CHAPTER III. ENTERING THE CURRENT.
It is a queer thought, not to say a startling one, what very trifles about us are constantly giving object lessons on our characters. Those four girls, as they arranged themselves in the cars for their all-day journey conveyed four different impressions to the critical looker-on. In the first place they each selected and took possession of an entire seat, though the cars were filling rapidly, and many an anxious woman and heavily laden man looked reproachfully at them. They took these whole seats from entirely different stand-points—Miss Erskine because she was a finished and selfish traveler; and although she did not belong to that absolutely unendurable class, who occupy room that is not theirs until a conductor interferes, she yet regularly appropriated and kept the extra seat engaged with her flounces until she was asked outright to vacate it by one more determined than the rest. She hated company and avoided it when possible. Flossy Shipley was willing, nay, ready, to give up her extra seat the moment a person of the right sort appeared; not simply a cleanly, respectable individual—they might pass by the dozens—but one who attracted her, who was elegantly dressed and stylish looking. Flossy would endure being crowded if only the person who did it was stylish. Miss Wilbur was indifferent to the whole race of human beings; she cared as little as possible whether a well-dressed lady stood or sat; so far as she was concerned they were apt to do the former. She neither frowned nor smiled when the time came that she was obliged to move; she simply moved , with as unconcerned and indifferent a face as she had worn all the due. As for Eurie Mitchell, she took an entire seat, as she did most other things, from pure heedlessness; any one was welcome who wanted to sit with her, and whether it was a servant girl or a princess was a matter of no moment. These various shades of feeling were nearly as fully expressed in their faces as though they had spoken; and yet they did not in the least comprehend their own actions. This is only an illustration; it was so in a hundred little nothings during the day. Not a window was raised or closed for their benefit, not a turn of a blind made, that a close student of human nature could not have seen the distinct and ruling differences in their temperaments, no matter from what point of the compass they started. In the course of time they reached East Buffalo.
"Now for our dinners!" Eurie said, as the whistle shrieked a warning that the station was being neared. "What are we going to do?" "We are going to eat them, I presume, as usual," Miss Erskine said in her most indifferent tone. I should explain that long before this the girls had grown weary of the separate seats, and by dint of much planning and the good-natured removal of two fellow passengers to other seats had accomplished an arrangement that should naturally have been enjoyed from the beginning: that of a turned seat, and being their own seat-mates.
"But I mean," Eurie said, in no wise quenched by what was a common enough manner in Miss Erskine, "are we to get a lunch, or are we to go in to a regular dinner?" "If you mean what I am going to do, I shall most assuredly have a 'regular' dinner, as you call it. I have no fancy for eating things thrown together in a bag." "The bag will be the most economical process for all that," Eurie said, laughing at Miss Erskine's disdainful face. "I presume very likely; but as I did not start on this trip for the purpose of studying social economy, I shall vote for the dinner." "And I shall take to the bag method," Eurie said, decidedly. Opposition always decided her. So it did Flossy, though in a different way; she was sure to side with the stronger party.
"It would be pleasanter for us all to keep together," she began in a doubtful tone, looking first at Miss Erskine and then at Eurie. "But since, according to Eurie's and my decided differences, it is impossible for us to do the 'better' thing, which of the two worse things are you going to do?" This Miss Erskine said with utmost good nature, but with utmost determination—as much as it would have taken to carry out a good idea in the face of opposition.
"Oh, I think I'll go with you." Flossy said it hastily, as if she feared that she might appear foolish in the eyes of this young lady by having fancied anything else.
"Very well—then it remains for Marion to choose her company," Eurie said, composedly. Marion held up a paper bundle.
"It is already chosen," she said, promptly. "It is a slice of bread and butter, with a very thin slice of fat ham, which I never eat, and a greasy doughnut, the whole done up in a brown paper. This is decidedly an improvement on the bag dinner (which you think of going after) in an economical point of view; and as I am a student of social and all other sorts of economy, not only on this trip but on every other trip of mine in this mortal life, I recommend it to you; at least I would have done so if you had asked me this morning before you left home." Eurie made a grimace.
"I might have brought a splendid lunch from home if I had only thought of such a thing," she said, regretfully. "My thoughts always come afterward." "And it is quite the mode to take lunches with you when they are elegantly put up," Flossy said, regretfully, as she prepared to follow Ruth. "I wonder we never thought of it." This last remark of Flossy's set the two girls left behind into a hearty laugh. "Do you suppose that when Flossy has to die she will be troubled lest it may not be the fashion for young ladies to die that season?" Eurie said, looking after the pretty little doll as she gathered her skirts about her anxiously; for, whatever other qualifications East Buffalo may have, cleanliness is not one of them.
"No," Marion answered, gravely, "not the least danger of it, because it happens to be the fashion for ladies to die at all seasons; it is the one thing that never seems to go out. I am heartily glad that we have one thing that remains absolute in this fashionable world." Eurie looked at her thoughtfully.
"Marion, one would think you were religious—sometimes," she said, gravely. "You make such strange remarks." Marion laughed immoderately.
"You ridiculous little infidel!" she said, as soon as she could speak. "You do not even know enough about religion to detect the difference between goodness and wickedness. Why, that was one of my wickedest remarks, and here you are mistaking it for goodness. My dear child, run and get your paper bag before it is time to go; or will you have my slice of ham and half this doughnut? The bread and butter I want myself." The freshness and novelty of this journey wore away before the long summer afternoon began to wane; the cars were crowded and uncomfortable, and the cinders flew about in as trying a way as cinders can.
None of the girls had the least idea where they were going. They knew, in a general way, that there must be such a place as Chautauqua Lake, as the papers that they chanced to come in contact with had been full of the delights of that region for many months; and, indeed, a young man, earnest, enthusiastic and sensible, who stopped over night at Dr. Mitchell's, and had been a delighted guest at the Chautauqua Assembly a year before, had sown the first seeds that resulted in this trip. He of course could tell the exact route and the necessary steps to be taken; but it had been no part of Eurie's wisdom to ask about the journey thither; she knew how many boats were on the lake, and what kind of fish could be caught in it, but the most direct way to reach it was a minor matter. So there they were, simply blundering along, in the belief that the railroad officials knew their business, and would get them somewhere sometime.
As the day waned, and the road became more unknown to them, and their weariness grew upon them, they fell to indulging in those stale jokes that young ladies will perpetrate when they don't know what else to do. As they declared, with much laughter, and many smart ways of saying it, that Chautauqua was a myth of Eurie's brain, or that she had been the dupe of the fine young theological student who had chanced her way and that the search for paradise would come to naught, perhaps it was not all joking; for, as the hours passed and they journeyed on, hearing nothing about the place of which for the last few weeks they had thought so much, a queer feeling began to steal over them that there really was no such spot, and that they were all a set of idiots. "I thought we should have been there by this time, and regularly established at housekeeping," Marion said, as they picked up baskets and bundles and prepared to change cars; "and here we are making another change. This is the third this afternoon, or is it the thirteenth? and who knows where Brocton is or what it is? Is anybody sure that it is in this hemisphere? Eurie, you are certain that your theological student did not cross the Atlantic in order to reach his elysium?" "Brocton is here ," Eurie said, as they climbed the steps of the car. "I see the name on that building yonder; though whether 'here' is America or Asia I am unable to say. I think we have come overland, but it is so long since we started I may have forgotten." But at this point they checked their nonsense and began to get up a new interest in existence. They were among a different class of people—earnest, eager people, who seemed to have no thought of yawns or weariness. Camp-stools abounded, with here and there a bundle looking like quilts and pillows. Every lady had a waterproof and every man an umbrella, and the talk was of "tents," and "division meetings," and "the morning boats," with stray words like "Fairpoint" and "Mayville" coming in every now and then. These two words, the girls knew had to do with their hopes; so they began to feel revived.
"I actually begin to think there is some foundation for Eurie's wild fancies after all," Marion whispered, "or else this is another party of lunatics as wild as ourselves; but they are a large and respectable party; I'm rather hopeful." In two minutes more the railroad official who speaks in the unknown tongue yelped something at either door, and thereupon everybody got up and began to prepare for an exit.
"Do you think he said Mayville?" questioned Eurie with a shade of anxiety in her voice. She had been the leader of this scheme, and she felt just a trifle of responsibility.
"Haven't the least idea," Marion said, composedly gathering her wrappings; "it sounded as much like any other word you happen to think of as it did like that, but everybody is going, and Flossy and I are determined to be in the fashion so we go too." At the door dismay seized upon Flossy. A light drizzly rain was falling. Oh, the lavender suit! and her waterproof tucked away in her trunk, and everybody pushing and trying to pass her.
"Never mind," Marion said, with utmost good nature, "here is mine; I haven't any trunk, so it is handy; and it has rained on my old alpaca for ages; can't hurt that, so wrap yourself up and come along, for I believe in my heart that this is Mayville." "This way to the Mayville House," said the gentlemanly official, touching his hat as politely as though they had been princesses. Why can't hotel subordinates more often show a little common politeness? This act decided the location of these four girls in a twinkling; they knew nothing about any of the hotels, and, other things being equal, anybody would rather go to a place to which they had been decently invited than to be elbowed and yelled at and forced. Water and rest and tea did much to restore them to comfort, and as they discussed matters in their rooms afterward they assured each other that the Mayville House was just the place to stop at. A discussion was in progress as to the evening meeting. Miss Erskine had taken down her hair and donned a becoming wrapper, and reposed serenely in the rocking-chair, offering no remark beyond the composed and decided, "I am not going over in the woods to-night by any manner of means; that would be enough if I were actually one of the lunatics instead of a mild looker-on." "I haven't the least idea of going, either," Eurie said, sitting on a stool, balancing her stockinged feet against Ruth's rocker. "Not that I mind the rain, or that it wouldn't be fun enough if I were not so dead tired. But I tell you, girls, I have had to work like a soldier to get ready, and having the care of such a set as you have been all day has been too much for me. A religious meeting would just finish me. I'm going to save myself up for morning. You are a goosie to go, Marion. It is as dark as ink, and is raining. What can you see to-night?" "I tell you I've got to go," Marion said, as she quietly unstrapped her shawl. "I earn my bread, as you are very well aware, by teaching school; but my butter, and a few such delicacies, I get by writing up folks and things. I've promised to give a melting account of this first meeting, and I have no idea of losing the chance. Flossy Shipley, you may wear my waterproof every minute if you will go with me. It is long enough to drag a quarter of a yard, and a rain drop can not get near enough to think of you.
"But it is so damp," shivered Flossy, looking drearily out into the night, "and so dark, Marion, I am afraid to go." "Plenty of people going. What is there to be afraid of? We go down from here in a carriage." "I wouldn't go, Flossy," chimed in a voice from the rocker and one from the ottoman. "It will be very damp there," pleaded Flossy, who did like to be accommodating. "You may have ten thicknesses of my shawl to sit on," urged Marion. "Come, now, Flossy Shipley. I didn't have the least idea of coaxing those other girls to go, for every one knows they are selfish and will do as they please; but I did think you would keep me company. It really isn't pleasant to think of going alone." The end of it was that Flossy, done up in a cloak twice too large for her, went off looking like the martyr that she was, and Eurie and Ruth staid in their room and laughed over the ridiculousness of Flossy Shipley going out in the night and the rain, in a lavender cashmere, to attend a religious meeting!
