VII
She turned to the Chautauqua as she had turned to the
dramatic association, to the library-board.
Besides the permanent Mother Chautauqua, in New York,
there are, all over these States, commercial Chautauqua
companies which send out to every smallest town troupes of
lecturers and "entertainers" to give a week of culture under
canvas. Living in Minneapolis, Carol had never encountered
the ambulant Chautauqua, and the announcement of its coming
to Gopher Prairie gave her hope that others might be
doing the vague things which she had attempted. She pictured
a condensed university course brought to the people.
Mornings when she came in from the lake with Kennicott she
saw placards in every shop-window, and strung on a cord
across Main Street, a line of pennants alternately worded
"The Boland Chautauqua COMING!" and "A solid week
of inspiration and enjoyment!" But she was disappointed
when she saw the program. It did not seem to be a tabloid
university; it did not seem to be any kind of a university; it
seemed to be a combination of vaudeville performance Y. M.
C. A. lecture, and the graduation exercises of an elocution
class.
She took her doubt to Kennicott. He insisted, "Well, maybe
it won't be so awful darn intellectual, the way you and I
might like it, but it's a whole lot better than nothing." Vida
Sherwin added, "They have some splendid speakers. If the
people don't carry off so much actual information, they do get
a lot of new ideas, and that's what counts."
During the Chautauqua Carol attended three evening
meetings, two afternoon meetings, and one in the morning. She was
impressed by the audience: the sallow women in skirts and
blouses, eager to be made to think, the men in vests and
shirt-sleeves, eager to be allowed to laugh, and the wriggling children,
eager to sneak away. She liked the plain benches, the portable
stage under its red marquee, the great tent over all, shadowy
above strings of incandescent bulbs at night and by day casting
an amber radiance on the patient crowd. The scent of dust
and trampled grass and sun-baked wood gave her an illusion
of Syrian caravans; she forgot the speakers while she listened
to noises outside the tent: two farmers talking hoarsely, a
wagon creaking down Main Street, the crow of a rooster. She
was content. But it was the contentment of the lost hunter
stopping to rest.
For from the Chautauqua itself she got nothing but wind
and chaff and heavy laughter, the laughter of yokels at old
jokes, a mirthless and primitive sound like the cries of beasts
on a farm.
These were the several instructors in the condensed
university's seven-day course:
Nine lecturers, four of them ex-ministers, and one an
ex-congressman, all of them delivering "inspirational addresses."
The only facts or opinions which Carol derived from them
were: Lincoln was a celebrated president of the United States,
but in his youth extremely poor. James J. Hill was the
best-known railroad-man of the West, and in his youth extremely
poor. Honesty and courtesy in business are preferable to
boorishness and exposed trickery, but this is not to be taken
personally, since all persons in Gopher Prairie are known to
be honest and courteous. London is a large city. A
distinguished statesman once taught Sunday School.
Four "entertainers" who told Jewish stories, Irish stories,
German stories, Chinese stories, and Tennessee mountaineer
stories, most of which Carol had heard.
A "lady elocutionist" who recited Kipling and imitated
children.
A lecturer with motion-pictures of an Andean exploration;
excellent pictures and a halting narrative.
Three brass-bands, a company of six opera-singers, a
Hawaiian sextette, and four youths who played saxophones and
guitars disguised as wash-boards. The most applauded pieces
were those, such as the "Lucia" inevitability, which the
audience had heard most often.
The local superintendent, who remained through the week
while the other enlighteners went to other Chautauquas for
their daily performances. The superintendent was a bookish,
underfed man who worked hard at rousing artificial enthusiasm,
at trying to make the audience cheer by dividing them into
competitive squads and telling them that they were intelligent
and made splendid communal noises. He gave most of the
morning lectures, droning with equal unhappy facility about
poetry, the Holy Land, and the injustice to employers in any
system of profit-sharing.
The final item was a man who neither lectured, inspired, nor
entertained; a plain little man with his hands in his pockets.
All the other speakers had confessed, "I cannot keep from
telling the citizens of your beautiful city that none of the
talent on this circuit have found a more charming spot or
more enterprising and hospitable people." But the little man
suggested that the architecture of Gopher Prairie was haphazard,
and that it was sottish to let the lake-front be monopolized
by the cinder-heaped wall of the railroad embankment.
Afterward the audience grumbled, "Maybe that guy's got the
right dope, but what's the use of looking on the dark side of
things all the time? New ideas are first-rate, but not all this
criticism. Enough trouble in life without looking for it!"
Thus the Chautauqua, as Carol saw it. After it, the town
felt proud and educated.