FLEEING.
The next morning every one of them ran away from the meeting. The way of
it was this: as they came up from breakfast and stood at the tent-door
discussing the question whether they would go to the early meeting, Mrs.
Duane Smithe passed, glanced up at them carelessly, then looked back
curiously, and at last turned and came back to them.
"I beg pardon," she said, "but isn't this Miss Erskine? It surely is! I
thought I recognized your face, but couldn't be sure in these strange
surroundings. And you have a party with you? How delightful! We were
just wishing for more ladies. I really don't think it is going to rain
much to-day, and we have a lovely prospect in view. You must certainly
join us."
Then followed introductions and explanations, Mrs. Duane Smithe was a
Saratoga acquaintance of Ruth Erskine, and was _en route_ for Jamestown
for the day.
"Where is Jamestown?" queried Eurie, who was a very useful member of
society, in that she never pretended knowledge that she did not possess,
so that you had only to keep still and listen to the answers that were
made to her questions in order to know a good deal.
"It is at the head of this lovely little lake, or at the foot, I'm sure
I don't know which way to call it, and it is nothing of consequence, of
course, but the ride thither is said to be charming, and we are going to
take a lunch, and picnic in a private way, just for the fun of getting
together, you know, in a more social manner than one can accomplish in
this wilderness of people. Isn't it a queer place, Miss Erskine? I am
dying to know how you happened to come here."
Ruth arched her eyebrows.
"I confess it is almost as strange as what brought _you_ here," she
said, smiling.
"I can answer that in an instant. I have a ridiculous nephew here, who
thought that a week of meetings from morning to night would be just a
trifle short of paradise, so what did he do but smuggle us all off this
way. I shall find it a bore, of course, and the only way to get through
with it is to have little pleasure excursions like the one we propose
to-day."
Now you know as much about Mrs. Duane Smithe as though I should write
about her for a week. It is strange how little we have to say before we
have explained to people not only our intellectual but our moral status.
Our girls, you will remember, had as little regard for the meetings as
girls could have, and they had by this time begun to feel themselves in
a strange atmosphere, without acquaintances or gentlemanly attentions,
so it took almost no persuasion at all to induce them to join Mrs.
Smithe's party, composed of two young ladies and four young gentlemen.
It would be difficult to explain to you what a disappointment the
decision to spend the day in frolic, instead of going to the meetings,
was to Flossy. All the morning her heart had been in a great flutter of
happiness over the beautiful day that stretched out before her. To meet
those earnest, eager people again, to hear those hymns, to hear the
voice of prayer all about her, to hear the constant allusions that were
so strange and so saddening to her yesterday, and that now she
understood, how blessed it would be! She had gone about the
bewilderments of her toilet in a tent with a serenely happy face, and
almost unawares had hummed the refrain of a tune that had already shown
itself a favorite at Chautauqua.
"Flossy is like herself this morning," Eurie said, as she heard the
happy little song. "I think she has recovered from her home-sickness."
Tents are not convenient places in which to make private remarks. Flossy
overheard this one and smiled to herself. Yes, she had gotten over her
home-sickness--she had found home. She gave a little exclamation of
dismay as she heard the plannings for the day, and said:
"But, Ruth, what about the meetings?"
"Well," Ruth had said, with her most provokingly nonchalant air, "I
haven't made any inquiry, but I presume they will continue them all day
just the same as if we were here. I don't _think_ they will change the
programme on our account."
And Eurie had added, mischievously:
"Flossy is afraid it is not the aristocratic thing to do, not to stay to
all the meetings."
"Oh, as to that," Mrs. Smithe had said (she was one of those interesting
people who always take remarks seriously), "I assure you it is what the
first people on the ground are doing. Of course none of them would be so
absurd as to think of attending meetings all the time. The brain
wouldn't endure such a strain."
"Of course not," Marion had answered with gravity, "My brain is already
very tired. I think yours must be exhausted."
Flossy meditated a daring resolution to stay behind and take her "rest"
in the way she coveted; but the impossibility of explaining what would
appear to the others as merely an ill-natured freak, and occasion no end
of talk, deterred her, and with slow, reluctant steps she followed the
merry group down to the wharf.
If those people had stopped long enough to think of it, this disposal of
themselves would have had its ludicrous side. Certainly it was a
strange fancy to run away twenty miles with lunches done up in paper in
search of a picnic, when Chautauqua was one great picnic ground,
stretching out before them in beauty and convenience. But the entire
group belonged to that class of people for whom the fancy of the moment,
whatever it may be, has infinite charms.
There was plenty of room on the Colonel Phillips. Very few people were
traveling in that direction.
"It is really queer," the Captain was overheard to say, "to take a party
_away_ from the grounds at this hour of the day."
"What an enthusiastic set of people they are about here," Eurie said to
Mr. Rawson, one of Mrs. Smithe's party, as they paced the deck together.
"The people all talk and act as though there was nowhere to go and
nothing to do but attend those meetings. For my part it is a real relief
to have a change in the programme."
"Do you find it so?" he asked. "Well, now, I don't agree with you. I
think this proceeding is a real bore. My respected aunt is always
getting up absurd freaks, and this is one of them, and the worst one, in
my opinion, that she has had for some time. I wanted to go to those
meetings to-day--some of them, at least. One isn't obliged to be there
every minute. But it looks badly to run away."
Eurie eyed him closely.
"Are you the 'good nephew' that your aunt said thought these meetings
only a step below paradise?" she asked, at last. "I wonder you would
consent to come."
Mr. Rawson flushed deeply.
"I am not the 'good nephew' at all," he said, trying to laugh. "The
'good one' wouldn't come. My aunt tried all her powers of persuasion on
him in vain. But the truth is her eloquence, or her persistence, proved
too much for me, though I don't like the looks of it, and I don't feel
the pleasure of it, and I am afraid I shall make anything but an
agreeable addition to the party. Now that is being frank, isn't it, when
I am walking the deck with a young lady?"
"I don't see why that circumstance should make it a surprising thing
that you are frank. But I am very sorry for you; perhaps you might
prevail on the Captain to put you off now, and let you swim back; you
could get there in time for the sermon. Is there to be a sermon? What
_is_ it you are so anxious to hear?"
"All of it," he said gloomily. "I beg your pardon for being in so
disagreeable a mood; it is defrauding you out of some of your expected
pleasure to have a dismal companion. But as I have commenced by being
frank I may as well continue. I am dissatisfied with myself. I ought not
to have come on this excursion. The truth is, I meant to make Chautauqua
a help to me. I need the help badly enough. I am in the rush and whirl
of business all the time at home. This is the only two weeks in the year
that I am free, and I wanted to make it a great spiritual help to me. I
know very well that merely hovering around in such an atmosphere as that
at Chautauqua is a help to the Christian, and I came with the full
intention of taking in all that I could get of this sort of inspiration,
and it chafes me that so early in the meeting I have been led away
against my inclinations by a little pressure that I might have resisted,
and done no harm to any one. My cousin had the same sort of influence
brought to bear on him, and it had no more effect on him than it would
on a stone."
He stopped, and seemed to give Eurie a chance to answer, but she was not
inclined, and he added, as if he had just thought his words an implied
reproach: "I can understand how, to you young ladies of comparative
leisure, with plenty of time to cultivate the spiritual side of your
natures, it should seem an unnecessary and perhaps a wearisome thing to
attend all these meetings; but you can not understand what it is to be
in the whirl of business life, never having time to think, hardly having
time to pray, and to get away from it all and go to heaven, as it were,
for a fortnight, is something to be coveted by us as a great help."
Once more he waited for Eurie's answer, but it was very different from
what he had seemed to expect.
"You might just as well talk to me in the Greek language; I should
understand quite as well what you have been saying; I don't think _I
have_ any spiritual side to my nature; at least it has never been
cultivated if I have; and Chautauqua to me is just the place in which
to have a good free easy time; go where I like and stay as long as I
like; and for once in my life not be bound by conventional forms. If
heaven is anything like that I shouldn't object to it; but I'm sure your
and my idea of it would differ. There, I've been frank now, and shocked
you, I know. I see it in every line of your face. Poor fellow! I don't
know what you will do, for there isn't a single one of us who has the
least idea what you mean by that sort of talk, unless you have some
young ladies of a different type in your party, and from their manner I
rather doubt it."
She had shocked him. He looked not only pained but puzzled.
"I am very sorry," he stammered. "I mean surprised. Yes, and
disappointed. Of course I am that. I think I had imagined that it was
only Christians who could be attracted to Chautauqua at all; I meant to
come to stay through all the services."
"Your aunt, for instance?" Eurie said, inquiringly.
"My aunt is a Christian," he answered, "and a sincere one, too, though I
see for some reason you don't think so. There are degrees in
Christianity, Miss Mitchell, just as there are in amiability, or
culture, or beauty."
"Mr. Rawson!" called a voice from the other end at this moment, and he
in obedience to the call found Eurie a seat near some of her party and
went away, only stopping to say, in low tones:
"I am sorry it is all 'Greek' to you; you would enjoy understanding it,
I am sure."
It so happened that those two people did not exchange another word
together that day, but Eurie had got her thrust when and where she least
expected it. She had taken it for granted that not a single fanatic was
of their party. In the secret of her wise heart she denominated all the
earnest people at Chautauqua fanatics, and all the half-hearted people
hypocrites. Only she, who stood outside and felt nothing, was sincere
and wise.
Meantime Marion had undertaken a strange task. Mr. Charlie Flint was the
gentleman who had drawn his chair near her, and said, as he drew a long
breath:
"It is exceedingly pleasant to breathe air once more that isn't heavy
with psalm singing I think they are running that thing a little too
steep over there. Who imagined that they were going to have meeting
every minute in the day and evening, and give nobody a chance to
breathe?"
"Have they exhausted you already?" Marion asked. "Let me see, this is
the morning of the second day, is it not?"
"Oh, as to myself, I was exhausted before I commenced it. I am only
speaking a word for the lunatics who think they enjoy it. I am one of
the victims to our cousin's whim. He expects to get me converted here, I
think, or something of that sort."
"I wouldn't be afraid of it," Marion said, in disgust. "I don't believe
there is the least danger."
Mr. Charlie chose to consider this as a compliment, and bowed and
smiled, and said:
"Thanks. Now tell me why, please."
"You don't look like that class of people who are affected in that way."
He was wonderfully interested, and begged at once to know why. Marion
had it in her heart to say, "Because they all look as though they had
some degree of brain as well as body," but even she had a little regard
left for feelings; so she contented herself with saying, savagely:
"Oh, they, as a rule, are the sort of people who think there is
something in life worth doing and planning for, and you look as though
that would be too much trouble."
Now, Mr. Charlie by no means liked to be considered devoid of energy, so
he said:
"Oh, you mistake. I think there are several things worth doing. But this
eternal going to meeting, and whining over one's soul, is not to my
taste."
"You think that it is more worth your while to take ladies out to ride
and walk, and carry their parasols and muffs for them, and things of
that sort. Since we are made for the purpose of staying here and showing
our fine clothes for all eternity, of course it is foolish to have
anything to do with one's soul, that can only last for a few years or
so!"
She hardly realized herself the intense scorn there was in her voice,
and as for Charlie Flint he muttered to himself:
"Upon my word, she is one of them; of the bitterest sort, too! What in
creation is she doing here? Why didn't she stay there and preach?"