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.

VIII

Two weeks later the Great War smote Europe.

For a month Gopher Prairie had the delight of shuddering, then, as the war settled down to a business of trench-fighting, they forgot.

When Carol talked about the Balkans, and the possibility of a German revolution, Kennicott yawned, “Oh yes, it’s a great old scrap, but it’s none of our business.  Folks out here are too busy growing corn to monkey with any fool war that those foreigners want to get themselves into.”

It was Miles Bjornstam who said, “I can’t figure it out.  I’m opposed to wars, but still, seems like Germany has got to be licked because them Junkers stands in the way of progress.”

She was calling on Miles and Bea, early in autumn.  They had received her with cries, with dusting of chairs, and a running to fetch water for coffee.  Miles stood and beamed at her.  He fell often and joyously into his old irreverence about the lords of Gopher Prairie, but always—­with a certain difficulty—­he added something decorous and appreciative.