HEART TOUCHES.
Marion gave her hair an energetic twist as she made her toilet the next
morning, and announced her determination.
"This day is to be devoted conscientiously to the legitimate business
that brought me to this region. Yesterday's report will have to be
copied from the Buffalo papers, or made out of my own brain. But I'm
going to work to-day. I have a special interest in the programme for
this morning. The subject for the lecture just suits me."
"What is it?" Eurie asked, yawning, and wishing there was another
picnic in progress. Neither heart nor brain were particularly interested
in Chautauqua.
"Why, it is 'The Press and the Sunday-school.' Of course the press
attracts me, as I intend to belong to the staff when I get through
teaching young ideas."
"But what about the Sunday-school?" Ruth questioned, with a calm voice.
"You can not be expected to have any special interest in that. You never
go to such an institution, do you?"
"I was born and brought up in one. But that isn't the point. The subject
to-day is Sunday-school literature, I take it. The subject is strung
together, 'The Press and the Sunday-school,' without any periods between
them, and I'm exceedingly interested in that, for just as soon as I get
time I'm going to write a Sunday-school book."
This announcement called forth bursts of laughter from all the girls.
"Why not?" Marion said, answering the laugh. "I hope you don't intimate
that I can't do it. I don't know anything easier to do. You just have
to gather together the most improbable set of girls and boys, and rack
your brains for things that they never _did_ do, or _could_ do, or
_ought_ to do, and paste them all together with a little 'good talk,'
and you have your book, as orthodox as possible. Do any of you know
anything about Dr. Walden? He is the speaker. I presume he is as dry as
a stick, and won't give me a single idea that I can weave into my book.
I'm going to begin it right away. Girls, I'm going to put you all in,
only I can't decide which shall be the good one. Flossy, do you suppose
there is enough imagination in me to make you into a book saint? They
always have a saint, you know."
There was a pretty flush on Flossy's cheek, but she answered, brightly:
"You might try, Marion, and I'll engage to practice on the character, if
it is really and truly a good one."
"I had a glimpse of Dr. Walden," Eurie said, answering the question. "He
was pointed out to me yesterday. He looked dignified enough to write a
theological review. _I'm_ not going to hear him. What's the use? I came
for fun, and I'm going in search of it all this day. I have studied the
programme, and there is just one thing that I'm going to attend, and
that is Frank Beard's 'chalk talk.' I know that will be capital, and he
won't bore one with a sermon poked in every two minutes."
So the party divided for the day. Marion and Ruth went to the stand, and
Flossy strayed to a side tent, and what happened to her you shall
presently hear. Eurie wandered at her fancy, and enjoyed a "stupid
time," so she reported.
Marion's pencil moved rapidly over the paper almost as soon as Dr.
Walden commenced, until presently she whispered in dismay to Ruth:
"I do wish he would say something to leave out! This letter will be
fearfully long. How sharp he is, isn't he?"
Then she scribbled again. Ruth had the benefit of many side remarks.
"My!" Marion said, with an accompanying grimace. "What an army of books!
All for Sunday-schools. Three millions given out every Sunday! Does that
seem possible! Brother Hart, I'm afraid you are mistaken. Didn't he say
that was Dr. Hart's estimate, Ruthie? There is certainly a good chance
for mine, if so many are needed every week. I shall have to go right to
work at it. What if I _should_ write one, Ruth, and what if it should
_take_, and all the millions of Sunday-schools want it at once! Just as
likely as not. I am a genius. They never know it until afterward. I
shall certainly put you in, Ruthie, in some form. So you are destined to
immortality, remember."
"I wish you wouldn't whisper so much," whispered back Ruth. "People are
looking at us in an annoyed way. What is the matter with you, Marion? I
never knew you to run on in such an absurd way. That is bad enough for
Eurie!"
"I'm developing," whispered Marion. "It is the 'reflex influence of
Chautauqua' that you hear so much about."
Then she wrote this sentence from Dr. Walden's lips:
"Every author whose books go into the Sabbath-school is as much a
teacher in that school as though he had classes there. A good book is a
book that will aid the teacher in his work of bringing souls to Christ.
I have known the earnest teaching of months to be defeated by one
single volume of the wrong kind being placed in the hands of the
scholar."
Suddenly Marion sat upright, slipped her pencil and note-book into her
pocket, and wrote no more. A sentence in that address had struck home.
This determination to enter the lists as a writer was not all talk. She
had long ago decided to turn her talents in that direction as the
easiest thing in the line of literature, whither her taste ran. She had
read many of the standard Sunday-school books; read them with amused
eyes and curling lips, and felt entirely conscious that she could match
them in intellectual power and interest, and do nothing remarkable then.
But there rang before her this sentence:
"Every author whose books go into the Sabbath-school is as much a
teacher in that school as though he had classes there." A teacher in the
Sabbath-school! Actually a _teacher_. She had never intended that. She
had no desire to be a hypocrite. She had no desire to lead astray.
_Could_ she write a book that young people ought to bring from the
Sabbath-school with them, and have it say nothing about Christ and
heaven and the Christian life? Surely she could not be a teacher
without teaching of these things. _Must_ she teach them incidentally?
Was saying nothing about them speaking against them? Dr. Walden more
than intimated this.
"After all," she said, speaking to Ruth as the address closed, "I don't
think I shall commence my book yet."
"Why?"
"Oh, because I am sacred." Then, impatiently, after a moment's silence,
during which they changed their seats, "I'm disgusted with Chautauqua!
It is going to spoil me. I feel my ambition oozing out at the ends of my
toes, instead of my fingers as I had designed. Everybody is so awfully
solemn, and has so much to say about eternity, it seems we can't whisper
to each other without starting something that doesn't even end in
eternity. But, wasn't he logical and eloquent?"
"I don't know," Ruth said, absently. And she wondered if Marion knew how
true her words were. Ruth had heard scarcely a word of Dr. Walden's
address since that last whisper, "So you are destined to immortality,
remember." Words spoken in jest, and yet thrilling her through and
through with a solemn meaning. She had always known and always believed
this. She was no skeptic, yet her heart had never taken it in, with a
great throb of anxiety, as it did at that moment. _Was_ she being led of
the Spirit of God?
The two merely changed their positions and looked about them a little,
and then prepared to give attention to the next entertainment, which was
a story from Emily Huntington Miller. Marion was the only one who was in
the least familiar with her, she being the only one who had felt that
absorbing interest in juvenile literature that had led her to keep pace
with the times.
"I'm disposed to listen to _her_ with all due respect and attention,"
she said, as she rearranged herself and got out her note-book. "She is
one of the few people who seem not to have bidden a solemn farewell to
their common sense when they set out to entertain the children. I have
read everything she ever wrote, and liked it, too. I set out to make an
idol of her in my more juvenile days. I used to think that the height of
my ambition would be attained if I could have a long look at her. I'm
going to try it to-day, and see if it satisfies me; though we are such
aspiring and unsatisfied creatures that I strongly suspect I shall go on
reaching out for something else even after _this_ experience."
Very little whispering was done after that for some time. Although
Marion made light of her youthful dreams, there was a strong feeling of
excitement and interest clustering around this first sight of the woman
whose name she had known so long; and something in the fair, sweet face
and cultured voice fascinated and held her, much as she had fancied in
her earlier days would be the case. She frowned when she heard the
request to reporters to "lay aside their pencils." She had meant to earn
laurels by reporting this delicious bit of imagery, set in between the
graver sermons and lectures; but, after all, it was a rest to give
herself up to the uninterrupted enjoyment of taking in every word and
tone--taking it in for her own private benefit. "The Parish of Fair
Haven." How heartily she enjoyed it. The refined and delicate, and yet
keen and intense satire underlying the whole quaint original story, was
of just the nature to hold and captivate her. She was just in the mood
to enjoy it, too. For was it not aimed at that class of people who
awakened her own keenest sense of satire--the so-called "Christian
world"? She did not belong to it, you know; in her own estimation was
entirely without the pale of its sarcasm; stranded on a high and
majestic rock of unbelief in everything, and in a condition to be amused
at the follies of people who played at belief; and treated what they
_played_ was solemn realities as if they were cradle stories or nicely
woven fiction. There was no listener in all that crowd who so enjoyed
the keen play of wit and the sharp home thrusts as did Marion Wilbur.
Ruth was a little undecided what to think; she did not belong to the
class who were hit, to be sure, but her father always gave largely to
missions whenever the solicitor called on him: she had heard his name
mentioned with respect as one of the most benevolent men of the day; she
did not quite like the very low and matter-of-course place which Mrs.
Miller's view of the mission question gave him. According to the people
of Fair Haven, to give one's thousands to the cause was the most
commonplace thing in the world--not to do so was to be an inhuman
wretch. Ruth didn't quite like it--in truth she was just enough within
the circle of modern Christianity to feel herself slightly grazed by the
satire.
"It is absurd," she said to Marion as they went up the hill. "What is
the sense in a woman talking in that way? As if people, were they ever
so good and benevolent, could get themselves up in that ridiculous
manner! If we live in the world at all we have to have a little regard
for propriety. I wonder if she thinks one's entire time and money should
be devoted to the heathen?"
Marion answered her with spirit.
"Oh, don't try to apologize for the folly that is going on in this world
in the name of religion! It can't be done, and sensible people only make
fools of themselves if they attempt it. There is nothing plainer or more
impossible to deny than that church-members give and work and pray for
the heathen as though they were a miserable and abominable set of
brutes, who ought to be exterminated from the face of the earth, but
for whom some ridiculous fanatics called 'missionaries' had projected a
wild scheme to do something; and _they_, forsooth, must be kept from
starving somehow, even though they had been unmitigated fools; so the
paltry collections are doled out, with sarcastic undertones about the
'waste of money,' and the sin of missionaries wearing clothes, and
expecting to have things to eat after throwing themselves away. Don't
talk to me! I've been to missionary societies; I know all about it. The
whole system is one that is exactly calculated to make infidels. I
believe Satan got it up, because he knew in just what an abominable way
the dear Christians would go at it, and what a horrid farce they would
make of it all."
"It is a great pity you are not a Christian, Marion. I never come in
contact with any one who understands their duty so thoroughly as you
appear to, and I think you ought to be practicing."
Ruth said this calmly enough. She was not particularly disturbed; she
did not belong to them, you know; but for all that she was remotely
connected with those who did, and was just enough jarred to make her
give this quiet home thrust. Oddly enough it struck Marion as it never
had before, although the same idea had been suggested to her by other
nettled mortals. It was true that she had realized how the practicing
ought to be done, and a vague wish that she _did_ believe in it all, and
could work by their professed standard with _all her soul_, flitted over
her.
Meantime Flossy was being educated. The morning work had touched her
from a different standpoint. She had not heard Dr. Walden; instead she
had wandered into a bit of holy ground. She began by losing her way. It
is one of the easiest things to do at Chautauqua. The avenues cross and
recross in an altogether bewildering manner to one not accustomed to
newly laid-out cities; and just when one imagines himself at the goal
for which he started, lo! there is woods, and nothing else anywhere.
Another attempt patiently followed for an hour has the exasperating
effect of bringing him to the very point from which he started. Such an
experience had Flossy, when by reason of her loitering propensities she
became detached from her party, and tried to find her own way to the
stand. A whole hour of wandering, then a turn into perfect chaos. She
had no more idea where she was than if she had been in the by-ways of
London. Clearly she must inquire the way. She looked about her. It was
queer to be lost in the woods, and yet be surrounded by tents and
people. She stooped and peeped timidly into a tent, the corner of which
was raised to admit air, and from which the sound of voices issued.
"Come in," said a pleasant voice, and the bright-faced hostess arose
from the foot of her bed and came forward with greeting, exactly as
though they had been waiting for Flossy all the morning. "Would you like
to rest? Come right in, we have plenty of room and the most lovely
accommodations," and a silvery laugh accompanied the words, while the
little lady whisked a tin basin from a low stool, and dusting it rapidly
with her handkerchief proffered her guest a seat, with as graceful an
air as though the stool had been an easy-chair upholstered in velvet.
The only other sitting-place, the low bed, was full, there being three
ladies tucked about on it in various stages of restful work, for they
had books and papers strewn about, and each held a pencil poised as if
ready for action at a moment.
"I'm afraid I intrude," Flossy said, sweetly; "but the truth is, I have
lost my friends and my way, and I really am an object of pity, for I
have been wandering up hill and down, till my strength is less than it
was."
"Poor child!" came sympathetically from the bed, spoken by the eldest of
the ladies, while another rapidly improvised a fan out of the
_Sunday-School Times_, and passed it to her.
Meantime Flossy looked about her in secret delight. Something about the
air of the tent and the surroundings, and an indefinite something about
every one of the ladies, told her as plainly as words could have done
that she was among the workers; that she had unwittingly and gracefully
slipped behind the scenes, and had been cordially admitted to one of the
work-shops of Chautauqua; and there were _so_ many things she wanted to
know!