TABLE TALK.
"What is your private explanation of the word 'hotel'?" Marion asked.
She was in an argumentative mood, and it made almost no difference to
her which side of the question she argued. "Webster says it is a place
to entertain strangers, but you seem to attach some special importance
to the term."
"Is that all that Webster says?"
The questioner was not Ruth, but a man who sat just opposite to them at
the table, and while he waited for his order to be filled watched with
amused eyes the four gills who were evidently in a new element. He was
not a young man, and his gray hairs would have arrested the pertness of
the reply on Marion's tongue at any other time than this, but you
remember that she was not in a good mood. She answered promptly; "Yes,
sir, he says ever so many things. In fact, he is the most voluminous
author I ever read."
The gentleman laughed. The pertness seemed to amuse him.
"Didn't I limit my question?" he said, pleasantly. "He is voluminous,
and what a sensible book he has written. I wish all authors had given us
so much information. But I meant, is that all he says about hotels?
Doesn't he justify your friend just a little bit in her expectations?"
"I'm sure I don't know," Marion said, amused in turn at the good-natured
interest which the elderly gentleman took in the question. "He has said
so much that I haven't had time to digest it all. If you have, won't you
please enlighten me as to his wisdom on this subject?" "'Especially one
of some style or pretensions,'" quoted the old gentleman, "so Webster
adds. You see I am interested in the subject," and he laughed
pleasantly. "I have been looking it up, which must be my apology for
addressing you young ladies, if so old a man as I must apologize for
being interested in girls. The fact is, I had occasion to talk with a
young man yesterday who took the people to task most roundly for that
very name, on the ground that they had no right to it--that it was a
misnomer. I have been struck with the thought that nothing is trivial,
not even the name that happens to be chosen for a house where one
_waits_ for his dinner," with a strong emphasis on the word "wait,"
which Eurie understood and laughed over.
"Except the remarks that people make about such things," Marion said,
answering the first part of the sentence and bestowing a wicked glance
on Ruth. "They are trivial enough. Did you agree with the young
gentleman?"
"No. I thought it all over and consulted Webster, as I said, and came to
the conclusion that in view of this being a more pretentious house than
either of the others they had a right to the word. Webster doesn't say
what degree of pretension is necessary, you know."
The lifting of Ruth's eyebrows at this point was so expressive that all
the party laughed. But the old gentleman grew grave again in a moment,
as he said:
"But the thought that impressed me most was what a very perfect system
of faith the religion of Jesus Christ is; how completely it commends
itself to the human heart, since the very slightest departure from what
is regarded as strictly true and right, when it is done by a Christian
(society or individual), is noticed and commented upon by lookers-on;
they seem to know of a certainty that it is not according to the Spirit
of Christ."
This last sentence struck Marion dumb. How fond she was of caviling at
Christian lives! Was she really thus giving all the time an unconscious
tribute to the truth and purity of the Christian faith?
It was a merry dinner, after all, eaten with steel forks and without
napkins, and with plated spoons, if you were so fortunate as to secure
one. The rush of people was very great, and, with their inconvenient
accommodations, the process of serving was slow.
Marion, her eyes being opened, went to studying the people about her.
She found that courteous good-humor was the rule, and selfishness and
ungraciousness the exception. Inconveniences were put up with and
merrily laughed over by people who, from their dress and manners, could
be accustomed to only the best.
Marion took mental notes.
"They do not act in the least like the mass of people who stop at
railroad eating-houses for their dinner; they are patient and courteous
under difficulties; they did not come here for the purpose of being
entertained; if they did the accommodations wouldn't satisfy."
There was another little thing that interested Marion. As the tables
kept filling, and those who had been served made room for those who had
not, she found herself watching curiously what proportion of the guests
observed that instant of silent thanks with covered eyes. It was so
brief, so slight a thing, I venture that scarcely a person there noticed
it, much less imagined that there was a pair of keen gray eyes over in
the corner looking and calculating concerning them.
"What if they all had to wear badges," she said to herself, "badges that
read 'I am a Christian,' I wonder how many of them it would influence
to different words than they are speaking, or to different acts? I
wonder if they _do_ all wear them? I wonder if the distinction is really
marked, so one looking on could detect the difference, though all of
them are strangers? I mean to watch during these two weeks. 'The proper
study of mankind is man.' Very well, Brother Pope, a convenient place
for the study of man is Chautauqua. I'll take it up. Who knows but I may
learn a new branch to teach the graded infants in Ward No. 4."
Ruth did not recover her equanimity. She was rasped on every side. Those
two-tined steel forks were a positive sting to her. She shuddered as the
steel touched her lips. She had no spoon at all, and she looked on in
utter disgust while Eurie merrily stirred her tea with her fork. When
the waiter came at last, with hearty apologies for keeping them waiting
for their spoons, and the old gentleman said cordially, "All in good
time. We shall not starve even if we get no spoons," she curled her lip
disdainfully, and murmured that she had always been accustomed to the
conveniences of life, and found it somewhat difficult to do without
them.
When one is in the mood for grumbling there is no easier thing in the
world than to find food for that spirit, and Ruth continued her pastime,
waxing louder and more decided after the genial old man had left their
neighborhood.
"What is the use in fault-finding?" Eurie said at last, half petulantly.
She was growing very tired of this exhibition. "What did you expect?
They are doing as well as they can, without any doubt. Just imagine what
it must be to get conveniences together for this vast crowd. They did
not expect anything like such a large attendance at first; I heard them
say so and that makes it harder to wait upon them. But of course they
are doing just as well as they can, and we fare as well as any of them."
"Don't you be so foolish as to believe that," Ruth said, with a curling
lip. "If you could see behind the scenes you would soon discover
something very different. That is why it is so provoking to me. Let
people who cannot afford to pay any better take such as they can get.
But what right had they to suppose that we had not the money to pay for
what we wish? I'm sure _I'm_ not a pauper! You will find that there is
a place where the select few can get what they want, and have it served
in a respectable manner, and I say I don't like it; I have been
accustomed to the decencies of life."
Just behind them the talk was going on unceasingly, and one voice, at
this point, rising higher than the others, caught the attention of our
girls. Eurie turned suddenly and tried to catch a glimpse of the
speaker. Something in the voice sounded natural. A sudden movement on
the part of the gentleman between them and she caught a glimpse of the
face. She turned back eagerly.
"Girls, that is Mrs. Schuyler Germain!"
"Where?" Ruth asked, with sudden interest in her voice.
"Over at that table, in a water-proof cloak and black straw hat, and
eating boiled potatoes with a steel fork. What about being behind the
scenes now, Ruthie?"
To fully appreciate this you must understand that even among the
Erskines to get as high as Mrs. Schulyer Germain was to get as high as
the aristocracy of this world reached; not that she lived in any grander
style than the Erskines, or showed that she had more money, but every
one knew that her bank accounts were very heavy, and, besides, she was
the daughter of Gen. Wadsworth Hillyer, of Washington, and the
great-granddaughter, by direct descent, of one of England's noblemen.
She was traveled and cultivated, and all but titled through her youngest
daughter.
Could American ambition reach higher? And there she sat, at a table made
of pine boards, eating boiled potatoes with a two-tined steel fork!
Could English nobility sink lower! Ruth looked over at her in quiet
surprise for a moment, and then gave her head its haughty toss as she
met Eurie's mischievous eyes, and said:
"It is not an aristocracy of position here, then. The leaders keep all
their nice things and places for themselves. That is smaller than I
supposed them to be."
At this particular moment there was an uprising from the table just
behind them. Half a dozen gentlemen leaving their empty plates, and in
full tide of talk, making their way down the hall. The girls looked and
nudged each other as they recognized them. The younger of the two
foremost had a face that can not easily be mistaken, and Eurie, having
seen it once, did not need Marion's low-toned, "That is Mr. Vincent."
And Ruth herself, thrown off her guard, recognized and exclaimed over
Dr. Hodge.
This climax was too much for Eurie. She threw down her fork to clap her
hands in softly glee.
"Oh, Ruthie, Ruthie! How has your dismal castle of favoritism faded!
Yonder is the Queen of American society eating pie at this very instant
with the very fork which did duty on her potato, and here goes the King
of the feast, wiping his lips on his own handkerchief instead of a
damask napkin."
It was at this moment, when Ruth's follies and ill humors were rising to
an almost unbearable height, that her higher nature asserted itself, and
shone forth in a rich, full laugh. Then, in much glee and good feeling,
they followed the crowd down the hill to the auditorium.
For the benefit of such poor benighted beings as have never seen
Chautauqua, let me explain that the auditorium was the great temple
where the congregation assembled for united service. Such a grand
temple as it was! The pillars thereof were great solemn trees, with
their green leaves arching overhead in festoons of beauty. I don't know
how many seats there were, nor how many could be accommodated at the
auditorium. Eurie set out to walk up and down the long aisles one day
and count the seats, but she found that which so arrested her attention
before she was half-way down the central aisle that she forgot all about
it, and there was never any time afterward for that work. I mean to tell
you about that day when I get to it. The grand stand was down here in
front of all these seats, spacious and convenient, the pillars thereof
festooned with flags from many nations. The large piano occupied a
central point; the speaker's desk at its feet, in the central of the
stand; the reporters' tables and chairs just below.
"I ought to have one of those chairs," Marion said, as they passed the
convenient little space railed off from the rest of the audience. "Just
as if I were not a real reporter because I write in plain good English,
instead of racing over the paper and making queer little tracks that
only one person in five thousand can read. If I were not the most
modest and retiring of mortals I would go boldly up and claim a seat."
"What is to be next?" Ruth asked. "Are we supposed to be devoted to all
these meetings? I thought we were only going to one now and then. We
won't be alive in two weeks from now if we pin ourselves down here."
"In the way that we have been doing," chimed in Eurie. "Just think here
we have been to every single meeting they have had yet, except the one
last night and one this morning."
"We are going to skip every one that we possibly can," said Marion. "But
the one that is to come just now is decidedly the one that we can't. The
speaker is Dr. Calkins, of Buffalo. I heard him four years ago, and it
is one of the few sermons that I remember to this day. I always said if
I ever had another chance I should certainly hear him again. I like his
subject this afternoon, too. It is appropriate to my condition."
"What is the subject?" Flossy asked, with a sudden glow of interest.
"It is what a Christian can learn from a heathen. I'm the heathen, and
I presume Dr Calkins is the Christian. So he is to see what he can learn
from me, I take it, and naturally I am anxious to know. Flossy isn't
interested in that; I can see it from her face. She knows she isn't a
heathen--she is a good proper little Christian. But it is your duty, my
dear, to find what you can learn from me."
"What can he possibly make of such a subject as that?" Ruth asked,
curiously. "I don't believe I want to hear him. Is he so very talented,
Marion?"
"I don't know. Haven't the least idea whether he is what you call
talented or not. He says things exactly as though he knew they were so,
and for the time being he makes you feel as though you were a perfect
simpleton for not knowing it, too."
"And you like to be made to feel like a 'perfect simpleton?' Is that the
reason you resolved to hear him again?"
"I like to meet a man once in a while who knows how to do it, and for
the matter of that I wouldn't mind being made to feel the truth of the
things that he says, if one could only _stay_ made. It isn't the fault
of the preaching that it all feels like a pretty story and nothing else;
it is the fault of the wretched practicing that the sheep go home and
do. It makes one feel like being an out-and-out goat, and done with it,
instead of being such a perfect idiot of a sheep."
At this point the talk suddenly ceased, for the leaders began to
assemble, and the service commenced. Ruth and Marion exchanged comic
glances when they discovered the "heathen" of the afternoon to be
Socrates. And Marion presently whispered that she was evidently to play
the character of the old fellow's wife, and Eurie whispered to them
both:
"Now I want to know if that horrid Zantippe was Socrates' wife! Upon my
word I never knew it before. She wasn't to blame, after all, for being
such a wretch."
"What do you mean?" Marion whispered back, with scornful eyes. "Socrates
was the grandest old man that ever lived."
"Pooh! He wasn't. He didn't know any more than little mites of
Sunday-school children do nowdays. I never could understand why his
philosophy was so remarkable, only that he lived in a heathen country
and got ahead of all the rest, but if he were living now he would be a
pigmy."
"I wish he were," Marion said, with her eyes still flashing. "I would
like to see such a life as he lived."
This girl was a hero worshiper. Her cheeks could burn and her eyes glow
over the grand stories of old heathen characters, and she could melt to
tears over their trials and wrongs. And yet she passed by in haughty
silence the sublime life that of all others is the only perfect one on
record, and she had no tears to shed over the shameful and pitiful story
of the cross. What a strange girl she was! I wonder if it be possible
that there are any others like her?