The hours waned, and the president did not arrive. The waiters essayed to sing, but to lead such an army of people was a difficult task, especially when there was no one to lead. Such singing!
"We came out ahead, anyhow!" said Flossy, stopping to laugh.
Five or six thousand people had finished their verse, while five or six thousand in the rear were in the third line of it.
"We need Mr. Bliss or Mr. Sherwin or _somebody_," said Ruth. "What a pity that they have all gone, and Dr. Tourjee hasn"t come! I thought he was to be here."
Presently came a singer to their rescue. The girls did not know who he was, but he led well, and the singing became decidedly enjoyable.
Suddenly he disappeared, and they went back again into utter confusion.
They stopped singing and began to grumble.
"Queer arrangements, anyhow," said a surly-looking man in front. "Why didn"t they have a speaker ready to address this throng, instead of keeping us waiting here with nothing to entertain us?"
"I know it," said Marion, briskly addressing herself to her party. "Dr.
Vincent has not used his accustomed foresight. He ought to have known that the presidential party would be three hours late, and filled up the programme with speeches, especially since there has been such a dearth of speech-making during the past two weeks. We are really hungry for an address! I don"t know who would have undertaken the task, however, unless they sent for Gabriel or some other celestial. I know _I_ have no desire to listen to a common mortal."
Before them sat a lady absorbed in a book. During the singing she joined heartily, and when Dr. Vincent came, on one of his numerous journeys to try to encourage the crowd with the information that the party waited for had not yet arrived, she looked and listened with the rest, but always with her finger between the leaves, as if the place was too interesting to be lost.
Eurie"s curiosity rose to such a pitch that she leaned forward for a peep at the t.i.tle-page, and drew back suddenly. It was a copy of the Teacher"s Bible!
A silence fell upon the company near the front, broken suddenly by an old lady who leaned lovingly toward her chubby-faced grandson, and said:
"Frankie, you must look in a few minutes and you will see the President of the United States."
"That is good news, anyhow," spoke forth a rough-looking, good-natured man near by, and the listeners, who were in that excited state of weariness and waiting that they were ready to laugh or cry as the slightest occasion offered, burst forth into roars of laughter, which rang back among the crowds behind and enticed them to join, though I suppose not twenty of the laughers knew what the joke was, if indeed there _was_ one.
A sudden rush. Some one occupied the stand. A notice.
"A telegram!" said a ringing voice. "For Mrs. C.G. Hammond.
Marked--"Death!""
A sympathetic murmur ran through the great company, as they moved and wedged and fell back, and did almost impossible things, to make a road out of that dense throng of humanity for the one to whom the president had suddenly become an insignificance.
Just then came the "Wyoming Trio." Blessings on them, whoever they are.
Nothing ever could have fitted in more splendidly than they did just there and then. And the singing rested and helped them all.
Now a sensation came in the shape of a poem that had been written for the occasion, and was to be learned to sing in greeting to the president. How they rang those jubilant words through those old trees!
Tender, touching words, with the Chautauqua key-note quivering all through them.
"Greet him! Let the air around him Benedictions bear; Let the hearts of all the people Circle him with prayer."
"I wonder if he realizes what a blessed thing it is to be circled with prayer?" said she of the Teacher"s Bible, turning a thoughtful face upon the four girls who had attracted her attention.
"I wonder who Mary A. Lathbury is?" said Eurie, reading from the poem.
"She is a poet, whoever she is. There isn"t a line in this that is simply _rhyme_. I doubt if the president ever had such a rhythmical tribute as that."
"She is the lady with blue eyes and curls who designs the pictures in that charming child"s paper which flutters around here. I have forgotten the name of it, but the pictures are little poems themselves."
This was Flossy"s bit of information.
"Which designs them, the blue eyes or the curls?" Marion asked, gravely.
And then these four simpletons burst into a merry laugh.
Still the president did not appear. The audience had exhausted their resources and their good humor. Ominous grumblings and cross faces began to predominate. Some darkly hinted that he was not coming at all, and that this was a design to draw the immense crowd together. n.o.body believed it, but many were in a mood to pretend that they did.
"I never believed in this thing," said a tall, dark-faced, solemn-featured man, speaking in a voice loud enough to interest the crowd in front "This sensation business I don"t believe in. What do we want of the president here! Who cares to see him? I don"t like it; I believe it is all wrong, turning a religious meeting upside down for a sensation, and I told them so."
Our friend Marion, you will remember, was gifted with a clear voice and a saucy tongue.
"If he doesn"t like it," she said, quickly, "and doesn"t want to see the president, why do you suppose he has kept one of the best chairs for four mortal hours? Don"t you think that is selfish?"
Which sentence caused ripples of laughter all about them, and quenched the solemn-visaged man.
But it was growing serious, this waiting. It was a great army of people to be kept at rest, and though they had been quiet and decorous enough thus far, it was not to be presumed that they were all people governed by nice shades of propriety. Would the disappointment break forth into any disagreeable demonstrations? Dr. Vincent had done what he could; he had appeared promptly on the arrival of dispatches, and given the latest news that the telegraph and the telescope would send. But what can any mortal man do who has arranged for people to come who do not come, except wait for them with what patience he can command.
At this ominous moment he appeared before them again. Not a notice this time; something which shone in his eyes and quivered in every vein and rang in his trumpet-like voice. This was what he said.
CHAPTER x.x.x.
SETTLED QUESTIONS.
Dear Friends: I should bear a burden on my conscience, if I did not come to you to-day with the "old, old story."
"Over the tent which has been prepared for the President of the United States there glows, done in evergreen, this single word, "_rest_."
"As I pa.s.s it, I am reminded of another and a different rest: the rest from every burden, every anxiety, every pain, every sin; who has rested in those everlasting arms? There is coming a day when all this throng of human life gathered here shall wait for the coming of the King. Yea, even the "King of kings." Should that time be to-day, who is ready? Do you know his power? Do you know his grace? Do you know his love? Through the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, every one of you may have that King for your father; I am commissioned, this day, to bring this invitation to each one of you; "Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Will you come?------Pardon this interruption--no, I will not ask your pardon: it is never an interruption to bring good news from the King to his subjects. I will not weary you with a long presentation; I have only this message: you are all invited to come to the Lord Jesus Christ, and be saved from every possible calamity; you are all invited to come now. I am going to ask the Tennesseeans to sing one of my favorites:
""Brother, don"t stay away; For my Lord says there"s room enough, Room enough in the heaven for you.""
Never were tender words more tenderly sung! Never did they steal out upon the hearts of a more hushed and solemn audience. That matchless word of gospel had touched home. There were those in the crowd who had never realized before that the invitation was for them.
Following the hymn came another, suggested also by Dr. Vincent: "Steal away to Jesus." It is one of the sweetest as well as one of the strangest of African melodies; and as the tender message floated up among the trees, a strange hush settled over the listeners; many tears were quietly wiped away from eyes unused to weeping.
"Now sing "Almost persuaded,"" said Dr. Vincent, his own voice tremulous with his highly wrought feeling. Many voices took that up. Even the Chautauqua girls sang, all but Eurie. With the sentence:
"Seems now some soul to say, Go, spirit, go thy way; Some more convenient day On thee I"ll call."
Flossy tamed her anxious, appealing eyes on Eurie, but she was laughing merrily over the attempt of a feeble old man near her to join in the song, and Flossy whispered sadly to Ruth: "Eurie has not even as much interest as that."
The spell of the message and the music lingered, even after Dr. Vincent had gone again. There was no more grumbling; there was very little laughing; a subdued spirit seemed to brood over the great company.
"We could almost have a revival, right here," said one thoughtful man, looking with searching eyes, up and down the sea of faces.
"I tell you, no grander opportunity was ever more grandly improved than by those few words of Dr. Vincent"s. They touched bottom. He will meet those words again with joy, or I am mistaken."