Book: Four Girls at Chautauqua

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FOUR GIRLS AT CHAUTAUQUA

BY

PANSY

Author of "Chautauqua Girls at Home," "Ruth Erskine's Crosses," "Judge
Burnham's Daughters," "The Hall in The Grove," "Eighty-Seven," etc.

1876







CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I. INTRODUCED.
CHAPTER II. THE QUESTION DISCUSSED.
CHAPTER III. ENTERING THE CURRENT.
CHAPTER IV. FAIRPOINT.
CHAPTER V. UNREST.
CHAPTER VI. FEASTS.
CHAPTER VII. TABLE TALK.
CHAPTER VIII. "AT EVENING TIME IT SHALL BE BRIGHT."
CHAPTER IX. FLEEING.
CHAPTER X. HOW THE "FLITTING" ENDED.
CHAPTER XI. HEART TOUCHES.
CHAPTER XII. FLOSSY AT SCHOOL.
CHAPTER XIII. "CROSS PURPOSES."
CHAPTER XIV. THE NEW LESSON.
CHAPTER XV. GREAT MEN.
CHAPTER XVI. WAR OF WORDS.
CHAPTER XVII. GETTING READY TO LIVE.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE SILENT WITNESS.
CHAPTER XIX. AN OLD STORY.
CHAPTER XX. PEOPLE WHO, "HAVING EYES, SEE NOT."
CHAPTER XXI. A "SENSE OF DUTY."
CHAPTER XXII. ONE MINUTE'S WORK.
CHAPTER XXIII. "I'VE BEEN REDEEMED."
CHAPTER XXIV. SWORD THRUSTS.
CHAPTER XXV. SERMONS IN CHALK.
CHAPTER XXVI. "THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW THEM."
CHAPTER XXVII. UNFINISHED MUSIC.
CHAPTER XXVIII. MENTAL PROBLEMS.
CHAPTER XXIX. WAITING.
CHAPTER XXX. SETTLED QUESTIONS.
CHAPTER XXXI. THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
CHAPTER XXXII. THE END OF THE BEGINNING.




CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCED.


Eurie Mitchell shut the door with a bang and ran up the stairs two steps
at a time. She nearly always banged doors, and was always in a hurry.
She tapped firmly at the door just at the head of the stairs; then she
pushed it open and entered.

"Are you going?" she said, and her face was all in a glow of excitement
and pleasure.

The young lady to whom she spoke measured the velvet to see if it was
long enough for the hat she was binding, raised her eyes for just an
instant to the eager face before her, and said "Good-morning."

"Ruth Erskine! what are you trimming your hat for? Didn't it suit? Say,
are you going? Why in the world don't you tell me? I have been half wild
all the morning."

Ruth Erskine smiled. "Which question shall I answer first? What a
perfect interrogation point you are, Eurie. My hats never suit, you
know; this one was worse than usual. This velvet is a pretty shade,
isn't it? Am I going to Chautauqua, do you mean? I am sure I don't know.
I haven't thought much about it. Do you really suppose it will be worth
while?"

Eurie stamped her foot impatiently. "How provoking you are! Haven't
thought of it, and here I have been talking and coaxing all the morning.
Father thinks it is a wild scheme, of course, and sees no sense in
spending so much money; but I'm going for all that. I don't have a
frolic once in an age, and I have set my heart on this. Just think of
living in the woods for two whole weeks! camping out, and doing all
sorts of wild things. I'm just delighted."

Miss Erskine sewed thoughtfully for some seconds, then she said:

"Why, there is nothing in the world to hinder my going if I want to. As
to the money, I suppose one could hardly spend as much there as at Long
Branch or Saratoga, and of course I should go somewhere. But the point
is, what do I want to go for?"

"Why, just to be together, and be in the woods, and live in a tent, and
do nothing civilized for a fortnight. It is the nicest idea that ever
was."

"And should we go to the meetings?" Miss Erskine asked, still speaking
thoughtfully, and as if she were undecided.

"Why, yes, of course, now and then. Though for that matter I suppose
father is right enough when he says that precious few people go for the
sake of the meetings. He says it is a grand jollification, with a bit of
religion for the background. But for that matter the less religion they
have the better, and so I told him."

At this point there was a faint little knock at the door, and Eurie
sprang to open it, saying as she went: "That is Flossy, I know; she
always gives just such little pussy knocks as that." The little lady who
entered fitted her name perfectly. She was small and fair, blue-eyed,
flossy yellow curls lying on her shoulders, her voice was small and
sweet, almost too sweet or too soft, that sort of voice that could
change when slight occasion offered into a whine or positive
tearfulness. She was greeted with great glee by Eurie, and in her more
quiet way by Miss Erskine.

"_I'm_ going," she said, with a soft little laugh, and she sank down
among the cushions of the sofa, while her white morning dress floated
around her like a cloud. "Charlie thinks it is silly, and Kit thinks it
is sillier, and mamma thinks it is the very silliest thing I ever did
yet; but for all that I am going--that is, if the rest of you are."
Which, by the way, was always this little Flossy's manner of speech. She
was going to do or not to do, speak or keep silent, approve or condemn,
exactly as the mind which was for the time being nearest to her chose to
sway her.

"Good!" said Eurie, softly clapping her hands. "I didn't think it of
you, Flossy; I thought you were too much of a mouse. Now, Ruth, you will
go, won't you? As for Marion, there is no knowing whether she will go
or not. I don't see now she can afford it myself any more than I can;
but, of course, that is her own concern. We can go anyway, whether she
does or not--only I don't want to, I want her along. Suppose we all go
down and see her; it is Saturday, she will be at home, and then we can
begin to make our preparations. It is really quite time we were sure of
what we are going to do."

By dint of much coaxing and argument Ruth was prevailed upon to leave
her fascinating brown hat with its brown velvet trimmings, and in the
course of the next half hour the trio were on their way down Park
Street, intent on a call on Miss Marion Wilbur. Park Street was a
simple, quiet, unpretending street, narrow and short; the houses were
two-storied and severely plain. In one of the plainest of these, wearing
an unmistakable boarding-house look, in a back room on the second floor,
the object of their search, in a dark calico dress, with her sleeves
rolled above her elbows, had her hands immersed in a wash-bowl of suds,
and was doing up linen collars. She was one of those miserable creatures
in this weary world, a teacher in a graded school, and her one day of
rest was filled with all sorts of washing, ironing and mending work,
until she had fairly come to groan over the prospect of Saturday because
of the burden of work which it brought. She welcomed her callers without
taking her hands from the suds; she was as quiet in her way as Ruth
Erskine was in hers.

This time it was Flossy who asked the important question: "Are you
going?"

Marion answered as promptly as though the question had been decided for
a week.

"Yes, certainly I am going. I thought I told you that when we talked it
over before. I am washing out my collars to have them ready. Ruth, are
you going to take a trunk?"

Ruth roused herself from the contemplation of her brown gloves to say
with a little start:

"How you girls do rush things. Why, I haven't decided yet that I am
going."

"Oh, you'll go," Marion Wilbur said. "The question is, are we to take
trunks--or, rather, are you to? because I know _I_ shall not. I'm going
to wear my black suit. Put it on on Tuesday morning, or Monday is it
that we start? and wear it until we return. I may take it off, to be
sure, while I sleep, but even that is uncertain, as we may not get a
place to sleep in; but for once in my life I am not going to be bored
with baggage."

"I shall take mine," Ruth Erskine said with determination. "I don't
intend to be bored by being without baggage. It is horrid, I think, to
go away with only one dress, and feel obliged to wear it whether it is
suited to the weather or not, or whatever happens to it. Eurie, what are
you laughing at?"

"I am interested in the phenomena of Marion Wilbur being the first to
introduce the dress question. I venture to say not one of us has thought
of that phase of the matter up to this present moment."

While the talk went on the collars and cuffs were carefully washed and
rinsed, and presently Marion, with her hands only a trifle pinker for
the operation, was ready to lean against a chair and discuss ways and
means. Her long apprenticeship in school-rooms had given her the habit
of standing instead of sitting, even when there was no occasion for the
former.

If these four young ladies had been creatures of the brain, gotten up
expressly for the purpose of illustrating extremes of character, instead
of being flesh and blood creations, I doubt whether they could have
better illustrated the different types of young ladyhood. There was Ruth
Erskine, dwelling in solitary grandeur in her royal home, as American
royalty goes, the sole daughter, the sole child indeed of the house, a
girl who had no idea of life except as a place in which to have a
serenely good time, and teach everybody to do as she desired them to.
Money was a commonplace matter-of-course article, neither to be
particularly prized nor despised; it was convenient, of course, and must
be an annoyance when one had to do without it; but of that, by practical
experience, she knew nothing. Yet Ruth was by no means a
"pink-and-white" girl without character; on the contrary, she had plenty
of character, but hitherto it had been frittered away on nothings, until
it looked as much like nothing as it could. She was the sort of person
whom education and circumstances of the right sort would have developed
into splendor, but the development had not taken place. Now you are not
to suppose that she was uneducated; that would be a libel on Madame La
Fonte and her fashionable seminary. She had graduated with honor; taken
the first prizes in everything. She knew all about seminaries; so do I;
and if you do, you are ready to admit that the development had not come.
There is constantly occurring something to take back. While I write I
have in mind an institution where the earnest desire sought after and
prayed for is the higher development, not alone of the intellect, but of
the heart: where the wonderful woman who is at its head said to me a few
years ago:

"If a lady has spent three years under my care, and graduated, and gone
out from me not a Christian, I feel like going down on my knees in
bitterness of soul, and crying, 'Lord, I have failed in the trust thou
didst give me." But the very fact that the word "wonderful" fits that
woman's name is proof enough that such institutions as hers are rare,
and it was not at that seminary that Ruth Erskine graduated. She was
spending her life in elegant pursuits that meant nothing, those of them
which did not mean worse than nothing, and the only difference between
her and a hundred others around her was that she knew perfectly well
that they all amounted to nothing, and didn't hesitate to say so,
therefore she earned the title of "queer." At the same time she did not
hesitate to lead the whirl around this continuous nothing, therefore she
occupied that perilous position of being liked and admired and envied,
all in one. Very few people loved her, and queerly enough she knew that
too, and instead of resenting it realized that she could not see why
they should. She was, moreover, remarkably careful as to her leading
after all, and those who followed were sure of being led in an eminently
respectable and fashionable way. Her most intimate friend was Eurie
Mitchell, which was not strange when one considered what remarkable
opposites in character they were. Eureka J. Mitchell was the respectable
sounding name that the young lady bore, but the full name would have
sounded utterly strange to her ears, the wild little word "Eurie"
seeming to have been made on purpose for her. She was the eldest
daughter of a large, good-natured, hard-working, much-bewildered family.
They never knew just where they belonged. They went to the First
Church, which for itself should have settled their position, since it
was the opinion of most of its members that it was organized especially
that the "first families" might have a church-home. But they occupied a
very front seat, by reason of their inability to pay for a middle one,
which was bad for "position," as First Church gentility went. What was
surprising to them was how they ever happened to have the money to pay
for that seat; but, let me record it to their honor, they always
happened to have it. They were honest. They ought to have been called
"the happen family," by reason of their inability to tell how much or
how little they might happen to have to live on, whether they could
afford three new dresses apiece or none at all. The fact being that it
depended on the amount of sickness there was in Dr. Mitchell's beat
whether there were to be luxuries or simple bare necessities, with some
wonderment as to how even those were to be paid.

Eurie was the most light-hearted and indifferent of this free-and-easy
family, who always had roast turkey when it was to be had, and who
could laugh and chat merrily over warmed-up meat and johnny-cake, or
even no meat at all, when such days came. How she ever came to think
that she could go to Chautauqua was a matter of surprise to herself; but
it happened to have been a sickly summer among the wealthy people, and
large bills had come in--the next thing was to spend them. Chautauqua
was a silly place to do it in, to be sure; that was Dr. Mitchell's idea,
and the family laughed together over Eurie's last wild notion; but for
all that they good-naturedly prepared to let her carry it out. Just how
full of fun and mischief and actual wildness Eurie was, a two-weeks
sojourn at Chautauqua will be likely to develop; for before that
conversation at Marion's was concluded they decided that they were
really going. Why Marion went, puzzled the girls very much, puzzled
herself somewhat. She was her own mistress, had neither father to direct
nor sister to consult. She had an uncle and aunt who lived where she
called "home," and with whom she spent her vacations, but they were the
poorest of hard-working country people, who stood in awe of Marion and
her education, and by no means ventured to interfere with her plans.
Marion was as independent in her way as Ruth was in hers, but they were
very different ways. Ruth, for instance, indulged her independence in
the matter of dress, by spending a small fortune in looking elegantly
unlike everybody else, and straightway created a frantic desire in her
set to look as nearly like her as possible. But no one cared to look
like Marion, in her severely plain black or brown suits, with almost and
sometimes quite no trimmings at all on them. It was agreed that she
looked remarkably well, but so unlike any one else they didn't see how
she could bring herself to dressing so. She laughed when this was hinted
to her, and got what comfort she could out of the fact that she was
considered "odd." In a certain way she ruled them all, Ruth Erskine
included, though that young lady never suspected it. The queerest one of
this company was little Flossy Shipley--queer to be found in just such
company, I mean. She was the petted darling of a wealthy home, a younger
daughter, a baby in their eyes, to be loved and cherished, and allowed
to have her own sweet and precious way even when it included such a
strange proceeding as a two weeks in the woods, all because that strange
girl in the ward school that Flossy had taken such an unaccountable
fancy for was going. This family were First Church people, too, and
capable of buying a seat very near the centre, in fact but a few removes
from the Erskine pew, which was, of course, the wealthy one of the
church. The Shipley pew was rarely honored by all the members of the
family, and indeed the pastor had no special cause for alarm if several
Sundays went by without an appearance from one of them. A variety of
trifles might happen to cause such a state of things, from which you
will infer that they were not a church-going family. Another strange
representative for Chautauqua!

Now how did those four girls come to be friends? Oh, dreadful! You don't
expect me to be able to account for human friendships I hope, especially
for school-girl friendships? There is no known rule that will apply to
such idiosyncracies. They had been in school together, oven Marion
Wilbur, with the indomitable energy which characterized her, had managed
one term of Madame La Fonte's enormous bills, and with the close of the
term found herself strangely enough drawn into this strange medley of
character that moved in such different circles, and yet called
themselves friends. You are to understand that though the same church
received these girls on Sunday, yet the actual circle in which their
lives whirled was as unlike as possible. The Erskines were the cream,
cultured, traveled, wealthy, aristocratic as to blood and as to manners,
literary in the sense that they bought rare books, and knew why they
were rare. The Mitchells had a calling acquaintance with their family
because Dr. Mitchell was their chosen physician, but that came to pass
through an accident, and not many of the doctor's patrons were of just
the same stamp. This family never went to the Erskine entertainments,
never were invited to go to the other entertainments starting from the
same circle, yet they had their friends and many of them. The Shipleys
were free-and-easy, cordial, social, friendly people, who bought many
books and pictures, and were prominent in fairs and festivals, and were
popular everywhere, but were not, after all, of the Erskine stamp.
Finally came Marion, alone, no position any where, save as she ruled in
the most difficult room in the most difficult ward in the city. A
worker, known to be such; a manager, recognized as one who could make
incongruous elements meet and marshal into working order. In that
capacity she found her place even in the First Church, for they had
fairs and festivals, and oyster suppers, and other trials even in the
First Church; and there was much work to be done, and Marion Wilbur
could work.

And these four girls were going to Chautauqua--were to start on Monday
morning, August 2, 1875.




CHAPTER II.

THE QUESTION DISCUSSED.


Rev. Dr. Dennis and Rev. Mr. Harrison met just at the corner of Howard
and Clinton Streets, and stopped for a chat. Dr. Dennis was pastor of
the First Church, and Mr. Harrison was pastor of the Fourth, and some of
the sheep belonging to these respective flocks supposed the two churches
to be rivals, but the pastors thereof never thought of such a thing. On
the contrary, they were always getting up excuses for coming in contact
with each other; and woe to the work that was waiting for each when they
chanced to meet of a morning on some shady corner.

"You are to be represented, I hear, at the coming assembly," said Mr.
Harrison, as they shook hands in that hearty way which says, as plainly
as words, "How _very_ glad I am to see you!"

Dr. Dennis shrugged his shoulders.

"Such a representation!" he said. "If the entire congregation had been
canvassed, it would have been impossible to have made more curious
selections. I do wish we could have some real workers from the different
churches."

"Miss Erskine isn't a member of the church, is she?"

"None of them are members, nor Christians; nor have they an atom of
interest in any such matters. They are going for pure fun, and nothing
else."

"Now perhaps they will happily disappoint you by coming back with a
wholesome interest aroused in Sunday-school work, and will really go
into the work for themselves."

"I don't want them," Dr. Dennis said, stoutly. "I wouldn't give a dime
for a hundred such workers; they are an injury to the cause. I want
Sunday-school workers who have a personal, vital sense of the worth of
souls, and a consuming desire to see them converted. All other
Sunday-school teaching is aimless."

Mr. Harrison looked thoughtful.

"We haven't many such, I am afraid," he said, gravely; but I agree with
you in thinking that they should at least be Christians. Still, I
suppose that it is not impossible that some one of these ladies may be
converted."

"Not at Chautauqua," Dr. Dennis said, as one who had looked into the
matter and knew all about it. "I am not entirely in sympathy with that
meeting, anyway; or, that is, I am and I am not, all at once. I think it
would be a grand place for you and me. I haven't the least doubt but
that we would be refreshed, bodily and mentally, and, for that matter,
spiritually. If the whole world were converted I should vote for
Chautauqua with a loud voice; but I am more than fearful as to the
influence of such meetings on the masses--the unconverted world. _They_
will go there for recreation. Their whole aim will be to have a glorious
frolic away from the restraints of ordinary home-life. They will have no
interest in the meetings, no sympathy with the central thought that has
drawn the workers together, and the tendency will be to frolic through
it all.

"The truth is, there will be such a mixing of things that I actually
fear the effect will be wholesale demoralization. At the same time I am
interested in the idea, and am watching it with anxiety. Since I have
heard of the delegation from my own church I have been more convinced
still of the evil influences. It makes me gloomy to think of the
fruitful field such a place will be for the fertile brain of that little
Eurie Mitchell. She is too wild now for civilized life The four walls of
the church and the sacred associations connected with the building serve
to keep her only half controlled when she is actually attending Sabbath
service. There will be nothing to control her in the woods, and she will
lose what little reverence she possesses. I tell you, the more I think
of it, the more certain I am that for such people these great religious
jubilees, holding over the Sabbath, do harm."

"You put it more gently than our friend Mr. Archer," Mr. Harrison said,
smiling. "He is in a condition of absolute scorn. He gives none of them
credit for honesty or genuine interest. He says it is a running away
from work, a regular shirking of what they ought to be doing, and going
off into the woods to have a good time, and, by way of gulling the
public, they pretend to season it with religion."

Dr. Dennis laughed.

"That sounds precisely like him, and is quite as logical as one could
expect, coming from that source," he said, indifferently. "Why doesn't
it occur to his dull brain, that thinks itself such a sharp one, that
the leaders thereof are men responsible to no one save God and their own
consciences for the way in which they spend their time? There is nothing
earthly to hinder their going to the woods, and staying three months if
they please to do so."

"Oh, but I have left out one of the important reasons for the meeting.
It is to make money; a grand speculation, whereby the fortunes of these
same leaders are to be made at the expense of the poor victims whom they
gather about them."

Again Dr. Dennis' shoulders went upward in that peculiar but expressive
shrug.

"Of all the precarious and dangerous ways of making a fortune, I should
think that went ahead," he said, still laughing. "What an idea now!
Shouldn't you suppose people with common sense would have some faint
idea of the immense expenses to be involved in such an undertaking, and
the tremendous risks to be run? If they succeed in meeting their
expenses this year I think they will have cause for rejoicing."

"The point that puzzles me," Mr. Harrison said, "is what particular
commandment would they be breaking if they should actually happen to
have twenty-five cents to put in their pockets when the meeting closed;
though, as you say, I doubt the probability. But they force no one to
come; it is a matter for individual decision, and they render a fair
equivalent for every cent of money spent; at least, if the spender
thinks it is not a fair equivalent he is foolish to go; so why should
they not make enough to justify them in giving their time to this work?"

"Of course, of course," assented Dr. Dennis, heartily; "they ought to;
none but an idiot would think otherwise."

It is to be presumed that both these gentlemen had gotten so far away
from the name that was quoted as holding these views as to forget all
about him, else they certainly would not have been guilty of calling a
brother minister an idiot, however much his arguments might suggest the
thought.

"But," continued Dr. Dennis, "my trouble lies, as I said, in the
results. I have no sort of doubt that great good will be done, and I
have the same feeling of certainty that harm will be done. Take it in my
own church. We are so situated, or we think ourselves so situated, that
not a single one of the earnest, hearty workers who would come back to
us with a blessing for themselves and us, is able to go; instead, we
have four representatives who will turn the whole thing into ridicule,
and dish it up for the entertainment of their friends during the coming
winter.

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