It was a tedious waiting.  It had its irresistibly comic side.  There were those among the Chautauqua girls who could see the comic side of things with very little trouble.  The material out of which they made some of their fun might have appeared very meager to orderly, decorous people.  But they made it.

What infinite sport they got out of the fidgety lady before them, who could not get herself and her three children seated to her mind!  Those ladies who labored so industriously in order that the nation’s flags, draping the stand, should float gracefully over the nation’s chief, were an almost inexhaustible source of amusement to our girls.

“Look!” said Eurie, “that arrangement doesn’t suit; some of the stars are hidden; see them twitch it; it will be down!  Now that one has it looped just to her fancy.  No!  I declare, there it comes down again!  The other one twitched it this time; they are not of the same mind.  Girls, do look!  It is fun to watch them; they work as though the interests of this meeting all turned on a right arrangement of that flag.”

By this time the attention of the girls was engaged, and the number of witty remarks that were made at the expense of those flags would no doubt have disconcerted the earnest workers thereat could they have heard them.

The hours waned, and the president did not arrive.  The waiters essayed to sing, but to lead such an army of people was a difficult task, especially when there was no one to lead.  Such singing!

“We came out ahead, anyhow!” said Flossy, stopping to laugh.

Five or six thousand people had finished their verse, while five or six thousand in the rear were in the third line of it.

“We need Mr. Bliss or Mr. Sherwin or somebody,” said Ruth.  “What a pity that they have all gone, and Dr. Tourjee hasn’t come!  I thought he was to be here.”

Presently came a singer to their rescue.  The girls did not know who he was, but he led well, and the singing became decidedly enjoyable.  Suddenly he disappeared, and they went back again into utter confusion.  They stopped singing and began to grumble.

“Queer arrangements, anyhow,” said a surly-looking man in front.  “Why didn’t they have a speaker ready to address this throng, instead of keeping us waiting here with nothing to entertain us?”

“I know it,” said Marion, briskly addressing herself to her party.  “Dr. Vincent has not used his accustomed foresight.  He ought to have known that the presidential party would be three hours late, and filled up the programme with speeches, especially since there has been such a dearth of speech-making during the past two weeks.  We are really hungry for an address!  I don’t know who would have undertaken the task, however, unless they sent for Gabriel or some other celestial.  I know I have no desire to listen to a common mortal.”

Before them sat a lady absorbed in a book.  During the singing she joined heartily, and when Dr. Vincent came, on one of his numerous journeys to try to encourage the crowd with the information that the party waited for had not yet arrived, she looked and listened with the rest, but always with her finger between the leaves, as if the place was too interesting to be lost.