Part 4 (2/2)
”Humph!” said Ruth, turning her pillow and waiting to beat it into shape before she spoke further. ”I haven't the least idea of dying to-night.”
”But how can you be _sure_ of that? You might _have_ to die to-night, you know people do sometimes.”
”I know one thing, am perfectly certain of it, and that is, that you will take cold standing there and making yourself dismal. You are s.h.i.+vering like a leaf, I can see you from here. If that is all the good to be gotten from the 'religious impressions' that they harp about being so great here, the less religion they have the better, and there is quite little enough you may be sure.” Saying which, Ruth turned her pillow again and her head, so that she could not see the small creature at the window. She was unaccountably rasped, not to say startled, by her question, and she did not like to be startled; she liked to have her current of life run smoothly.
As for Flossy, she gave a great sigh of disappointment and unrest, and turned slowly from the window. She had vaguely hoped for help of some sort from Ruth, and as she lay down on her prayerless pillow she said to herself, ”If she had only knelt down I should certainly have done so, too; and perhaps I might have been helped out of this dreadful feeling.”
Yet so ignorant was she of the way that it never once occurred to her to kneel alone and pray.
No more words were spoken by those two girls that night, but each lay awake for a long time and tossed about restlessly. Ruth had been most effectually disturbed, and try as best she could it was impossible to banish the memory of those quiet words: ”You might _have_ to die to-night; people do, you know.” To actually _have_ to do something that she had not planned to do and was not quite ready for, would be a new experience to this girl. Yet when would she be ready to plan for dying?
At last she grew thoroughly vexed, and vented her disgust on the ”religionists” who got up camp-meeting excitements for the purpose of turning weak brains like Flossy s.h.i.+pley's. After that she went to sleep.
”Flossy s.h.i.+pley, for pity's sake _don't_ rig your self up in that awful cashmere! It rains yet and you will just be going around with five wrinkles on your forehead all day, besides spoiling your dress.”
It was morning, and the door of communication between the two sleeping-rooms being thrown open the four girls were in full tide of talk and preparation for Fairpoint. Flossy, though kept her strangely quiet face and manner; the night had not brought her peace; she had tossed restlessly for hours, and when at last she slept it was only to be haunted with troubled dreams. With the first breath of morning she opened her eyes and felt that the weight of yesterday was still pressing on her heart.
”What _shall_ I wear?” she asked, in an absent, bewildered way of Eurie, who had objected to the cashmere.
”I'm sure I don't know. Didn't you bring anything suited to the rain?
Let me go fis.h.i.+ng in that ponderous trunk and see if I can't find something.”
The ”fis.h.i.+ng” produced nothing more suitable than a heavy black silk, elaborately trimmed, and looking, as Eurie phrased it, ”elegantly out of place.”
Through much confusion and frolicking the four were at last entering the grounds at Chautauqua. By reason of their superior knowledge Marion and Flossy led the way, while the others followed eagerly, looking and exclaiming.
”I'll tell you what it is, girls,” Eurie said, eagerly. ”Let's come over here and board. We'll have a tent or a cottage. A tent will be jollier, and it will be twice as much fun as to stay at the hotel.”
There being no dissenting voice to this proposal, they started in much glee to look up a home; only Flossy demurred timidly.
”Can't we go to the meeting, girls, and look for the tent afterward? The meeting has commenced; I hear them singing.”
”It's nothing in the world but a Bible service,” Eurie said. ”That man at the gate handed me a programme. Who wants to go to a Bible service?
We have Bibles enough at home. We want to be on hand at eleven o'clock, because Edward Eggleston is to speak on 'The Paradise of Childhood.' My childhood was anything but paradise, but I am anxious to know what he will make of it.”
Flossy succ.u.mbed, of course, as every one expected she would; and the party went in search of tents and accommodations. It was no easy matter to suit them, as the patient and courteous President found.
”I don't like the location of any one of them,” Ruth Erskine said. Of course she was the hardest to suit. ”Why can't we have one of those in that row on the hill?”
”Those are the guest tents, ma'am.”
”The guest tents?” Eurie exclaimed, in surprise. ”I wonder if they entertain guests here! Who are they?”
”Why, those who have been invited to take part in the exercises, of course. You did not suppose that they paid their own expenses and did the work besides, did you?”
This explanation was given by Marion, who, by virtue of her experience as reporter was better versed in the ways of these great gatherings than the others.
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