"Herein is where the church does harm. In my own opinion, it is to blame for the most, if not for all, of the excesses of the day; they are the natural rebound of nerves that have been strained too tightly by the over-tension of the church."
Surely this was a fine sentence. The Flossy of a few weeks ago would have admired the smooth-sounding words and the exquisitely modulated voice as it rolled them forth. How had the present Flossy been quickened as to her sense of the fitness of things. She laughed mischievously. She couldn"t argue; she did not attempt it. All she said was, simply:
"Col. Baker, on your honor, as a gentleman of truth and veracity, do you think the excesses of which you speak, occur, as a rule, in those whose lives have been very tightly bound by the church, or by anything else, save their own reckless fancies?"
Charlie Shipley laughed outright at this point. He always enjoyed a sharp thing wherever heard, and without regard to whether he felt himself thrust at or not.
"Baker, you are getting the worst of it," he said, gayly. "Sis, upon my word, that two weeks in the woods has made you real keen in argument; but you play abominably."
"There is no pleasure in the game now!" This the father said, throwing down his cards somewhat testily. "Flossy, I hope you will not get to be a girl of one idea--tied to the professional conscience. What is proper for you could hardly be expected to be just the thing for Dr. Dennis; and you have nothing to do, as I said before, with what he approves or disapproves."
"But, father," Flossy said, speaking somewhat timidly, as she could not help doing when she talked about these matters to her father, "if we call clergymen our spiritual guides, and look up to them to set examples for us to follow, what is the use of the example if we don"t follow it at all, but conclude they are simply doing things for their own benefit?"
"I never call them my spiritual guides, and I have not the least desire to have my daughter do so. I consider myself capable of guiding my own family, especially my own children, without any help."
This was said in Mr. Shipley"s stiffest tone. He was evidently very much tried with this interruption to his evening"s entertainment. Whatever might be said of the others, he was certainly very fond of cards. He, however, threw down the remaining ones, declaring that the spirit of the game was gone.
"Merged into a theological discussion," Charlie said, with a half laugh, half sneer; "and of all the people to indulge in one, this particular circle would be supposed to be the last."
"Well, I am certainly very sorry that I was the innocent cause of such an upheaval," Col. Baker said, in the half serious, half mocking, tone that was becoming especially trying to Flossy. "It seems that I unwittingly burst a bombsh.e.l.l when I overturned those cards. I hadn"t an idea of it. Miss Flossy, what can I do to atone for making you so uneasy? I a.s.sure you it was really pure benevolence on my part. What can I do to prove it?"
"Nothing," Flossy said, smiling pleasantly. She was very much obliged.
He had awakened thought about a matter that had never before occurred to her. She began to think there were a good many things in her life that had not been given very much thought. She meant to look into this thing, and understand it if she could. Indeed, that was what she wanted of all things to do.
Nothing could be simpler and sweeter, and nothing could be more unlike the Flossy of Col. Baker"s former acquaintance.
"I shouldn"t wonder a bit if you had roused a hornet"s nest about your ears," Charlie Shipley said to his friend. "Now I tell you, you may not believe it, but my little sister is just exactly the stuff out of which they made martyrs in those unenlightened days when anybody thought there was enough truth in anything to take the trouble to suffer for it. She can be made by skillful handling into a very queen of martyrs, and if you fall in the ruins, it will be your own fault."
But he did not say this until Flossy had suddenly and unceremoniously excused herself, and the two gentlemen were alone over their cigars.
"Confound that Chautauqua scheme!" Col. Baker said, kicking an innocent ha.s.sock half across the room with his indignant foot. "That is where all these new ideas started. I wish there was a law against fanaticism.
Those young women of strong mind and disagreeable manners are getting a most uncomfortable influence over her, too. If I were you, Charlie, I would try to put an end to that intimacy."
Charlie whistled softly.
"Which do you mean?" he asked at last. "The Erskine girl, or the Wilbur one? I tell you, Baker, with all the years of your acquaintance, you don"t know that little Flossy as well as you think you do. Let me tell you, my man, there is something about her, or in her, that is capable of development, and that is being developed (or I am mistaken), that will make her the leader, in a quiet way, of a dozen decided and outspoken girls like those two, and of several men like yourself besides, if she chooses to lead you."
"Well, confound the development then! I liked her better as she was before."
"More congenial, I admit; at least I should think so; but not half so interesting to watch. I have real good times now. I am continually wondering what she will do next."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER XI.
THE NEXT THING.
WHAT she did next that night was to sit with her elbows in her lap, and her chin resting on her hands, and stare into vacancy for half an hour.
She was very much bewildered. Col. Baker had awakened a train of thought that would never slumber again. He need not hope for such a thing. Her brother Charlie saw deeper into her nature than she did herself. She was tenacious of an idea; she had grasped at this one, which, of itself, would perhaps never have occurred to her.
Hitherto she had played at cards as she had played on the piano or worked at her worsted cats and dogs, or frittered away an evening in the smallest of small talk, or done a hundred other things, without thought of results, without so much as realizing that there were such things as results connected with such trifling commonplaces.
At least, so far as the matter of cards was concerned, she would never do so again. Her quiet had been disturbed. The process of reasoning by which she found herself disturbed was very simple. She had discovered, as if by accident, that her pastor; as she loved to call Dr. Dennis, lingering on the word, now that it had such a new meaning for her, disapproved of card-playing, not only for himself, but for her; at least that Col. Baker so supposed.
Now there must be some foundation for this belief of his. Either there was something in the nature of the game which Col. Baker recognized, and which she did not, that made him understand, as by instinct, that it would be disapproved by Dr. Dennis, or else he had heard him so express himself, or else he was totally mistaken, and was misrepresenting that gentleman"s character.
She thought all this over as she sat staring into s.p.a.ce, and she went one step further--she meant to discover which of these three statements was correct. If Dr. Dennis thought it wrong to play cards, then he must have reasons for so thinking. She accepted that at once as a necessity to the man. They must also have been carefully weighed reasons, else he would not have given them a place in his creed. This also was a necessity to a nature like his.
Clearly there was something here for her to study; but how to set about it? Over this she puzzled a good deal; she did not like to go directly to Dr. Dennis and ask for herself; she did not know how to set to work to discover for herself the truth; she could pray for light, that to be sure; but having brought her common sense with her into religious matters, she no more expected light to blaze upon her at the moment of praying for it, than she expected the sun to burst into the room despite the closing of blinds and dropping of curtain, merely because she prayed that it might shine.
Clearly if she wanted the sun, it was her part to open blinds and draw back curtains; clearly if she wanted mental light, it was her part to use the means that G.o.d had placed at her disposal. Thus much she realized. But not being a self-reliant girl, it resulted in her saying to Eurie Mitch.e.l.l when she slipped in the next evening to spend an hour:
"I wish we girls could get together somewhere this evening; I have something to talk over that puzzles me a great deal."
You are to understand that the expression, "we girls," meant the four who had lived Chautauqua together; from henceforth and forever "we girls" who went through the varied experiences of life together that were crowded into those two weeks, would be separated from all other girls, and their intercourse would necessarily be different from any other friendships, colored always with that which they had lived together under the trees.
"Well," said Eurie, quick, as usual, to carry out what another only suggested, "I"m sure that is easily managed. We can call for Ruth, and go around to Marion"s den; she is always in, and she never has any company."
"But Ruth nearly always has," objected Flossy, who had an instant vision of herself among the fashionable callers in the Erskine parlor, unable to get away without absolute rudeness.
"I"ll risk Ruth if she happens to want to come with us," Eurie said, nodding her head sagely. "She will dispose of her callers in some way; strangle them, or what is easier and safer, simply ignore their existence and beg to be excused. Ruth is equal to any amount of well-bred rudeness; all that is necessary is the desire to perform a certain action, and she will do it."
This prophecy of Eurie"s proved to be the case. Nellis Mitch.e.l.l was called into service to see the girls safely over to the Erskine mansion, where they found two gentlemen calling on Ruth and her father. No sooner did she hear of their desire to be together, than, feeling instant sympathy with it, she said, "I"ll go in five minutes." Then they heard her quiet voice in the parlor:
"Father, will you and our friends excuse me for the remainder of the evening, and will you enjoy my part of the call and yours too? I have just had a summons elsewhere that demands attention."
"Isn"t that perfect in its propriety, besides bringing things to the exact point where she wants them to be?" whispered Eurie to Flossy as they waited in the hall. "Oh, it takes Ruth to manage."
"I wonder," said Flossy, with her far-away look, and half-distressed, wholly-perplexed curve of the lip--"I wonder if it is strictly _true_; that is what troubles me a good deal."
Oh, Dr. Hurlbut your address to the children that summer day under the trees was the germ of this shoot of sensitiveness for the strict truth, that shall bloom into conscientious fruit.
It was by this process that they were all together in Marion"s den, as Eurie called her stuffed and uninviting little room. Never was mortal more glad to be interrupted than she, as she unceremoniously tossed aside school-books and papers, and made room for them around the table.
"You are a blessed trio," she said, exultantly. "What good angel put it into your hearts to come to me just now and here? I am in the dismals; have been down all day in the depths of swamp-land, feeling as if I hadn"t a friend on earth, and didn"t want one; and here you are, you blessed three."
"But we didn"t come for fun or to comfort you, or anything of that sort," explained Flossy, earnestly, true to the purpose that had started her. "We came to talk something over."
"I don"t doubt it. Talk it over then by all means. I"ll talk at it with all my heart. We generally do talk something over, I have observed, when we get together; at least we do of late years. Which one wants to talk?"
Thus introduced, Flossy explained the nature of her perplexities; her occupation the evening before; the interruption from Dr. Dennis; the sweeping action of Col. Baker, and the consequent talk.
"Now do you suppose that is true?" she said, suddenly breaking off at the point where Col. Baker had a.s.sured her that all clergymen looked with utter disfavor on cards.