[Illustration: "Dear me! how stiff and proper they both were."--Page
235.]
THE CHAUTAUQUA GIRLS AT HOME
BY PANSY
AUTHOR OF "FOUR GIRLS AT CHAUTAUQUA," "ESTER RIED," "LINKS IN
REBECCA'S LIFE," "JULIA RIED," "HOUSEHOLD PUZZLES,"
"RUTH ERSKINE'S CROSSES," "THE RANDOLPHS," "WISE
AND OTHERWISE," "A NEW GRAFT ON THE FAMILY
TREE," "WHAT SHE SAID, AND WHAT SHE
MEANT," "THE POCKET MEASURE," "HALL IN
THE GROVE," "SOME YOUNG HEROINES,"
"FIVE FRIENDS," "MRS. SOLOMON
SMITH LOOKING
ON," ETC.
TORONTO
WILLIAM BRIGGS, 78 & 80 KING ST. EAST
MONTREAL: C. W. COATES HALIFAX: S. F. HUESTIS
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
TREADING ON NEW GROUND 7
CHAPTER II.
FLOSSY "BEGINS" 30
CHAPTER III.
BURDENS 49
CHAPTER IV.
COL. BAKER'S SABBATH EVENING 72
CHAPTER V.
NEW MUSIC 87
CHAPTER VI.
DISTURBING ELEMENTS 102
CHAPTER VII.
PRAYER-MEETING AND TABLEAUX 118
CHAPTER VIII.
DR. DENNIS' STUDY 134
CHAPTER IX.
A WHITE SUNDAY 150
CHAPTER X.
THE RAINY EVENING 166
CHAPTER XI.
THE NEXT THING 181
CHAPTER XII.
SETTLING QUESTIONS 197
CHAPTER XIII.
LOOKING FOR WORK 211
CHAPTER XIV.
AN UNARMED SOLDIER 227
CHAPTER XV.
MARION'S PLAN 243
CHAPTER XVI.
THEORY VERSUS PRACTICE 258
CHAPTER XVII.
THE DISCUSSION 275
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE RESULT 291
CHAPTER XIX.
KEEPING THE PROMISE 307
CHAPTER XX.
HOW IT WAS DONE 322
CHAPTER XXI.
RUTH AND HAROLD 337
CHAPTER XXII.
REVIVAL 355
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE STRANGE STORY 368
CHAPTER XXIV.
LONELINESS 385
CHAPTER XXV.
THE ADDED NAME 401
CHAPTER XXVI.
LEARNERS 418
CHAPTER XXVII.
FLOSSY'S PARTY 435
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A PARTING GLANCE 451
[Illustration]
THE CHAUTAUQUA GIRLS AT HOME.
CHAPTER I.
TREADING ON NEW GROUND.
THAT last Sabbath of August was a lovely day; it was the first Sabbath
that our girls had spent at home since the revelation of Chautauqua. It
seemed lovely to them. "The world looks as though it was made over new
in the night," Eurie had said, as she threw open her blinds, and drew in
whiffs of the sweet, soft air. And the church, whither these girls had
so often betaken themselves on summer mornings, just like this one--how
_could_ two or three weeks have changed it? They could not feel that it
was the same building.
Hitherto it had been to them simply the First Church; grander, by
several degrees, than any other church in the city, having the finest
choir, and the finest organ, and the most elegant carpets, and making
the grandest floral display of all the temples, as became the First
Church, of course; but to-day, this glowing, glorious August day, it was
something infinitely above and beyond all this; it was the visible
temple of the invisible God, _their_ Saviour, and they were going up to
worship--aye, really and truly to _worship_. They, in their different
ways, according to their very different natures, felt this and were
thrilled with it as their feet trod the aisles. People can feel a great
many things, and not show them to the casual observer. Sitting in their
respective pews, they looked in no sense different from the way they had
looked on a hundred different Sabbaths before this.
Ruth Erskine, in the corner of her father's pew, attired, as she had
often been before, in the most delicate and exquisite of summer silks,
with exactly the right shade of necktie, gloves and sash, to set off
the beauty of the dress, with the soft and delicate laces about her
white throat, for which she was especially noted, looked not one whit
different from the lady who sat there three weeks before. You wouldn't
have known that her heart was singing for joy.
Flossy Shipley, aglow with elegance, as she always was, looked the same
airy butterfly that had flitted in and out of that church on many a
summer day before; and Marion, in her corner in the gallery, was simply
the grave, somewhat weary-looking school-teacher at one of the wards--"a
girl with infidel tendencies," that is all the great congregation knew
about her; in fact, comparatively few of them knew even that.
Eurie Mitchell was the doctor's eldest daughter, and had in no sense
improved as to her toilet--"a thing which could hardly be expected,
since she had thrown away so much money on that wild scheme of living in
the woods;" that was what some of the congregation thought about her.
Dr. Dennis saw all these girls, and looked gloomy over them; he was in
the mood to need sympathetic hearers, to long to be in accord with his
audience, and feel that they could sympathize with him in his reach
after a higher type of religion. What could these four girls know about
a higher type, when they had no religion at all, and had been spending
two lawless weeks in looking at the subject, till their hearts were
either attuned to ridicule or disgusted, according to their several
temperaments? That was what the faces of our four girls said to him. Yet
how they listened to his sermon.
"I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness." These were the
words on which he spoke; and the burden of his thought was that
satisfaction was not to be sought for here; nothing less than the
absolute _likeness_ should give absolute satisfaction; and this likeness
was to be forever eagerly, earnestly, constantly, sought for, striven
after, until some day would come that blessed awakening, and the picture
would be found to be complete!
Was it the best sermon that had ever been preached? Was it the _only_
spiritual sermon that the First Church people had ever heard, or was it
that four girls had been to Chautauqua, and there learned how to listen?
Their cheeks glowed, and their eyes dilated over the wonderful thoughts
that the subject presented, the endless possibility for climbing!
Marion Wilbur had been counted ambitious; she had longed for a chance to
reach high; here was her chance; she felt it, and gloried in it; she
meant to try. Every nerve quivered with the determination, and the
satisfaction of realizing that she belonged to the great royal family.
No more obscurity for her. She was a child of the King, and the kingdom
was in view. A crown, aglow with jewels--nothing less must satisfy her
now. The sermon over, the hymn sung, and amid the pealing of the organ,
as it played the worshipers down the aisles, our four girls met.
They knew each other's determination. The next thing to do was to go to
Sunday-school. But I suppose you have no idea how strangely they felt;
how much it seemed to them as if they were children who had come to a
party uninvited, and as if they must at this last minute hide their
heads and run home. The very effort to go up to the Sunday-school room
seemed too much a cross to undertake.
There were so many to stare, and look their amazement; there was no one
to go with; nobody to think of such a thing as asking them to go. It
would have been so much less awkward if they could have followed in the
lead of one who had said, "Won't you come up and see our Sunday-school?"
The superintendent passed them as they stood irresolute; he bowed
courteously, and no more thought of asking them to join him than though
they had been birds of brilliant plumage flying by. Dr. Dennis passed
them; _he_ said good-morning, not gladly, not even graciously; he
dreaded those girls, and their undoubted influence. They had not the
least idea how much mischief they had done him in the way of frittering
away his influence heretofore. How should they know that he dreaded
them? On the other hand how was he to know that they absolutely longed
for him to take them by the hand, and say, "Come?" They looked at him
curiously as he passed, and Eurie said:
"Doesn't it make your heart beat to think of going to him in his study,
and having a private talk?"
"Dear me!" said Flossy, "I never shall think of such a thing. I couldn't
do it any more than I could fly."
"There are harder things than that to do, I suspect; and it will come to
a visit to his study if we are to unite with the church; don't you know
that is what he always asks of those?"
And then these girls looked absolutely blank, for to two of them the
thought of that duty had never occurred before; they did not understand
it well enough to know that it was a privilege.
"Well," said Eurie, rallying first, of course, "are we to stand here
gazing around us all day, because nobody knows enough to invite us to go
up-stairs? It is clear that we are not to be invited. They are all
come--all the Sabbath-school people; and, hark! why, they are singing."
"Dear me!" said Flossy; "then it is commenced; I hate to go in when it
is commenced. How very unfortunate this is!"
"Serves us right," said Marion. "We ought to be in a condition to invite
others, instead of waiting here to be invited. I'll tell you what,
girls, if we ever get to feel that we _do_ belong, let's constitute
ourselves a committee to see after timid strangers, like ourselves, and
give them a _chance in_, at least."
"Well," said Ruth, speaking for the first time, "shall we go home and
wait till next Sunday, and take a fair start, as Flossy says, it isn't
pleasant to go in after the exercises have fairly opened?" As she said
this, for the first time in her life Miss Ruth Erskine began to have a
dim idea that possibly she might be a coward; this certainly sounded a
little like it.
Each waited to get a bit of advice from the other. Both Marion and
Eurie, it must be confessed, bold spirits that they were, so dreaded
this ordeal, that each hoped the other would advise retreat as the
wisest thing to be done next. It was Flossy who spoke:
"I am going up now; it won't be any easier next Sunday, and I want to
begin."
"There!" said Eurie, "that is just what I needed to shame me into common
sense. What a company of idiots we are! Marion, what would you think of
a day-scholar who would stand shivering outside your doors for this
length of time? Now come on, all of you;" and she led the way up-stairs.
How very awkward it was! It was during the opening prayer that they
arrived, and they had to stand by the door and be peeped at by
irreverent children; then they had to invite themselves to a vacant seat
near the door. The superintendent came that way presently, and said:
"Good-morning, young ladies; so you have come in to visit our school?
Glad to see you; it is a pleasant place, I think you will find."
"That is extremely doubtful," Eurie said, in undertone, as he passed on.
How the children did stare!
"They are certainly unused to visitors," Ruth said, growing
uncomfortable under such prolonged gazing. "What is the use of all this,
girls? We might better be at home."
"If we had grown up here," Eurie said, bravely, "we should probably have
our place by this time. It all comes of our graceful lives. But I must
say they make it very easy for people to stay away. Why on earth don't
they invite us to go into Bible classes? What right have they to take
it for granted that we came out of pure curiosity?"
The business of the hour went on, and our girls were still left
unmolested. As the newness wore somewhat away, the situation began to
grow funny. They could see that the pastor and the superintendent were
engaged in anxious conversation, to judge by the gravity of their faces;
and as their eyes occasionally roved in that direction, it was natural
to suppose they were discussing the unexpected visitors.
Could they have heard the anxious talk it would have been a solemn
comment on their reputations.
"That Morris class is vacant again to-day," the superintendent was
saying; "I don't know what we are to do with that class; no one is
willing to undertake it."
The pastor looked toward his own large class waiting for him, and said,
with a weary sigh:
"I believe I shall have to give up my class to some one and take that. I
don't want to; it is a class which requires more nervous energy than I
have at command at this hour of the day. But what is to be done with
them to-day?"
"Would it do to ask one of the young ladies on the visitors' seat?"
And then the eyes of the two men turned toward the girls.
"They are afraid of us," whispered Eurie, her propensity to see the
ludicrous side of things in no whit destroyed by her conversion. "Look
at their troubled faces; they think that we are harbingers of mischief.
Oh me! What a reputation to have! But I declare it is funny." Whereupon
she laughed softly, but unmistakably.
It was at this moment that Dr. Dennis' eyes rested on her.
"Oh, they are only here for material to make sport of," he said,
gloomily; "Miss Erskine might keep the boys quiet for awhile if she
chose to do so, I suppose."
"Or Miss Wilbur. Some of the boys in that class are in school, in her
ward; they say she has grand order."
Dr. Dennis' face grew stern.
"No," he said, "don't ask _her_; at least we will not put them in a way
to learn error, if we can teach them nothing good. Miss Wilbur is an
infidel. I don't know what is to be done with that class, as you say.
Poor Morris, I am afraid, will never be able to take it again; and he
was utterly discouraged with them, anyway. They get no good here that I
can see; and they certainly do infinite mischief to the rest of the
school."
"But at the same time I suppose we cannot send them away?"
"Oh, certainly not. Well, suppose you try if Miss Erskine will sit
there, and try to awe them by her dignity for awhile. And this week we
must see what can be done; she won't try it, though, I presume."
It ended in the superintendent coming toward them at last. He didn't
like to be too personal in his request, so he took the general way of
putting a question, resting in the belief that each would refuse, and
that then he could press the task on Miss Erskine.
"We are short of teachers to-day; would one of you be willing to sit
with that class at your right, and try to interest them a little? They
are a sad set; very little can be done with them, but we have to try."
I shall have to confess that both Ruth and Marion were appalled. The one
shrank as much as the other. If it had been a class in mathematics or
philosophy Marion would have been confident of her powers; but she felt
so very ignorant of the Bible. She had come in, hoping and expecting a
chance to slip into a grand Bible class, where she might learn some of
the inner truths of that glorious lesson that she had been trying to
study. But to teach it! This seemed impossible. As for Ruth, no thought
of such an experience had as yet come to her. They, therefore,
maintained a dismayed silence. Eurie was frank.
"I can't teach," she said; "I don't understand it myself. I shouldn't
have the least idea what to say to anyone about the Bible lesson." And
then they all turned and stared in a maze of surprise and perplexity at
little fair-haired Flossy.
"I would like to try," she said, simply; "I have thought about the
lesson all the week; I am not sure that I can _teach_ anything, but I
should like to talk the story over with them if they will let me."
There was nothing for it but to lead this exquisite bit of flesh and
blood, in her dainty summer toilet, before that rough and rollicking
class of boys, old enough, some of them, to be called young men, but
without an idea as to the manner of conduct that should honor that name.
It would be hard to tell which was the most amazed and embarrassed, the
superintendent or the girls whom Flossy left looking after her. They
were quite sobered now; they did not want Flossy to come to grief. A
tender feeling that was new and sweet had sprung up in the heart of each
of them toward her.
"That innocent little kitten knows no more what she has undertaken than
if she were a dove," said Marion, dismay and discomfort struggling in
her face. "Why, she might as well be Daniel in the den of lions."
"Well," said Eurie, speaking gravely, "he came out all right, you know."
Then she hailed the passing superintendent:
"Mr. Stuart, isn't there a Bible class that we can go in? We didn't come
to look on. We want to study the lesson."
"Oh, why, yes, certainly," Mr. Stuart said, stammering and looking
unutterable astonishment. "Where would they like to go? There were two
vacant seats in Mr. Pembrook's class, and one in Judge Elmore's."
Ruth instantly chose Judge Elmore's, and left Marion and Eurie to make
their way to the vacant places in Mr. Pembrook's class.
The young ladies of the class moved along and made room for the new
comers, and the teacher carefully told them what chapter and verse were
being studied. They found their places, and Mr. Pembrook searched
laboriously for his. He had lost the spot on his lesson leaf where he
had read the last question, and he was all at sea.
"Let me see," he said, "where _were_ we?"
None of them seemed to know; at least they gave him no information. One
of them tried to button a glove that was too small for her; one yawned
behind her Bible, and the most utter indifference in regard to the
lesson or the school seemed to prevail.
"Oh," said. Mr. Pembrook, "here is where we were. I was just reading the
thirtieth verse: 'As he spake these words many believed on him.' Who
spake them?"
"Jesus," one answered, speaking the word with a yawn.
"What did Jesus say next?"
The next young lady thus appealed to, hurriedly looked up the place in
her Bible and read:
"'Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, if ye continue in
my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.'"
"Well," said Mr. Pembrook, after a thoughtful pause, "there doesn't seem
to be anything to say on that verse; it is all there. Will _you_ read
the next verse?"
Now the "you" whom he timidly addressed was our Marion. She doesn't
understand even now why her heart should have throbbed so strangely; and
her voice trembled as she read aloud the simple words:
"'And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.'"
"Free from what?" she asked abruptly.
The class stared. Clearly the art of asking questions was an unknown
accomplishment in that class. Mr. Pembrook looked at her through his
glasses; then he pushed his glasses up on his forehead. Finally he took
them off, and rubbed them carefully with the skirt of his coat before he
essayed to answer.
"Why, my dear young lady, I suppose it means free from sin. The Lord
Jesus Christ was speaking to his people, you know, to Christian people."
"Are Christian people free from sin?"
There was no note of cavil in Marion's voice. Her eyes were earnest and
serious; and she waited, as one waits in honest perplexity, to have a
puzzle solved. But she was known as one who held dangerous, even infidel
notions, and Mr. Pembrook, bewildered as to how to answer her, seemed to
feel that probably a rebuke was what she needed.
"It is not for us to find fault with the words of the Lord Jesus Christ,
my dear young lady. He spoke them, and they must mean what they say. We
are to accept them in all sincerity and humility, remembering that what
we know not now we shall know hereafter. That is the _Christian_ way to
do."
And then he cleared his throat and asked the next young lady to read the
next verse.
Two bright spots glowed on Marion's cheeks. She bent her head low over
her Bible, and it was with difficulty that she kept a rush of tears from
filling her eyes. Had she seemed to cavil at the words of her Lord when
she simply longed with all her soul to understand? _Did_ the promise
mean, You shall be free from sin? Had she a right to look forward to and
hope for the time when sin should have no more dominion? Then that other
sentence: "_Continue_ in my work." Just what did it mean? Could one who
was searching it eagerly and prayerfully, and trying to abide by its
directions, be said to be continuing in it?
There were a dozen questions that she longed to ask. She had sought the
Sabbath-school this morning in search of help. She felt blind and lame,
unable to take a step in any direction lest in her ignorance she should
err, as already she had. Something in her way of speaking of these
things must be radically wrong. She had misled this good man. It was no
use to ask _him_ questions.
As the lesson progressed there appeared other reasons why she need not
question him. Clearly the good man knew nothing about his lesson save
the questions contained on the bit of paper before him. It was entirely
evident that he had not looked at the verses, nor thought of them until
he came before his class.
It was equally plain that his scholars were entirely accustomed to this
state of things, and were careful to follow his example. He could read a
question at them from his lesson paper, and they could read an answer
back to him from their Bibles, and this was all that either party
expected of the other. Why these young ladies continued to come Sabbath
after Sabbath, and go over this weary routine of question and answer was
a mystery to Marion.
She came away from the school in a most uncomfortable frame of mind.
That to which she had looked forward all the week had proved a
disappointment and a failure. She was almost inclined to say that she
would have no more to do with Sunday-schools; that they really were the
humbug that she had always supposed them.
"Imagine my going to a philosophy class, knowing no more about the
lesson than that old man did to-day!" she said to Eurie, as they walked
down to the corner of Elm Street together.
"I know," said Eurie, speaking with unusual thoughtfulness; "but suppose
you _were_ dull in the class, if it were known after all that you could
make the most brilliant philosophical experiments you would probably be
listened to with respect."
"What do you mean?" asked Marion bewildered.
"Why, I mean that Deacon Pembrook can perform the experiments
successfully. In other words, to come down to your comprehension, he
succeeds in living so pure and careful a Christian life that he has the
respect and confidence of everybody. What if he can't preach? He can
practice. However, I am willing to admit that the dear old man would be
more edifying if he would study his lesson a little. Wasn't it funny to
think of calling that 'teaching?'" And then this volatile young lady
laughed. But her moralizing had done Marion good.
She said good-morning more cheerily, and went on her way thinking over
the many things that she had heard in honor of Deacon Pembrook; so that
by the time she had reached her boarding-house, although his teaching
would certainly make a very poor show, yet his sweet Christian life had
come up to plead for him, and Marion was forced to feel that the truth
had "made him free."
"But it is a real pity not to study his lesson," she said, as she went
about her gloomy-looking room. "Those girls didn't get a single idea to
help them in any way. Some of them need ideas badly enough. Two or three
of them are members of the church, I am sure. That Allie March is, but
she has no ideas on _any_ subject; you can see that in the grammar
class."
And then Marion remembered that Allie March was in _her_ grammar class;
and Allie was a professed Christian. Could _she_ help her? It was not
pride in Marion, but she had to smile at the thought of herself being
helped by so very third-rate a brain as that which Allie March
possessed. And then she paused, with her hand on the clothes-press door,
and her face glowed at the new and surprising thought that just then
came to her.
"Would it not be possible for her, Marion Wilbur, to help Allie March,
even in her Christian life!"
All that afternoon, though, she went about or sat down in her room with
a sense of loneliness. No one to speak to who could understand and would
believe in her, even in the Sunday-school they were afraid of her. How
could she help or be helped, while this state of things lasted?
It was in the early twilight that, as she sat with her hat and sack on,
waiting for Eurie, who had engaged to call for her to go to church, she
strayed across a verse or two in her new possession, the Bible, that
touched the point. It was where Saul "essayed to join himself to the
disciples; but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was
a disciple." Her experience precisely! They were afraid of her
influence; afraid of her tongue; afraid of her example; and, indeed,
what reason had they to feel otherwise? But she read on, that blessed
verse wherein it says: "But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the
apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way,
and that he had spoken to him." She was reading this for the second
time, when Eurie came.
"See here, Eurie, read this," she said, as she passed her the Bible and
made her final preparations for church. "Isn't that our experience? I
mean I think it _is_ to be ours. Judging from to-day as a foretaste,
they will be afraid of us and believe not that we are disciples."
Eurie laughed, a quick little laugh that had an undertone of feeling in
it, as she said:
"Well, then, I hope we shall find a Barnabas to vouch for us before
long."
And Marion knew that she, too, felt the loneliness and the sense of
belonging to no one. "We must help each other very much, we girls." This
she said to herself as they went down the steps together.
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