A Chautauqua Idyl

The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Chautauqua Idyl, by Grace Livingston Hill, Illustrated by Hector Giacomelli, Allan Barraud, and Jules-Auguste Habert-Dys
A CHAUTAUQUA IDYL
BY GRACE LIVINGSTON BOSTON D LOTHROP COMPANY FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS
Copyright, 1887, by D. Lothrop Company.
My Dear Mr. Lothrop:—
I have read Miss Livingston’s little idyl with much pleasure. I cannot but think that if the older and more sedate members of the Chautauquan circles will read it, they will find that there are grains of profit in it; hidden grains, perhaps, but none the worse for being hidden at the first, if they only discover them. Miss Livingston has herself evidently understood the spirit of the movement in which the Chautauquan reading circles are engaged. That is more than can be said of everybody who expresses an opinion upon them. It is because she expresses no opinion, but rather tells, very simply, the story of the working out of the plan, that I am glad you are going to publish her little poem: for poem it is, excepting that it is not in verse or in rhyme.
Believe me, Very truly yours, Edward Everett Hale.

Down in a rocky pasture, on the edge of a wood, ran a little brook, tinkle, tinkle, over the bright pebbles of its bed. Close to the water’s edge grew delicate ferns, and higher up the mossy bank nestled violets, blue and white and yellow.
Later in the fall the rocky pasture would glow with golden-rod and brilliant sumach, and ripe milk-weed pods would burst and fill the golden autumn sunshine with fleecy clouds. But now the nodding buttercups and smiling daisies held sway, with here and there a tall mullein standing sentinel.
It was a lovely place: off in the distance one could see the shimmering lake, to whose loving embrace the brook was forever hastening, framed by beautiful wooded hills, with a hazy purple mountain back of all.
But the day was not lovely. The clouds came down to the earth as near as they dared, scowling ominously. It was clear they had been drinking deeply. A sticky, misty rain filled the air, and the earth looked sad, very sad.