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!