Part 5 (1/2)

”What an idea!” Eurie said. ”Fancy being a guest and speaking at this great meeting. Being a person of distinction, you know; so that people would be pointing you out, and telling their neighbors who you were.

”There goes Miss Mitch.e.l.l. She is the leading speaker on Sunday-school books. How does that sound? Only, on the whole, I should choose some other department than Sunday-school books; they are all so horridly good--the people in them, I mean--that one can't get through with more than two in a season. I tried to read one last week for Sunday, but I abandoned it in despair.”

This was an aside, while Ruth was questioning the President. She was looking dismayed.

”Can't we have one of the tents on that side near the stand?”

”Those were taken months ago. This is a large gathering, you know.”

”I should think it was! Then, it seems, we must go back to the hotel. I thought you would be glad to let us have accommodations at any price.”

The gentlemanly President here carefully repressed an amused smile.

Here were people who had evidently misunderstood Chautauqua.

”Oh, yes,” he said, ”we can give you accommodations, only not the very best, I am sorry to say. Our best tents were secured many months ago.

Still, we will do the best we can for you, and I think we can make you entirely comfortable.”

”People have different ideas as to the meaning of that word,” Miss Eurie said, loftily.

Then she moved to another tent, over which she exclaimed in dismay:

”Why, the bed isn't made up! Pray, are we to sleep on the slats?”

”Oh, no. But you have to hire all those things, you know. Have you seen our bulletin? There are parties on the ground prepared to fit up everything that you need, and to do it very reasonably. Of course we can not know what degree of expense those requiring tents care to incur, so we leave that matter for them to decide for themselves. You can have as many or as few comforts as you choose, and pay accordingly.”

”And are all four of us expected to occupy this one room?” There was an expression of decided disgust on Miss Erskine's face.

”Way, you see,” explained the amused President, ”this tent is designed for four; two good-sized bedsteads set up in it; and the necessity seems to be upon us to crowd as much as we can conveniently. There will be no danger of impure air, you know, for you have all out-doors to breathe.”

”And you really don't have toilet stands or toilet accommodations! What a way to live!”

Another voice chimed in now, which was the very embodiment of refined horror.

”And you don't have pianos nor sofas, and the room isn't lighted with gas! I'm sure I don't see how we can live! It is not what we have been accustomed to.”

This was Marion, with the most dancing eyes in the world, and the President completed the scene by laughing outright. Suddenly Ruth discovered that she was acting the part of a simpleton, and with flushed face she turned from them, and walked to a vacant seat, in the opposite direction from where they were standing.

”We will take this one,” she said, haughtily, without vouchsafing it a look. ”I presume it is as good as any of them, and, since we are fairly into this absurd sc.r.a.pe we must make the best of it.”

”Or the worst of it,” Marion said, still laughing. ”You are bent on doing that, I think, Ruthie.”

By a violent effort and rare good sense Ruth controlled herself sufficiently to laugh, and the embarra.s.sment vanished. There were splendid points about this girl's character, not the least among them being the ability to laugh at a joke that had been turned toward herself. At least the effect was splendid. The reasons, therefore, might have been better. It was because her sharp brain saw the better effect that her ability to do this thing immediately produced on the people around her. But I shall have to confess that a poise of character strong enough to gracefully avert unpleasant effects arising from causes of her own making ought to have been strong enough to have suppressed the causes.

The question of an abiding-place being thus summarily disposed of, the party set themselves to work with great energy to get settled, Marion and Eurie taking the lead. Both were used to both planning and working, and Marion at least had so much of it to do as to have lost all desire to lead unnecessarily, and therefore everything grew harmonious.

There was a good deal of genuine disgust in Ruth's part of it, though, her eyes having been opened, she bravely tried to hide the feeling from the rest. But you will remember that she had lived and breathed in an atmosphere of elegant refinement all her life, accepting the luxuries of life as common necessities until they had really become such to her, and the idea of doing without many things that people during camp life necessarily find themselves _obliged_ to do without was not only strange to her but exceedingly disagreeable. The two leaders being less used to the extremes of luxury, and more indifferent to them by nature, could not understand and had little sympathy with her feeling.

”We shall have to go back after all to the hotel,” Eurie said, as she dived both hands into the straw tick and tried to level the bed. ”We have too fine a lady among us; she cannot sleep on a bedstead that doesn't rest its aristocratic legs on a velvet carpet. She doesn't see the fun at all. I thought Flossy would be the silly one, but Flossy is in a fit of the dumps. I never saw her so indifferent to her dress before. See her now, bringing that three-legged stand, without regard to rain! There is one comfort in this perpetual rain, we shall have less dust. After all, though, I don't know as that is any improvement, so long as it goes and makes itself up into mud. Look at the mud on my dress! That tent we were looking at first would have been ever so much the best, but after Ruth's silliness I really hadn't the face to suggest a change--I thought we had given trouble enough. She makes a mistake; she thinks this is a great hotel, where people are bound to get all the money they can and give as little return, instead of its being a place where people are striving to be as accommodating as they can, and give everybody as good a time as possible.”

In the midst of all this talk and work they left and ran up the hill to the Tabernacle, where the crowds were gathering to hear Dr. Eggleston.