of the men that, as soon as their children grew a little too restless, had business down town, she clapped her hands softly and whispered: "That is for all the world like father. Neddie and Puss were never in a whining fit in their lives that father didn't at once think of a patient he had neglected to visit that day, and rush off." She laughed over the thought that women were shut in with little steam engines, and said: "That's a capital name for them; we have three at home that are always just at the very point of explosion. I mean to write to mother and tell her I have found a new name for them." When he suggested the blunt-end scissors, and the colored crayons with which they could make wonderful yellow dogs, with green tails and blue eyes, her delight became so great that she looked around to Ruth to help her enjoy it, and said: "You see if I don't invest in a ton of colored crayons the very first thing I do when I get home; it is just capital! So strange I never thought of it before." "You did not think of it now," Ruth said, in her quiet cooling way. "Give the speaker credit for his own ideas, please. Half the world have to do the thinking for the other half always." "That is the reason so much is left undone, then," retorted Eurie, with unfailing good humor, and turned back to the speaker in time to hear his description of the superintendent that was so long in finding the place to sing that the boys before him went around the world while he was giving the number. "Slow people," said she, going down the hill afterward. "I never could endure them, and I shall have less patience with them in future than ever. Wasn't he splendid? Ruth, you liked the part about Dickens, of course." "A valuable help the lecture will be to your after-life if all you have got is an added feeling of impatience toward slow people. Unfortunately for you they are in the world, and will be very likely to stay in it, and a very good sort of people they are, too." It was Marion who said this, and her tone was dry and unsympathetic. Eurie turned to her curiously. "You didn't like him," she said, "did you? I am so surprised; I thought you would think him splendid. On your favorite hobby, too. I said to myself this will be just in Marion's line. She has so much to say about teaching children by rote in a dull and uninteresting way. You couldn't forgive him for reciting that horrid old hymn in such a funny way. Flossy, do you suppose you can ever hear that hymn read again without laughing? What was the matter, Marion? Who imagined you had any sentimental drawings toward Watts' hymns?" "I didn't even know it was Watts' hymn," Marion said, indifferently. "But I hate to hear any one go back on his own belief. If he honestly believes in the sentiments of that verse, and they certainly are Bible sentiments, he shouldn't make fun of it. But I'm sure it is of no consequence to me. He may make fun of the whole Bible if he chooses, verse by verse, and preach a melting sermon from it the very next Sabbath; it will be all the same to me. Let us go in search of some dinner, and not talk any more about him." "But that isn't fair. You are unjust, isn't she, Ruth? I say he didn't make fun of religion, as Marion persists in saying that he did." "Of course not," Ruth said. "A minister would hardly be guilty of doing that. He was simply comparing the advanced methods of the present with the stupidity of the past." And obstinate Marion said then he ought to get a new Bible, for the very same notions were in it that were when she was a child and learned verses. And that was all that this discussion amounted to. Nobody had appealed to Flossy. She had stood looking with an indifferent air around her, until Marion turned suddenly and said: "What did the lecture say to you, Flossy? Eurie seems very anxious to get out of it something for our 'special needs,' as they say in church. What was yours?" Flossy hesitated like a timid child, flushed and then paled, and finally said, simply: "I have been thinking ever since he spoke it of that one sentence, 'Rock-firm, God-trust, has died out of the world.' I was wondering if it were true, and I was wishing that it wasn't." All the girls looked at each other in astonished silence; such a strange thing for Flossy to say. "What of it?" said Marion, presently. "What if it has? or, rather, what if it were never in the world?" "It wasn't that side of it that I thought about. It was what if it were." "And what then?" "Why, then, I should like to see the person who had it, just to see how he would seem." Marion laughed somewhat scornfully. "Curiosity is at the bottom of your wise thought, is it? Well, my little mousie, I am amazingly afraid you are destined never to discover how it will seem. So I wouldn't puzzle my brains about it. It might be too much for them. Shall we go to dinner?" You should have seen our four young ladies taking their first meal at Chautauqua! It was an experience not to be forgotten. They went to the "hotel." This was a long board building, improvised for the occasion, and filled with as many comforts as the necessities of the occasion could furnish. To Miss Erskine the word "hotel" had only one sort of association. She had been a traveler in her own country only, and it had been her fortune to be intimate only with the hotels in large cities, and only with those where people go whose purses are full to overflowing. So she had come to associate with the name all that was elegant or refined or luxurious. When the President of the grounds inquired whether they would have tickets for the hotel or one of the boarding-houses, Miss Erskine had answered without hesitation: "For the hotel, of course. I never have anything to do with boarding-houses. They are almost certain to be second rate." Said President kept his own counsel, thinking, I fancy, that here was a girl who needed some lessons in the practical things of this life, and Chautauqua hotels were good places in which to take lessons. Imagine now, if you can, the look of this lady's face, as they made their way with much difficulty down the long room, and looked about them on either side for seats. "A hotel, indeed!" she said, in utter contempt and disgust, as one of the attendants signaled them and politely drew back the long board seat that did duty in the place of chairs, and answered for five, or, if you were good natured and crowded, for six people. He was just as polite in his attentions as if the unplaned seat had been a carved chair of graceful shape and pattern. One would suppose that Ruth might have taken a hint from his example. But the truth is, she belonged to that class of people who are so accustomed to polite attentions that it is only their absence which calls forth remark. "The idea of naming this horrid, dirty old lumber-room a hotel!" and she carefully and disdainfully spread her waterproof cloak on the seat before she took it. Eurie's merry laugh rang out until others looked and smiled in sympathy with her fun, whatever it was. "What in the world did you expect, Ruthie? I declare, you are too comical! I verily believe you expected Brussels carpets, and mirrors in which you could admire yourself all the while you were eating." "I expected a hotel," Ruth said, in no wise diminishing her lofty tone. "That is what is advertised, and people naturally do not look for so much deception in a religious gathering. This is nothing in the world but a shanty." Chautauqua was doing one thing for this young lady which surprised and annoyed her. It was helping her to get acquainted with herself. Up to this time she had looked upon herself as a person of smooth and even temperament, not by any means easily ruffled or turned from her quiet poise. She had prided herself on her composed, gracefully dignified way of receiving things. She never hurried, she never was breathless and flushed, and apologetic over something that she ought or ought not to have done, which was a chronic state with Eurie. She never was in a thorough and undisguised rage, as Marion was quite likely to be. She was, in her own estimation, a model of propriety. All this until she came to Chautauqua. Now, great was her surprise to discover in herself a disposition to be utterly disgusted with things that to Marion were of so little consequences as to be unnoticed, and that to Eurie were positive sources of fun. Doubtless you understand her better than she did herself. The truth is, it is a comparatively easy matter to be gracious and courteous and unruffled when everything about you is moving exactly according to your mind, and when you can think of nothing earthly to be annoyed about. There are some natures that are deceiving their own hearts in just such an atmosphere as this. They are not the lowest type of nature by any means. The small, petty trials that come to every life are beneath them. If it rains when they want to walk they can go in a handsome carriage, and keep their tempers. If their elegant new robes prove to be badly made they can have them remodeled and made more elegant with a superior composure. In just so far are they above the class who can endure nothing in the shape of annoyances or disappointment, however small. The fact is, however, that there are petty annoyance, not coming in their line of life, that would be altogether too much for them. But of this they remain in graceful ignorance until some Chautauqua brings the sleeping shadows to the surface. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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