Four Girls at Chautauqua Part 11

And Flossy, with brightening eyes, answered, quickly, "Yes, I have."

And then the boat touched at the wharf, and the crowd elbowed their way out.

There were two opinions expressed about that excursion by two gentlemen as they made their way up the avenue. One of the gentleman was clerical, and spectacled, and solemn.

"There go a boat-load of excursionists," he said to his companion.

"They come, as likely as not delegates, from some church or Sabbath-school, and the way they do their work is to go off for a frolic and be gone all day. I saw them when I left this morning. That is a specimen of a good deal of the dissipation that is going on here under the guise of religion. I don't know about it; sometimes I am afraid more harm than good will be done."

The other speaker was Mr. Charlie Flint, and as he rushed past these two he said to _his_ companion, "Confound it all! Talk about getting away from these meetings! It's no use; it can't be done. A fellow might just as well stay here and run every time the bell rings. I heard more preaching to-day on this excursion than I did yesterday; and a good deal more astonishing preaching, too."

CHAPTER XI.

HEART TOUCHES.

Marion gave her hair an energetic twist as she made her toilet the next morning, and announced her determination.

"This day is to be devoted conscientiously to the legitimate business that brought me to this region. Yesterday's report will have to be copied from the Buffalo papers, or made out of my own brain. But I'm going to work to-day. I have a special interest in the programme for this morning. The subject for the lecture just suits me."

"What is it?" Eurie asked, yawning, and wishing there was another picnic in progress. Neither heart nor brain were particularly interested in Chautauqua.

"Why, it is 'The Press and the Sunday-school.' Of course the press attracts me, as I intend to belong to the staff when I get through teaching young ideas."

"But what about the Sunday-school?" Ruth questioned, with a calm voice.

"You can not be expected to have any special interest in that. You never go to such an inst.i.tution, do you?"

"I was born and brought up in one. But that isn't the point. The subject to-day is Sunday-school literature, I take it. The subject is strung together, 'The Press and the Sunday-school,' without any periods between them, and I'm exceedingly interested in that, for just as soon as I get time I'm going to write a Sunday-school book."

This announcement called forth bursts of laughter from all the girls.

"Why not?" Marion said, answering the laugh. "I hope you don't intimate that I can't do it. I don't know anything easier to do. You just have to gather together the most improbable set of girls and boys, and rack your brains for things that they never _did_ do, or _could_ do, or _ought_ to do, and paste them all together with a little 'good talk,'

and you have your book, as orthodox as possible. Do any of you know anything about Dr. Walden? He is the speaker. I presume he is as dry as a stick, and won't give me a single idea that I can weave into my book.

I'm going to begin it right away. Girls, I'm going to put you all in, only I can't decide which shall be the good one. Flossy, do you suppose there is enough imagination in me to make you into a book saint? They always have a saint, you know."

There was a pretty flush on Flossy's cheek, but she answered, brightly:

"You might try, Marion, and I'll engage to practice on the character, if it is really and truly a good one."

"I had a glimpse of Dr. Walden," Eurie said, answering the question. "He was pointed out to me yesterday. He looked dignified enough to write a theological review. _I'm_ not going to hear him. What's the use? I came for fun, and I'm going in search of it all this day. I have studied the programme, and there is just one thing that I'm going to attend, and that is Frank Beard's 'chalk talk.' I know that will be capital, and he won't bore one with a sermon poked in every two minutes."

So the party divided for the day. Marion and Ruth went to the stand, and Flossy strayed to a side tent, and what happened to her you shall presently hear. Eurie wandered at her fancy, and enjoyed a "stupid time," so she reported.

Marion's pencil moved rapidly over the paper almost as soon as Dr.

Walden commenced, until presently she whispered in dismay to Ruth:

"I do wish he would say something to leave out! This letter will be fearfully long. How sharp he is, isn't he?"

Then she scribbled again. Ruth had the benefit of many side remarks.

"My!" Marion said, with an accompanying grimace. "What an army of books!

All for Sunday-schools. Three millions given out every Sunday! Does that seem possible! Brother Hart, I'm afraid you are mistaken. Didn't he say that was Dr. Hart's estimate, Ruthie? There is certainly a good chance for mine, if so many are needed every week. I shall have to go right to work at it. What if I _should_ write one, Ruth, and what if it should _take_, and all the millions of Sunday-schools want it at once! Just as likely as not. I am a genius. They never know it until afterward. I shall certainly put you in, Ruthie, in some form. So you are destined to immortality, remember."

"I wish you wouldn't whisper so much," whispered back Ruth. "People are looking at us in an annoyed way. What is the matter with you, Marion? I never knew you to run on in such an absurd way. That is bad enough for Eurie!"

"I'm developing," whispered Marion. "It is the 'reflex influence of Chautauqua' that you hear so much about."

Then she wrote this sentence from Dr. Walden's lips:

"Every author whose books go into the Sabbath-school is as much a teacher in that school as though he had cla.s.ses there. A good book is a book that will aid the teacher in his work of bringing souls to Christ.

I have known the earnest teaching of months to be defeated by one single volume of the wrong kind being placed in the hands of the scholar."

Suddenly Marion sat upright, slipped her pencil and note-book into her pocket, and wrote no more. A sentence in that address had struck home.

This determination to enter the lists as a writer was not all talk. She had long ago decided to turn her talents in that direction as the easiest thing in the line of literature, whither her taste ran. She had read many of the standard Sunday-school books; read them with amused eyes and curling lips, and felt entirely conscious that she could match them in intellectual power and interest, and do nothing remarkable then.

But there rang before her this sentence:

"Every author whose books go into the Sabbath-school is as much a teacher in that school as though he had cla.s.ses there." A teacher in the Sabbath-school! Actually a _teacher_. She had never intended that. She had no desire to be a hypocrite. She had no desire to lead astray.

_Could_ she write a book that young people ought to bring from the Sabbath-school with them, and have it say nothing about Christ and heaven and the Christian life? Surely she could not be a teacher without teaching of these things. _Must_ she teach them incidentally?

Was saying nothing about them speaking against them? Dr. Walden more than intimated this.

"After all," she said, speaking to Ruth as the address closed, "I don't think I shall commence my book yet."

"Why?"

"Oh, because I am sacred." Then, impatiently, after a moment's silence, during which they changed their seats, "I'm disgusted with Chautauqua!

It is going to spoil me. I feel my ambition oozing out at the ends of my toes, instead of my fingers as I had designed. Everybody is so awfully solemn, and has so much to say about eternity, it seems we can't whisper to each other without starting something that doesn't even end in eternity. But, wasn't he logical and eloquent?"

"I don't know," Ruth said, absently. And she wondered if Marion knew how true her words were. Ruth had heard scarcely a word of Dr. Walden's address since that last whisper, "So you are destined to immortality, remember." Words spoken in jest, and yet thrilling her through and through with a solemn meaning. She had always known and always believed this. She was no skeptic, yet her heart had never taken it in, with a great throb of anxiety, as it did at that moment. _Was_ she being led of the Spirit of G.o.d?

The two merely changed their positions and looked about them a little, and then prepared to give attention to the next entertainment, which was a story from Emily Huntington Miller. Marion was the only one who was in the least familiar with her, she being the only one who had felt that absorbing interest in juvenile literature that had led her to keep pace with the times.

"I'm disposed to listen to _her_ with all due respect and attention,"

she said, as she rearranged herself and got out her note-book. "She is one of the few people who seem not to have bidden a solemn farewell to their common sense when they set out to entertain the children. I have read everything she ever wrote, and liked it, too. I set out to make an idol of her in my more juvenile days. I used to think that the height of my ambition would be attained if I could have a long look at her. I'm going to try it to-day, and see if it satisfies me; though we are such aspiring and unsatisfied creatures that I strongly suspect I shall go on reaching out for something else even after _this_ experience."

Very little whispering was done after that for some time. Although Marion made light of her youthful dreams, there was a strong feeling of excitement and interest cl.u.s.tering around this first sight of the woman whose name she had known so long; and something in the fair, sweet face and cultured voice fascinated and held her, much as she had fancied in her earlier days would be the case. She frowned when she heard the request to reporters to "lay aside their pencils." She had meant to earn laurels by reporting this delicious bit of imagery, set in between the graver sermons and lectures; but, after all, it was a rest to give herself up to the uninterrupted enjoyment of taking in every word and tone--taking it in for her own private benefit. "The Parish of Fair Haven." How heartily she enjoyed it. The refined and delicate, and yet keen and intense satire underlying the whole quaint original story, was of just the nature to hold and captivate her. She was just in the mood to enjoy it, too. For was it not aimed at that cla.s.s of people who awakened her own keenest sense of satire--the so-called "Christian world"? She did not belong to it, you know; in her own estimation was entirely without the pale of its sarcasm; stranded on a high and majestic rock of unbelief in everything, and in a condition to be amused at the follies of people who played at belief; and treated what they _played_ was solemn realities as if they were cradle stories or nicely woven fiction. There was no listener in all that crowd who so enjoyed the keen play of wit and the sharp home thrusts as did Marion Wilbur.

Ruth was a little undecided what to think; she did not belong to the cla.s.s who were hit, to be sure, but her father always gave largely to missions whenever the solicitor called on him: she had heard his name mentioned with respect as one of the most benevolent men of the day; she did not quite like the very low and matter-of-course place which Mrs.

Miller's view of the mission question gave him. According to the people of Fair Haven, to give one's thousands to the cause was the most commonplace thing in the world--not to do so was to be an inhuman wretch. Ruth didn't quite like it--in truth she was just enough within the circle of modern Christianity to feel herself slightly grazed by the satire.

"It is absurd," she said to Marion as they went up the hill. "What is the sense in a woman talking in that way? As if people, were they ever so good and benevolent, could get themselves up in that ridiculous manner! If we live in the world at all we have to have a little regard for propriety. I wonder if she thinks one's entire time and money should be devoted to the heathen?"

Marion answered her with spirit.

"Oh, don't try to apologize for the folly that is going on in this world in the name of religion! It can't be done, and sensible people only make fools of themselves if they attempt it. There is nothing plainer or more impossible to deny than that church-members give and work and pray for the heathen as though they were a miserable and abominable set of brutes, who ought to be exterminated from the face of the earth, but for whom some ridiculous fanatics called 'missionaries' had projected a wild scheme to do something; and _they_, forsooth, must be kept from starving somehow, even though they had been unmitigated fools; so the paltry collections are doled out, with sarcastic undertones about the 'waste of money,' and the sin of missionaries wearing clothes, and expecting to have things to eat after throwing themselves away. Don't talk to me! I've been to missionary societies; I know all about it. The whole system is one that is exactly calculated to make infidels. I believe Satan got it up, because he knew in just what an abominable way the dear Christians would go at it, and what a horrid farce they would make of it all."

"It is a great pity you are not a Christian, Marion. I never come in contact with any one who understands their duty so thoroughly as you appear to, and I think you ought to be practicing."