Part 2
“Yes; of course I am. I went with a big pinch-bug one day into a great room full of books, and he said, when he saw the shelves and shelves full of them, ‘My! what a lot of literature!’”
The committee looked convinced, but now came the question of books,—Where should they get them? How could they lecture on books, when they knew nothing about them?
“We must just send word around to all the flowers and birds and trees and everything, to see who can lecture on books, and we must all keep our eyes and ears open,” said a buttercup bud.
“We shall have to lay that on the table for the present,” said the wind.
“But we haven’t any table,” chattered a squirrel.
“A well brought-up squirrel should know better than to interrupt. We shall have to put this aside, then, until we can learn more about it. In the meantime, let us proceed with the next word on the list, poetry.”
“I know,” said the brook. “A bit of paper lay upon my bank, miles and miles away from here, too high up for me to reach, but I could read it. It said, ‘For poetry is the blossom and the fragrance of all human knowledge.’ And I have said it over and over all the way here.”
“Ah! the flowers shall give us poetry,” said the good old wind.
Bachelor bowed his head and said, “We will try.”
“Try, try, try,” chattered the brook.
“Art is next, I believe,” said Bachelor.
“Yes, art,” said a squirrel.
“Art is making pictures,” said the moss.
“Then the sunset must paint them, for there are no pictures made like those of the sunset,” said the wind.
The sun hastened to mix his paint, and in answer to the request that he would be professor of art, painted one of the most glorious sunset scenes that mortal eye has ever looked upon. Rapidly he dashed on the color, delicate greens and blues blending with the sea-shell pink, and glowing with deep crimson and gold, till the assembled committee fairly held their breaths with delight. The crimson and gold and purple in the west were beginning to fade and mix with soft greys and tender yellows, before the committee thought of returning to their work.
“What a lot of time we have wasted,” said the oldest squirrel; “to-morrow is Sunday, and of course we can’t work then, and now it is time to go home.”
“Not wasted, dear squirrel,” said White Violet, “not wasted when we were looking at God’s beautiful sunset.”
Bachelor looked down at her in all her sweetness and purity, and some of the flowers say that later when he went to bid her good-night—under the shadow of a fern—he kissed her.
“To-morrow being Sunday reminds me that we have not made any arrangements for our Sunday sermons. They always have great sermons at Chautauqua, and I have often heard the passengers on the steamer scolding because the boats did not run on Sunday, for they said the great men always kept their best thoughts for sermons.” This from the fish.
They all paused. “We can’t any of us preach sermons, what shall we do?” questioned a fern.
“I’m sure I don’t know; we might each of us go to church and listen to a sermon and preach it over again,” said a thoughtful bird.
“But we couldn’t remember it all, and by next summer we would have forgotten it entirely,” said one more cautious.
“Well, we must go,” said the wind. “Monday we will consider these subjects. To-morrow is God’s day, and we must go immediately, for it is getting dark.”
And so they all rested on the Sabbath day, and praised the great God, and never a wee violet, nor even a chattering chipmunk, allowed his thoughts to wander off to the great programme for the next summer, but gave their thoughts to holy things.
* * * * *
The busy Monday’s work was all done up, and the committee gathered again, waiting for the work to go on, when there came flying in great haste, a little bluebird, and, breathless, stopped on a branch to rest a moment ere he tried to speak.
“What is the matter?” they all cried.
“Were you afraid you would be late? You ought not to risk your health; it is not good to get so out of breath,” said a motherly old robin.
“Oh! I have such good news to tell you,” cried the little bird as soon as he could speak. “I sat on a bough this morning, close to a window where sat an old lady, who was reading aloud to a sick man, so I stopped to listen. These are the words she read,—‘Sermons in stones, books in running brooks.’ I didn’t hear any more, but came right away to study that. I was so glad I had found something to help us. Two things in one.”
They all looked very much amazed.
“Why, we didn’t think we could do anything!” cried the stones, “and here we can do one of the best things there is to be done. Thank the dear God for that. We will preach sermons full of God and his works, for we have seen a great many ages, and their story is locked up in us.”
“And the brook shall tell us of books,” said the old wind. “There is good in everything, and we shall try not to feel discouraged the next time we are in a difficulty.”
“Books in running brooks,” said the brook. “Books, books, books. And I too can praise Him.”
* * * * *
“This morning,” said a sober-looking bird, “a small girl just under my nest in the orchard, was saying something over and over to herself, and I listened; and these were the words that she said:
The ocean looketh up to heaven as ’twere a living thing, The homage of its waves is given in ceaseless worshipping. They kneel upon the sloping sand, as bends the human knee, A beautiful and tireless band, the priesthood of the sea, They pour the glittering treasures out which in the deep have birth, And chant their awful hymns about the watching-hills of earth.
“If the ocean is so good and grand as that he ought to do something at our Chautauqua. Couldn’t he? God must love him very much, he worships him so much.”
“Yes,” said the elm tree. “I have heard that a great man once said, ‘God, God, God walks on thy watery rim.’”
“Wonderful, glorious,” murmured the flowers.
“They tell stories at Chautauqua—pretty stories about things and people; and I have heard that Ocean has a wonderful story. We might send word to ask if he will tell it,” suggested Bachelor.
“I fear he cannot leave home,” said the wind, “but we might try him.”
So it was agreed that the woodpecker should write a beautiful letter, earnestly inviting him to take part in the grand new movement for the coming summer. The brook agreed to carry the daintily-carved missive to the lake, and the lake to the river, and the river would carry it to the sea.
Bachelor spoke next: “They have a School of Languages at Chautauqua, could we have one?”
“I have thought of that,” said the fish, “but who could teach it?”
“That is the trouble,” said Bachelor, slowly shaking his head.
“I know,” said a little bird. “I went to church last night and heard the Bible read, and it said, ‘Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.’ I think the day and the night could teach the School of Languages.”
“The day and the night, the day and the night,” said the brook.
“Yes,” said the oldest tree of all, “the day and the night know all languages.”
* * * * *
“We must have a Missionary Day and a Temperance Day,” said the wise old fish.
“What is a Temperance Day?” asked a young squirrel, who was not yet very well acquainted with the questions of the day.
“My dear,” said his mother, “there are some bad people in the world who make vile stuff and give it to people to drink, and it makes them sick and cross; then they do not please God, and there are some good people who are trying to keep the bad people from making it, and the others from drinking it; they are called Temperance.”
“Oh!” said the squirrel, “but why do the folks drink it? I should think they’d know better.”
“So should I, but they don’t. Why, my dear, I must tell you of something that happened to me once. I lived in a tree at a summer resort, that year, and just under my bough was a window; a young man roomed there for a few days, and every morning he would come to the window with a black bottle in his hand, and pour out some dark stuff and mix sugar and water with it, and drink it as if he thought it was very good. I watched him for several mornings, and one morning the bell rang while he was drinking, and he left the glass on the window-sill, and went to breakfast. I hopped down to see what it was, and it smelled good, so I tasted it. I liked the taste pretty well, so I drank all there was left. Then I started home, but, will you believe it? I could not walk straight, and very soon I could hardly stand up. I tried to climb up a tree, but fell off the first bough, and there I lay for a long, long time. When I awoke I had such a terrible pain in my head! All that day I suffered, and didn’t get over my bad feelings for several days. I tell this as a warning to you, that you may never be tempted to touch anything to drink but water, my dear.”
“You must tell that story, Mrs. Squirrel,” said Bachelor. “And we will call it a story of intemperance, by one of its victims.”
“I will, with all my heart, if it will do any one any good,” she responded.
“Yes, we must have a Temperance Day and all make a speech on drinking cold water,” said the fish.
“And dew,” said the violet.
“I have always drank water, and never anything else, and I think one could scarcely find an older or a healthier tree than I am,” said the elm.
“That is true,” said the fish.
“Cold water, cold water, cold water,” babbled the brook.
“Yes, we can all speak on Temperance Day; we will have a great platform meeting. That is what they call it at Chautauqua when a great many speak about one thing. I heard a man telling his little girl about it on the boat,” said the fish.
And the woodpecker wrote it down.
“What was that other you said?” asked a sharp little chipmunk.
“Missionary Day,” said the fish.
“And what is that?”
“Why, there are home missions and foreign missions,” said the fish. “And they talk about them both. I think they have a day for each, or maybe two or three. Missions are doing good to some one, but I don’t exactly see the difference between home and foreign missions.”
“Why, that is plain to me,” said Bachelor. “Home missions is when some one does something kind to you, and foreign missions is when you do something kind to some one else.”
“Of course; why didn’t I think of that before?” said the fish.
“One day last year I was very hungry,” said a robin, “very hungry and cold. I had come on too early in the season. There came a cold snap, and the ground was frozen. I could find nothing at all to eat. I was almost frozen myself, and had begun to fear that my friends would come on to find me starved to death instead of getting ready for them as they expected. But a little girl saw me and threw some crumbs out of the window. I went and ate them, and every day as long as the cold weather lasted she threw me crumbs—such good ones too—some of them cake; and she gave me silk ravelings to make my nest of. I think that was a home mission, don’t you?”
“Yes, my dear, it was,” said Bachelor.
“You might tell that as one thing,” said the wind.
“I will,” said Birdie.
Said a daisy, “When I was very thirsty, one day, and the clouds sent down no good rain, the dear brook jumped up high here, and splashed on me so I could drink, and I think that was a home mission.”
“Yes, yes,” said the elm, “it was.”
“I know a story I could tell,” said the ferns.
“And I,” said the elm; “one of many years ago, when I was but a little twig.”
“I know a home mission story too,” said White Violet.
“And I,” said the brook. “Once I was almost all dried up and could hardly reach the lake, and a dear lovely spring burst up and helped me along until the dry season was over.”
“And I, and I,” chorused a thousand voices.
“But what about foreign missions?” said the fish.
“I sang a beautiful song to a sad old lady in a window, this morning,” said a mocking-bird.
“That’s foreign missions,” said the chipmunk.
“Some naughty boys hid another boy’s hat yesterday, and I found it for him and blew it to his feet,” said the wind.
“I sent a bunch of buds to a sick girl, this morning,” said the rose-bush with a blush.
“I think we shall have no lack of foreign missions,” remarked Bachelor.
* * * * *
“But what can _we_ do?” asked an old gray squirrel. “We can’t preach, nor teach. We can run errands and carry messages, but that isn’t much.”
“You might be on the commissary department,” said the wind.
“What’s that?” they all asked.
“Things to eat. We shall need a great many, and you could all lay in a stock of nuts, enough to last all summer, for a great many.”
“Why, surely!” they cried, and all that fall such a hurrying and scurrying from bough to bough there was as never was seen before. They worked very hard, storing up nuts, and the people came near not getting any at all.
* * * * *
It must have been about a week from the time they sent their letter to Old Ocean, that one afternoon as they were assembled, waiting for the decision of a certain little committee, which had been sent over behind a stone to decide who should be the leader of the choir, that up the stream came a weary little fish.
He was unlike any fish that had ever been seen in that brook, and caused a great deal of remark among the flowers before he was within hearing distance.
He came wearily, as though he had travelled a long distance, but as he drew nearer, the old fish exclaimed, “There comes a salt-water fish! perhaps he has a message from the ocean.”
Then the little company were all attention.
Nearer and nearer he came, and stopped before the old fish with a low bow, inquiring whether this was the Chautauqua Committee.
On being told that it was, he laid a bit of delicate sea-weed, a pearly shell, and a beautiful stem of coral upon the bank, and said: “I have a message from Old Ocean for you. He sends you greetings and many good wishes for the success of your plan, and regrets deeply that he cannot be with you next summer; but he is old, very old, and he has so much to do that he cannot leave even for a day or two. If he should, the world would be upside down. There would be no rain in the brooks, the lakes would dry up, and the crops and the people all would die.”
“O dear! and we should die too,” said the flowers.
“Yes, you would die, too,” said the salt-water fish.
“He has a great many other things besides to take care of; there are the great ships to carry from shore to shore, and there is the telegraph,—”
“What is telegraph?” interrupted that saucy little squirrel who had no regard even for a stranger’s presence.
“Telegraph is a big rope that people send letters to their friends on. It is under the water in the ocean, and the letters travel so fast that we have never yet been able to see them, though we have watched night and day.”
“Wonderful, strange,” they all murmured.
“Old Ocean says,” proceeded the messenger, “that he cannot give you all of his story, as it would be too long, but that he sends some of it written on this shell, and in this coral and in this bit of sea-weed. In the shell is a drop of pure salt water that if carefully examined will tell you many more wonderful things.”
They all thanked the fish kindly for coming so far to bring them these treasures, and begged him to stay and rest, but he declined, saying he had a family at home and must hasten, so he turned to go.
“Stay!” cried Bachelor. “Wouldn’t you be willing to come next summer and give us a lecture on the telegraph?”
The fish laughed.
“Bless you!” said he, “I couldn’t do that. I don’t know enough about it myself. Ask the lightning. He is the head manager, and will give you all the lectures you want. Good-by! the sun is getting low, and I must be off.” And he sped away, leaving the woodpecker writing down “telegraph” and “lightning” on one corner of his memoranda.
And now the committee returned, having decided, by unanimous vote, that the mocking-bird should be the leader of the choir, as he could sing any part, and so help along the weak ones whenever he could see the need of it.
* * * * *
There was a pause after the committee had been told all that had happened during their absence, broken at last by Bachelor.
“I’ve been thinking,” said he, “that it might be as well for us to have a reply to Ingersoll.”
“What is that?” they asked, for they were getting used to strange things, and did not seem so surprised at the new word.
“Ingersoll is a man that says there is no God, and he has written a great many things to prove it,” said Bachelor gravely.
The other poor little flowers were too much shocked to say anything, and they all looked at one another dumbly.
“Is he blind?” asked a bird.
“He must know better,” asserted a fern. “No one could possibly believe such a thing.”
“I don’t know whether he is blind, but I think not,” said Bachelor. “They say he has made a great many other people believe as he does because he talks so beautifully.”
“How dreadful!” said the flowers, in a sad voice.
“They had a man at Chautauqua who answered all he said and proved that it was untrue, but every one did not hear him. I think we ought to have a day to answer Ingersoll,” again said Bachelor.
“Yes, we must,” said the north wind; “and we will all prove there _is_ a God. No one could have made me but God.” And he blew and blew until the flowers crouched down almost afraid at his fierceness.
When all was quiet again, out hopped a dignified-looking bird. “My friends,” said he, “my wife and I went to church last night, and they sang a beautiful hymn that has long been one of my favorites. I told my wife to listen hard, and this morning, with my help, she was able to sing it. I think it would help on this subject if we were to sing it for you now.”
“Sing, sing, sing,” said the brook.
The meek little wife at her husband’s word stepped out, and together they sang this wonderful hymn:
The spacious firmament on high, With all the blue ethereal sky, The spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great original proclaim; The unwearied sun, from day to day, Does his Creator’s power display, And publishes to every land The work of an Almighty hand.
Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth: While all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole.
What though, in solemn silence, all Move round the dark, terrestrial ball? What though no _real_ voice or sound Amid their radiant orbs be found? In _reason’s_ ear they all rejoice, And utter forth a glorious voice, Forever singing as they shine, The hand that made us is divine.
When they had finished, the whole congregation bowed their heads.
“Yes,” they said, “every day we will show forth the greatness of God who made us, and that bad man will see and hear and believe, and the people will not be led away from God any more.”
“We will make that our great aim, to show forth the glory of God,” they all cried together.
* * * * *
So the little workers planned, and sent their messengers far and wide, over land and sea, and made out their programme; and the lecturers spent days and days preparing their manuscript,—for aught I know they are at it yet.
The flowers all have received their invitations to come, and some were so eager to be off that they packed their brown seed trunks and coaxed the wind to carry them immediately, that they might be early on the spot.
Next spring when the snow is gone and the trees are putting forth their leaves, and all looks tender and beautiful, you will see the birds flying back and forth, very busy, carrying travellers and messages; the squirrels will go chattering to their store-houses to see that all is right, and to air the rooms a little; the birds will build many nests, more than they need, and you will wonder why, and will never know that they are summer nests for rent, else you might like to rent one yourself.
The wind, too, will be busy, so busy that he will hardly have time to dry your clothes that hang out among the apple blossoms.
You don’t know what it all means?
And then all the lily-bells will chime out the call to prayer, the great red sun will come up and lead, and the little Chautauqua will open.
You will hear the sweet notes of praise from the bird choir, and prayers will rise from the flowers like sweet incense; you will see and hear it all, but will you remember that it is all to show forth the glory of God?
THE SCHOOL OF HOME.
Let the school of home be a good one. Let reading be such as to quicken the mind for better reading still; for the school at home is progressive.
* * * * *
The baby is to be read to. What shall mother and sister and father and brother read to the baby?
BABYLAND. Babyland rhymes and jingles; great big letters and little thoughts and words out of BABYLAND. Pictures so easy to understand that baby quickly learns the meaning of light and shade, of distance, of tree, of cloud. The grass is green; the sky is blue; the flowers—are they red or yellow? That depends on mother’s house-plants. Baby sees in the picture what she sees in the home and out of the window.
BABYLAND, mother’s monthly picture-and-jingle primer for baby’s diversion, and baby’s mother-help; 50 cents a year.
* * * * *
What, when baby begins to read for herself? OUR LITTLE MEN AND WOMEN is made to go on with. BABYLAND forms the reading habit. Think of a baby with the reading habit! After a little she picks up the letters and wants to know what they mean. The jingles are jingles still; but the tales that lie under the jingles begin to ask questions.
What do Jack and Jill go up the hill after water for? Isn’t water down hill? Baby is outgrowing BABYLAND.
No more nonsense. There is fun enough in sense. The world is full of interesting things; and, if they come to a growing child not in discouraging tangles but an easy one at a time, there is fun enough in getting hold of them. That is the way to grow. OUR LITTLE MEN AND WOMEN helps such growth as that. Beginnings of things made easy by words and pictures; not too easy. The reading habit has got to another stage.
A dollar for such a school as that for a year.
* * * * *
Then comes THE PANSY with stories of child-life, travel at home and abroad, adventure, history old and new, religion at home and over the seas, and roundabout tales on the International Sunday School Lesson.