“What grounds?”
“Why, the grounds of Chautauqua.”
“But who is Chautauqua?” asked the puzzled violets.
“Don’t you know? Chautauqua is a beautiful place in the woods, shut in from the world by a high fence all around it, with locked gates. It is on the shore of a lovely lake. Many people come there every year, and they have meetings, and they sing beautiful songs about birds and flowers and sky and water and God and angels and dear little babies and stars. Men come there from all over this world, and stand up and talk high, grand thoughts, and the people listen and wave their handkerchiefs till it looks like an orchard full of cherry trees in blossom.
“They have lovely singers—ladies who sing alone as sweet as birds, and they have great grand choruses of song besides, by hundreds of voices. And they have instruments to play on,—organs and pianos, and violins and harps.”
“How beautiful,” murmured the flowers.
“Tell us more,” said the brook; “tell us more, more, more,—tell, tell, tell!”
“More, more,” said the wind.
“It lasts all summer, so the people who can’t come at one time will come at another, though my cousin said she thought that one day all the people in the world came at once. There must have been something very grand to bring so many that day. There were not enough rooms for visitors to sleep in, and Chautauqua is a large place, the largest I was ever in. Yes,” reflectively, “I think all the world must have been there.”
The little white violet looked up.