The scent of dust
and trampled grass and sun-baked wood gave her an illusion of Syrian
caravans; she forgot the speakers while she listened to noises outside
the tent: two farmers talking hoarsely, a wagon creaking down Main
Street, the crow of a rooster. She was content. But it was the
contentment of the lost hunter stopping to rest.
For from the Chautauqua itself she got nothing but wind and chaff and
heavy laughter, the laughter of yokels at old jokes, a mirthless and
primitive sound like the cries of beasts on a farm.
These were the several instructors in the condensed university's
seven-day course:
Nine lecturers, four of them ex-ministers, and one an ex-congressman,
all of them delivering "inspirational addresses." The only facts or
opinions which Carol derived from them were: Lincoln was a celebrated
president of the United States, but in his youth extremely poor. James
J. Hill was the best-known railroad-man of the West, and in his youth
extremely poor. Honesty and courtesy in business are preferable
to boorishness and exposed trickery, but this is not to be taken
personally, since all persons in Gopher Prairie are known to be honest
and courteous.
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