Four Girls at Chautauqua Part 23

It was midnight before this excited group settled down into anything like quiet. But the strain had been so great, and the relief so complete, that a sleep so heavy that it was almost a stupor at last held the tired workers.

Now, what of it all? Why did this foolish mistake of bottles, which might have been a tragedy, and was nothing but a causeless excitement, reach so far with its results?

Let me tell you of one to whom sleep did not come. That was the one who but half an hour before had believed herself face to face with death!

What mattered it to her that it was a mistake, and death no nearer to her, so far as she knew, than to the rest of the sleeping world?

Death was not annihilated--he was only held at bay. She knew that he _would_ come, and that there would be no slipping away when his hand actually grasped hers. She believed in death; she had supposed herself being drawn into his remorseless grasp. To her the experience, so far as it had led her, was just as real as though there had been no mistake.

And the result? _She had been afraid_! All her proper resolutions, so fresh in her mind, made only that very afternoon, had been of no more help to her than so much foam. She had not so much as remembered in her hour of terror whether there _was_ a church to join. But that there was a G.o.d, and a judgment, and a Savior, who was not hers, had been as real and vivid as she thinks it ever can be, even when she stands on the very brink.

Oh, that long night of agony! when she tossed and turned and sought in vain for an hour of rest. She was afraid to sleep. How like death this sleeping was! Who could know, when they gave themselves up to the grasp of this power, that he was not the very death angel himself in disguise, and would give them no earthly awakening forever?

What should she do? Believe in religion? Yes. She knew it was true. What then? What had Marion said? Was that all true? Aye, verily it was; she knew that, too. Had she not stood side by side with death?

The hours went by and the conflict went on. There was a conflict. Her conscience knew much more than her tongue had given it credit for knowing that afternoon. Oh, she had seen Christians who had done more than join the church! She had imagined that that act might have a mysterious and gradual change on her tastes and feelings, so that some time in her life, when she was old, and the seasons for her were over, she might feel differently about a good many things.

But that hour of waiting for the messenger of death, who, she thought, had called her, had swept away this film. "It is not teaching in Sunday-school," said her brain. "It is not tract distributing; it is not sewing societies for the poor; it is not giving or going. It is _none_ of these things, or _any_ of them, or _all_ of them, as the case may be, and as they come afterward. But _first_ it is this question: Am I my own mistress? do I belong to myself or to G.o.d? will I do as I please or as he pleases? will I submit my soul to him, and ask him to keep it and to show me what to do, or when and where to step?"

The night was utterly spent, and the gray dawn of the early sweet summer morning was breaking into the grove, and still Ruth lay with wide-open eyes, and thought. A struggle? Oh dear, yes! Such an one as she had never imagined. That strong will of hers, which had led not only herself but others, yield it, submit to other leaders.h.i.+p, always to question: Is this right? can I go here? ought I to say that? What a thing to do! But it involved that; she knew it, felt it. She might have been blind during the week past, but she was not deaf.

How they surged over her, the sentences from one and another to whom she had listened! They were not at play, these great men. What did it mean but that there was a life hidden away, belonging to Christ? She felt no love in her heart, no longing for love, such as poor little Flossy had yearned for. She felt instead that she was equal to life; that the world was sufficient for her; that she wanted the world; but that the world was at conflict with G.o.d, and that she belonged to G.o.d, and that she _should_ give herself utterly into his hands.

Moreover, she knew there was coming a time when the world, and Saratoga, and the season, with its pleasures, would not do. There was grim death!--he would come. She could not always get away. He was coming every hour for somebody around her. She must--yes, she _must_ get ready for him. It would not do to be surprised again as she had been surprised last night. It was not becoming in Ruth Erskine to live so that the sound of death could palsy her limbs and blanch her cheek and make her shudder with fear. She must get where she could say calmly: "Oh, are _you_ here? Well, I am ready."

It was just as the sun which was rising in glory forced its smiles in between the thick leaves of the Chautauqua birds' nests, and set all the little birds in a twitter of delight, that Ruth raised herself on her elbow and said aloud, and with the force that comes from a determined will that has decided something in which there has been a struggle:

"I _will_ do it."

CHAPTER XXIII.

"I'VE BEEN REDEEMED."

"What about Saratoga?" was Eurie's first query as she awoke to life and talk again on that summer morning. "Do you think you will take the 10:50 train, Ruth?"

Ruth gave nothing more decided than a wan smile in answer, and in her heart a wonder as to what Eurie would think of her if she could have known the way in which her night was pa.s.sed.

"She is more likely to stay in bed," Marion said, looking at her critically. "You will never think of trying to travel to-day, will you, Ruth? Dear me! how you look! I have always heard that hair oil was weakening, but I did not know its effects were so sudden and disastrous!" And then every one of these silly girls laughed. The disaster of the night before had reached its irresistibly comic side--to them. Only Ruth s.h.i.+vered visibly; it was not funny to her.

It was a very eventful day. She by no means relished the character of invalid that the girls seemed determined ought to be forced upon her and at the same time she had not the least idea of going to Saratoga.

Strangely enough, that desire seemed to have utterly gone from her. She had not slept at all, but she arose and dressed herself as usual, with only one feeling strong upon her, and that was a determination to carry out the decision to which she had so recently come, and she had not the least idea how to set to work to carry it out. She went with the rest to the large tent to hear Mrs. Clark's address to primary cla.s.s teachers.

"I'm not a primary cla.s.s teacher, and not likely to be, but I am a woman, and gifted with the natural curiosity of that s.e.x to know what a woman may have to say in so big a place as this. I don't see how she dares to peep." This was Eurie's explanation of her desire to go to the reception.

Ruth went because to go to meeting seemed to be the wisest way that she knew of for carrying out her decision, and a good time she had. She had not imagined that teaching primary cla.s.ses was such an art, and involved so much time and brain as it did. She listened eagerly to all Mrs. Clark had to say; she followed her through the blackboard lessons with surprise and delight, and she awoke at the close of the hour to the memory that, although she had been interested as she had not imagined it possible for her to be on such a theme, she had done nothing toward her determination to make a Christian of herself, and that she knew no more how to go to work than before.

"When I _do_ find out how to be one I know I will go to work in the Sabbath-school; I have changed my mind on that point." This she told herself softly as they went back to dinner.

It was a strange afternoon to her. She became unable to interest herself heartily in the public services; her own heart claimed her thought. It was noticeable also that for the first time Chautauqua chose this day in which to be metaphysical and scientific, to the exclusion of personal religion. Not that they were irreligious, not that they for a moment forgot their position as a great religious gathering; but there was an absence of that intense personal element in the talk which had so offended Ruth's taste heretofore, and she missed it.

She wandered aimlessly up and down the aisles, listening to sentences now and then, and sighing a little. They were eloquent, they were helpful; she could imagine herself as being in a state to enjoy them heartily, but just now she wanted nothing so much as to know what to do in order to give herself a right to members.h.i.+p with that great religious world. Why should Chautauqua suddenly desert her now when she so much needed its help?

"If I knew a single one of these Christian people I would certainly ask them what to do." This she said talking still to herself. She had come quite away from the meeting, and was down in one of the rustic seats by the lake side. It struck her as very strange that she had not intimate acquaintance with a single Christian. She even traveled home and tried to imagine herself in conversation on this subject with some of her friends. To whom could she go? Mr. Wayne? Why, he wouldn't understand her in the least. What a strange letter that was which she wrote him!

Could it be possible that it was written only yesterday? How strange that she should have suggested to him to unite with the church! How strange that she should have thought of it herself!

There came a quick step behind her, and a voice said, "Good-evening, Miss Erskine." She turned and tried to recall the name that belonged to the face of the young man before her.

"You do not remember me?" he said, inquiringly. "I was of the party who went to Jamestown on the excursion."

"Oh, Mr. Flint," she said, smiling, and holding out her hand. "I beg pardon for forgetting; that seems about a month ago."

"So it does to me; we live fast here. Miss Erskine, I have been looking for your party; I couldn't find them. Isn't Miss s.h.i.+pley in your tent?

Yes, I thought so. Well, I want to see her very much. I have something to tell her that I know will give her pleasure. Perhaps you would take a message for me. I want her to know that since last week, when she told me of her Friend who had become so dear to her, I have found the truth of it. He is my Friend now, and I want to thank her for so impressing me with a desire to know him that I could not give it up."

Ruth looked utterly puzzled. Something in the young man's reverent tone, when he used the word "Friend," suggested that he could mean only the Friend for whom she herself was in looking; and yet--Flossy s.h.i.+pley!

What had _she_ to do with him?

"Do you mean," she said, hesitatingly, and yet eagerly, for if he indeed meant that here was one for whom she had been looking; "do you mean that you have become a Christian?"

"It is such a new experience," he said, his face flus.h.i.+ng, "that I have hardly dared to call myself by that name; but if to be a Christian means to love the Lord Jesus Christ, and to have given one's self, body and soul, to his service, why then I am a.s.suredly a Christian."

This was it. There was no time to be lost. She had spent one night of horror, she could not endure another, and the day was drawing to its end. To be sure she felt no terror now, but the night might bring it back.

"How did you do it?" she asked, simply. "How?" The very simplicity of the question puzzled him. "Why, I just gave myself up to his keeping; I resolved to take a new road and follow only where he led. Miss s.h.i.+pley was the one who first made me think seriously about this matter; and then I went to the service that evening, and everything that was said and sung, was said and sung right at me. I was just forced into the belief that I had been a fool, and I wanted to be something else."

"Miss s.h.i.+pley!" Ruth said, brought back by that name to the wonderment.

"You are mistaken. You can not mean Flossy. She isn't a Christian at all. She never so much as thinks of such things."

"Oh, _you_ are mistaken." He said it eagerly and positively. "On the contrary, she is the most earnest and straightforward little Christian that I ever met in my life. Why, I never had anything so come to my soul as that little sentence that she said about having found a _Friend_.' I know it is the same one. I have seen her with you since, but not near enough to address. Her name is Flossy; I heard her called so that day on the boat."

"Flossy!" Ruth said it again, in a bewildering tone, and rising as she spoke. "I am going to find her; I want to understand this mystery. I will give her your message, Mr. Flint, but I think there is a mistake."

Saying which she bade him a hasty good-afternoon, for the flutter of a scarlet shawl had reached her eyes. No one but Flossy wore such a wrap as that. She wanted to see her at once, and she _didn't_ want Mr.

Charlie Flint to be along. She went forward with rapid steps to meet her, and slipping an arm within hers, they turned and went slowly back over the mossy path.

"Flossy, I want you to tell me something. I have heard something so strange; I think it is not so, but you can tell me. I want to know if you think you are a Christian?"

I wonder if Flossy has any idea, even now, how strangely Ruth's heart beat as she asked that simple question. It seemed to involve a great deal to her. She waited for the answer.

There was no hesitation and no indecision about Flossy's answer. Her cheeks took a pink tint, but her voice was clear.

"I _know_ I am, Ruth. I do not even have to speak with hesitancy. I am so sure that Christ is my Friend, and I grow so much surer of it every day, that I can not doubt it any more than I can doubt that I am walking down this path with you."

And then, again, Ruth's astonishment was in part lost in that absorbing question:

"How did you get to be one?"