"'He it was who danced and jested to make happiness among the people. His it was to smile on the planted maize till it sprouted and flowered in the fertile bottoms, to beam joyously on the growing fruit, that it might ripen in its season.
"'From that day there have been delight-makers in all the Pueblo tribes. The koshare became in time with them an organization, as the Free-masons, or the Knights of Pythias, with us. This necessity, we are told, arose from the fact that among the Pueblos there were summer people who enjoy the sunshine, and winter people,—people who determinedly prefer to live in the dark and cold.'
"Is it not so," said Leon, turning down a leaf and closing his book, "with every people on the face of the earth?
"Is not the 'delight-maker,'—the koshare,—under various names and guises, still in demand? It has struck me," continued he, looking quizzically at this disgruntled assemblage, "that the koshare might be an acceptable addition to our despondent circle."
"Amen!" fervently responded the Methodist minister.
"Right you are," said the Harvard man. "Write me as one who approves the koshare!"
"Yes! yes!" eagerly exclaimed approving voices. "Let us have the koshare here and at once!"
"A capital move," said Miss Paulina Hemmenshaw (born and reared in the climatic belt of clubdom, and regent of a Chapter of Daughters of the Revolution). "Let us have a Koshare Club."
"Good!" echoed Mrs. Fairlee, among her intimates surnamed "the Pourer," because of her amiable readiness to undertake for her friends the helpful office that among afternoon tea-circles has been distinguished by that name. "We might give afternoon teas to the members."
"And why not have recitations, with humorous selections?" bashfully suggested the gray-eyed school-mistress, who rejoiced in a fine-toned voice and in a diploma from the School of Oratory.