It is very evident that I am to go to Sunday-school next Sabbath anyhow, if I never did before, for now I have two items of interest to look up--a lesson that is in the "fifth chapter, from the fifth to the fifteenth verse of _something_," and a being called "Miss Rider."" So thinking she hastily concluded and folded her letter, ready for the afternoon mail, without a thought or care as to the seed that she had been sending away in it, or as to the fruit it might bear; without the slightest insight into the way she was being led through seeming mistakes and accidents up to a point that was to influence all her future.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE NEW LESSON.
Eurie turned her pillow, thumped the scant feathers into little heaps, and gave a dismal groan as she laid her head back on it.
"It is very queer," she said, "that as soon as ever I make up my mind to be orthodox, and go to meeting every time the bell rings, I should be dumped into a heap on this hard bed with the headache. I haven"t had a touch of it before."
""The way of transgressors is hard,"" quoted Marion, going on calmly with her writing. "If you hadn"t taken that horrid tramp yesterday instead of going to meeting like a Christian, you would have been all right to-day."
"I believe you sit up nights to read your Bible, so as to have verses to fling at people who are overtaken in any possible trial or inconvenience. You always have them ready. Didn"t you bring it with you, and don"t you prepare a list for each day"s use?" This was Eurie"s half merry, half petulant reply to the Bible verse that had been "flung" at her.
Marion carefully erased a word that seemed to her fastidious taste too inexpressive before she answered:
"I don"t own such an article as a Bible, my child; so your suspicions are entirely unfounded. My early education was not defective in that respect, however, and I confess that I find many verses that seem to very aptly describe the ways of sinful mortals like yourself."
Eurie raised herself on one elbow, regardless of headache and the cloth wet in vinegar that straightway fell off.
"You don"t own a Bible!" she said, in utter surprise, and with a touch of actual dismay in her voice.
"I am depraved to that degree, my dear little saint. I conclude that you are more devoutly inclined, and have one of your own. Pray how many chapters a day do you read in it?"
Eurie lay down again, and Flossy came with the vinegar cloth and bound it securely on her forehead.
"I don"t read in it very often, to be sure," Eurie murmured. "In fact I suppose I may as well say that I never do. But then I own one, and always have. I am not a heathen; and really and truly it seems almost queer not to have a Bible of one"s own. It is a sort of mark of civilization, you know."
Marion laughed good-naturedly.
"I never make a great deal of pretense in that line," she said, gayly.
"As for being a heathen, that is only a relative term. According to Dr.
Calkins, they were more or less in advance of us. I am one of the "advanced" sort. Ruth, your toilet ought to be nearly completed; I hear that indefatigable bell."
"You are very foolish not to go this morning and let your writing wait.
We shall be certain to have something worth listening to; it is a strange time to select for absence." This was Ruth"s quiet answer, as she pinned her lace ruffle with a gleaming little diamond.
""Diligent in business." There is another verse for you, my heathen,"
Marion said, with a merry glance toward Eurie. "When you get home and get the dust of years swept off from your Bible, you take a look at it, and see if I have not quoted correctly. And a good, sensible verse it is. I have found it the only way in which to keep my head above water.
Ruthie, the trouble is not with me, it lies with those selfish and obstinate newspaper men. If they would have the sense to let their papers wait over another day I could go to the lecture this morning. As it is, I am a victim to their indifference. If I miss a blessing the sin will be at _their_ door, not mine."
Eurie opened her heavy eyes and looked at Flossy.
"Come," she said, "don"t stand there mopping me in vinegar any longer.
Are you ready? I am really disappointed. I"ve always wanted to hear that man. I want to tell Nel about him."
Flossy washed her hands, shook back the yellow curls with an indifferent and preoccupied air, and went to the door to wait for Ruth. She had taken no part in the war of words that had been pa.s.sing between Marion and Eurie, but she had heard. And like almost everything else that she heard during these days, it had awakened a new thought and desire.
Flossy was growing amazed at herself. It seemed to her that she must have spent her seventeen years of life taking long naps, and this Chautauqua was a stiff breeze from the ocean that was going to shake her awake. The special thought that had dashed itself at her this morning was that she, too, had no Bible. Not that she did not own one, elegantly done in velvet and clasped in gold, so effectually clasped that it had been sealed to her all her life. She positively had no recollection of having ever sat down deliberately to read the Bible. She had "looked over" occasionally in school, but even this service of her eyes had been fitful and indifferent; and as for her head paying any sort of attention to the reading, it might as well have been done in Greek instead of French, which language she but dimly comprehended even when she tried.
But now she ought to have a Bible. She ought not to wait for that velvet covered one. A whole week in which to find what some of her orders were, and no way in which to find them. Of course she could buy one, but how queer it would seem to be going to the museum to make a purchase of a Bible! "They will wonder why I did not bring my own," she murmured, with that life-long deference that she had educated herself to pay to the "they" who composed her world. And in another instance the new-born feeling of respect and independence a.s.serted itself. "I can"t help that," she said, positively, shaking her curls with a determined air; "and it really makes no difference what anybody thinks. Of course I must have a Bible, and I only wish I had it for this morning, I shall certainly get one the first opportunity." Then she turned and said "good-morning" to the pretty little lady who occupied the tent next door, and between whom and herself a pleasant acquaintance was springing up.
"Are you going to the lecture?" Flossy, asked and the small lady shook her head, with a wistful air.
"Dear me, no! My young tyrant wouldn"t consent to that. I meant to take him down with me and try him, but he has gone to sleep; and it is just as well, for he would have been certain to want to do all the talking.
He has no idea that there is any one in the country who knows quite as much as he does." It was said in a half complaining tone, but underneath it was the foundation of tender pride, that showed her to be the vain mother of the handsome tyrant. Still it seemed to be Flossy"s duty to condole with her.
"You miss most of the meetings, do you not?"
"Three-fourths of them. You see it is inconvenient to have a husband who is reporter for the press, and who must be there to hear. It is only when he must write up his notes for publication that I can get a chance; and even then, unless it is baby"s sleepy time, it does me no good. I am especially sorry this morning, for Dr. Cuyler used to be my pastor. He married me one summer morning just like this, and I haven"t laid eyes on him since. I should like to hear his voice again, but it can"t be done."
Now who would have imagined that, with all the powers that were bestirring themselves to come to Flossy"s education, it would have been a rosy, crowing baby, in the unconsciousness of a morning nap, that should have given her her first lesson in unselfishness? Yet he was the very one. It flashed over Flossy in an instant from some source. Who was so likely to have suggested it as the sweet angel who hovered over the sleeping darling?
"Oh, Mrs. Adams, let me stay with baby, and you go to hear Cuyler. It is a real pity that you should miss him, when he is a.s.sociated with your life in this way. I never saw him, and though, of course, I should like to, yet I presume there will be opportunities enough. I will be as careful of baby as if he were my grandson; and if he wakens I will charm him out of his wits, so that it will never occur to him to cry."
Of course there was demurring, and profuse expressions of thanks and declinatures all in a breath. But Flossy was so winning, so eager, so thoroughly in earnest; and the little Mrs. Adams did so love her old pastor, and did feel so anxious to see him again, that in a very short time she was beguiled into going in all haste to her tent to make a "go-to-meeting" toilet; and a blessed thing it was that that sentence does not mean at Chautauqua what it does in Buffalo, or Albany, or a few other places, else Dr. Cuyler might have slipped from them before the necessary articles were all in array. It involved simply the twitching off of a white ap.r.o.n, the settling of a pretty sun hat--for the sun actually shone!--and the seizure of a waterproof, needed, if she found a seat, to protect her from the damp boards--needed in any case, because in five minutes it might rain--and she was ready.
Ruth came to the door.
"Come, Flossy," she said; "where in the world are you? We shall be late." And said it precisely as though she had been waiting for that young person for half an hour.
Flossy emerged from the adjoining tent.
"I am not going." she said. "I have turned nurse-girl, and have the sweetest little baby in here that ever grew. Mrs. Adams is going in my place. Mrs. Adams, Miss Erskine."
And as those two ladies walked away together Mrs. Adams might have been heard to say:
"What a lovely, unselfish disposition your friend has! It was so beautiful in her to take me so by storm this morning! I am afraid I was very selfish; which is apt to be the case, I think, when one comes in contact with actual unselfishness. It is one of the Christian graces that is very hard to cultivate, anyway; don"t you think so?"
Ruth was silent; not from discourtesy, but from astonishment. It was such a strange experience to hear any one speak of Flossy Shipley as "unselfish." In truth she had grown up under influences that had combined to foster the most complete and tyrannical selfishness--exercised in a pretty, winning sort of way, but rooted and grounded in her very life. So indeed was Ruth"s; but _she_, of course, did not know that, though she had clear vision for the mote in Flossy"s eyes.
Meantime Marion had staid her busy pen and was biting the end of it thoughtfully. The two tents were such near neighbors that the latter conversation and introduction had been distinctly heard. She glanced around to the girl on the bed.
"Eurie," she said, "are you asleep, or are you enjoying Flossy"s last new departure?"
Eurie giggled.
"I heard," she said. "The lazy little mouse has slipped out of a tedious hour, and has a chance to lounge and read a pleasant novel. I dare say the mother is provided with them."
Then Marion, after another thoughtful pause:
"But, my child, how do you account for the necessity of going to the neighbors and taking the supervision of a baby in order to do that?
Flossy need not have gone to church if she didn"t choose."
"Yes she need. Don"t you suppose the child can see that it is the fashion of the place? She is afraid that it wouldn"t look well to stay in the tent and lounge, without an excuse for doing so. If that girl could only go to a place where it was the fashion for all the people to be good, she would be a saint, just because "they" were."
"She would have to go to heaven," muttered Marion, going on with her writing.