CHAPTER XVI. A WAR OF WORDS.
"Well, why not?" she said, as she went slowly down the aisle. Of course all these people would be in heaven together, and why should they not look forward to a companionship untrameled by earthly forms and conventionalities, and uncumbered by the body in its present dull and ponderous state? What a chance to get into the best society! the highest circle! real best, too, not made up of money, or blood, or dress, or any of the flimsy and silly barriers that fenced people in and out now. Then at once she felt her own inconsistency in growing disgusted with the plainly-dressed, common-looking man. If he did really belong to that "royal family," why not rejoice over it? Wasn't she the foolish one? She by no means liked these reflections, but she could not get away from them.
"How do you do?" said a clear, round voice behind her; not speaking to her, but to some one whom he was very glad to see, judging from his tone. And the voice was peculiar; she had been listening to it for an hour, and could not be mistaken; it belonged to Dr. Cuyler himself. She turned herself suddenly. Here was a chance for a nearer view, and to see who was being greeted so heartily. It was the little lady whose society had been thrust upon her that morning by Flossy. And they were shaking hands as though they were old and familiar acquaintances!
"It is good to see your face again," that same hearty voice which seemed to have so much good fellowship in it was saying. "I didn't know you were to be here; I'm real glad to see you again, and what about the husband and the dear boy?" At which point it occurred to Miss Ruth Erskine that she was listening to conversation not designed for her ears. She moved away suddenly, in no way comforted or sweetened as to her temper by this episode. Why should that little bit of an insignificant woman have the honor of such a cordial greeting from the great man, while he did not even know of her existence?
To be sure, Dr. Cuyler had baptized and received into church fellowship and united in marriage the little woman with whom he was talking; but Ruth, even if she had known these circumstances, was in no mood to attach much importance to them.
She wandered away from the crowd down by the lake-side. She stopped at Jerusalem on her way, and poked her parasol listlessly into the sand of which the hills lying about that city were composed, and thought:
"What silly child's play all this was! How absurd to suppose that people were going to get new ideas by playing at cities with bits of painted board and piles of sand! Even if they could get a more distinct notion of its surroundings, what difference did it make how Jerusalem looked, or where it stood, or what had become of the buildings?" This last, as it began dimly to dawn upon her, that it was useless to deny the fact that even such listless and disdainful staring as she had vouchsafed to this make-believe city had located it, as it had not been located before, in her brain.
When she produced the flimsy question, "What difference does it make?" you can see at once the absurd mood that had gotten possession of her, and you lose all your desire to argue with any one who feels as foolish as that. Neither had Ruth any desire to argue with herself; she was disgusted with her mind for insisting on keeping her up to a strain of thought.
"A lovely place to rest!" she said, aloud, and indignantly, giving a more emphatic poke with her parasol, and quite dislodging one of the buildings in Jerusalem. "One's brain is just kept at high pressure all the time." Now, why this young lady's brain should have been in need of rest she did not take the trouble to explain, even to herself. She sat herself down presently under one of the trees by the lake-side and gave herself up to plans. She was tired of Chautauqua; of that she was certain. It stirred her up, and the process was uncomfortable. Her former composed life suited her taste better. She must get away. There was no earthly reason why she should not go at once to Saratoga. A host of friends were already there, and certain other friends would be only too glad to follow as soon as ever they heard of her advent in that region. Before she left that rustic settee under the trees she had the programme all arranged.
"We will get through to-morrow as we best can," she said, sighing over the thought that to-morrow being the Sabbath would perforce be spent there, "and then on Monday morning Flossy and I will just run away to Saratoga and leave those two absurd girls to finish their absurd scheme in the best way they can." And having disposed of Flossy as though she were a bit of fashionable merchandise without any volition of her own, Ruth felt more composed and went at once to dinner.
There came an astonishing interference to this planning, from no other than Flossy herself. To the utter amazement of each of the girls, she quietly refused to be taken to Saratoga; nor did she offer any other excuse for this astonishing piece of self-assertion than that she was having a good time and meant to finish it. And to this she adhered with a pertinacity that was very bewildering, because it was so very new. Marion laughed over her writing, to which she had returned the moment dinner was concluded.
"That is right, Flossy," she said, "I'm glad to see Chautauqua is having an effect of some sort on one of us. You are growing strong-minded; mind isn't a bad thing to have; keep to yours. Ruth, I am astonished at you ; I shall have to confess that you are disappointing me, my child. Now, I rather expected this dear little bit of lace and velvet to give up, conquered, in less than a week, but I said to myself, 'Ruth Erskine has pluck enough to carry her through a month of camp-life,' and here you are quenched at the end of four days." "It isn't the camp-life," Ruth said, irritably. "I am not so much a baby as to care about those things to such a degree that I can't endure them, though everything is disagreeable enough; but that isn't the point at all." Marion turned and looked at her curiously.
"What on earth is the point then? What has happened to so disgust you with Chautauqua?" "The point is, that I am tired of it all. It is unutterably stupid! I suppose I have a right to be tired of a silly scheme that ought never to have been undertaken, if I choose to be, have I not, without being called in question by any one?" And feeling more thoroughly vexed, not only with the girls, but with herself, than ever she remembered feeling before, Ruth arose suddenly and sought refuge under the trees outside the tent.
Marion maintained a puzzled silence. This was a new phase in Ruth's character, and one hard to manage. Flossy looked on the point of crying. She was not used to crossing the wills of those who had influence over her, but she was very determined as to one thing: she was not going to leave Chautauqua.
"Nothing could tempt me to go to Saratoga just now," she said, earnestly. "Why?" asked Marion, and receiving no answer at all felt that Flossy puzzled her as much as Ruth had done. However, she set herself to work to restore peace.
"This letter is done," she said, gayly, folding her manuscript. "It is a perfectly gushing account of yesterday's meeting, for some of which I am indebted to the Buffalo reporters; for I have given the most thrilling parts where I wasn't present. Now I'm going to celebrate. Come in, Ruth, we are of the same mind precisely. I would gladly accompany you on the afternoon train to Saratoga with the greatest pleasure, were it not for certain inconveniences connected with my pocket-book, and a desire to replenish it by writing up this enterprise. But since we can't go to Saratoga, let's you and I go to Mayville. It is a city of several hundred inhabitants, six or eight, certainly, I should think; and we can have an immense amount of fun out of the people and the sights this afternoon, and escape the preaching. I haven't got to write another letter until Monday. Come, shall we take the three o'clock boat?" Neither of these young ladies could have told what possible object there could be in leaving the lovely woods in which they were camped and going off to the singularly quiet, uninteresting little village of Mayville, except that it was, as they said, a getting away from the preaching—though why two young ladies, with first-class modern educations, should find it so important to get themselves away from some of the first speakers in the country they did not stop to explain even to themselves. However, the plan came to Ruth as a relief, and she unhesitatingly agreed to it; so they went their ways—Flossy to the afternoon meeting (since Eurie declared herself so far convalescent as to be entirely able to remain alone) and the two of the party who had prided themselves up to this time on their superiority of intellect down to the wharf to take the boat for Mayville.
The ride thither on the lovely lake was almost enough to excuse them for their folly. But the question what to do with themselves afterward was one that burdened them during all that long summer afternoon. They went to the Mayville House and took a walk on the piazza, and the boarders looked at them in curiosity, and wondered if it were really a pleasanter walk than the green fields over at Chautauqua.
They ordered dinner and ate it at the general table with great relish, Ruth rejoicing over this return to civilized life. One episode of the table must be noted. Opposite them sat a gentleman who, either from something in their appearance, or more probably from the reasonable conclusion that all the strangers who had gathered at the quiet little village were in some way associated with the great gathering, addressed them as being part of that great whole.
"You people are going to reap a fine harvest, pecuniarily, to-morrow; but how about the fourth commandment? You Christians lay great stress on that document whenever a Sunday reading-room or something of that sort is being contemplated, don't you?" The remark was addressed to both of them, but Ruth was too much occupied with the strangeness of the thought that she was again being counted among "Christian people" to make any answer. Not so Marion. Her eyes danced with merriment, but she answered with great gravity:
"We believe in keeping holy the Sabbath day, of course. What has that to do with Chautauqua. Haven't you consulted the programme and read: 'No admission at the gates or docks'?" The gentleman smiled incredulously.
"I have read it," he said, significantly, "and doubtless many believe it implicitly. I hope their faith won't be shaken by hearing the returns from tickets counted over in the evening." There was a genuine flush of feeling on Marion's face now. "Do you mean to say," she asked, haughtily, "that you have no faith in the published statement that the gates will be closed, or do you mean that the association have changed their minds? Because if you have heard the latter, I can assure you it is a mistake, as I heard the matter discussed by those in authority this very morning; and they determined to adhere rigidly to the rules." "I have no doubt they will, so far as lies in their power," the gentleman said, with an attempt at courtesy in his manner. "But the trouble is, the thing is absurd on the face of it. If I hold a ticket for an entertainment, which the Association have sold to me, it is none of their business on what day I present it, provided the entertainment is in progress. They have no right to keep me out, and they are swindling me out of so much money if they do it." "You have changed your argument," Marion said, with a flash of humor in her eyes. "You were talking about the amount of money that the Association were to earn to-morrow, not the amount which you were to lose by not being allowed to come in. However, I am willing to talk from that standpoint. If you hold the season ticket of the Association, and are stopping outside, you will be admitted, of course. It is held to be as reasonable a way to go to church as though you harnessed your horses at home and drove, on the Sabbath, to your regular place of worship. But you buy no ticket for the Sabbath, and none is received from you; and if you choose not to go, the Association neither makes nor loses by the operation, and, so far as money is concerned, is entirely indifferent which you decide to do. What fault can possibly be found with such an arrangement?" "Well," said the gentleman, with a quiet positiveness of tone, "I haven't a season ticket, and I don't mean to buy one, and I mean to go down there to meeting to-morrow, and I expect to get in." "I dare say," Marion answered, with glowing cheeks. "The grounds are extensive, you know, and they are not walled in. I haven't the least doubt but that hundreds can creep through the brush, and so have the gospel free. There is something about 'he that climbeth up some other way being a thief and a robber;' but, of course, the writer could not have had Chautauqua in mind; and even if it applies, it would be only stealing from an Association, which is not stealing at all, you know." "You are hard on me," the gentleman said, flushing in his turn, and the listeners, of whom there were many, laughed and seemed to enjoy the flashing of words. "I have no intention of creeping or climbing in. I shall present the same sort of ticket which took me in to-day, and if it doesn't pass me I will send you a dispatch to let you know, if you will give me your address." "And if you do get in, and will let me know, I will report at once to the proper authorities that the gate-keepers have been unfaithful to their trust," said Marion, triumphantly. "But, my dear madam, what justice is there in that? I have paid my money, and what business is it to them when I present my ticket? That is keeping me out of my just dues." "Oh, not a bit of it; that is, if you can read, and have, as you admit, read their printed statement that you are not invited to the ground on Sunday. Your fifty-cent ticket will admit you on Monday. And you surely will not argue that the Association has not a right to limit the number of guests that it will entertain over the Sabbath?" "Yes, I argue that it is their business to let me in whenever I present their ticket." Marion laughed outright.
"That is marvelous!" she said. "It is wicked for them to receive payment for your coming in on the Sabbath, and it is wicked for them not to let you in on your ticket. Really, I don't see what the Association are to do. They are committing sin either way it is put. I see no way out of it but to have refused to sell you any tickets at all. Would that have made it right?" The laugh that was raised over this innocently put question seemed to irritate her new acquaintance. He spoke hastily.
"It is a Sabbath-breaking concern, viewed in any light that you choose to put it. There is no sense in holding camp-meetings over the Sabbath, and every one agrees that they have a demoralizing effect." "Do you mean me to understand you to think that the several thousand people who are now stopping at Chautauqua will be breaking the Sabbath by going out of their tents to-morrow and walking down to the public service?" The bit of sophistry in this meekly put question was overlooked, or at least not answered, and the logical young gentleman asked:
"If they think Sabbath services in the woods so helpful, why are they not consistent? Let them throw the meeting open for all who wish to come, making the gospel without money and without price, as they pretend it is. Why isn't that done?" "Well, there are at least half a dozen reasons. I wonder you have not thought of one of them. In the first place, that, of course, would tempt to a great deal of Sabbath traveling, a thing which they carefully guard against now by refusing to admit all travelers. And in the second place, it would give the Chautauqua people a great deal to do in the way of entertaining so large a class of people. As it is, they have quite as much as they care to do to make comfortable the large company who belong to their family. And in the third place—But perhaps you do not care to hear all the reasons?" He ignored this question also, and went back to one of her arguments.
"They don't keep travelers away at all, even by your own admission. What is to hinder hundreds of them from coming here to-day and buying season tickets in order to get in to-morrow?" He had the benefit of a most quizzical glance then from Marion's shining eyes before she answered. "Oh, well, if the people are really so hungering and thirsting for the gospel, as it is dispensed at Chautauqua, that they are willing to act a lie, by pretending that they are members who have been and are to be in regular attendance , and then are willing to pay two dollars and a half for the Sunday meeting, I don't know but I think they ought to be allowed to creep in. Don't you?"
