“But what can _we_ do?” asked an old gray squirrel. “We can’t preach, nor teach. We can run errands and carry messages, but that isn’t much.” “You might be on the commissary department,” said the wind. “What’s that?” they all asked. “Things to eat. We shall need a great many, and you could all lay in a stock of nuts, enough to last all summer, for a great many.” “Why, surely!” they cried, and all that fall such a hurrying and scurrying from bough to bough there was as never was seen before. They worked very hard, storing up nuts, and the people came near not getting any at all. * * * * * It must have been about a week from the time they sent their letter to Old Ocean, that one afternoon as they were assembled, waiting for the decision of a certain little committee, which had been sent over behind a stone to decide who should be the leader of the choir, that up the stream came a weary little fish. He was unlike any fish that had ever been seen in that brook, and caused a great deal of remark among the flowers before he was within hearing distance. He came wearily, as though he had travelled a long distance, but as he drew nearer, the old fish exclaimed, “There comes a salt-water fish! perhaps he has a message from the ocean.” Then the little company were all attention. Nearer and nearer he came, and stopped before the old fish with a low bow, inquiring whether this was the Chautauqua Committee. [Illustration: “AND THE PEOPLE CAME NEAR NOT GETTING ANY AT ALL.”] On being told that it was, he laid a bit of delicate sea-weed, a pearly shell, and a beautiful stem of coral upon the bank, and said: “I have a message from Old Ocean for you. He sends you greetings and many good wishes for the success of your plan, and regrets deeply that he cannot be with you next summer; but he is old, very old, and he has so much to do that he cannot leave even for a day or two. If he should, the world would be upside down. There would be no rain in the brooks, the lakes would dry up, and the crops and the people all would die.” “O dear! and we should die too,” said the flowers. “Yes, you would die, too,” said the salt-water fish. “He has a great many other things besides to take care of; there are the great ships to carry from shore to shore, and there is the telegraph,—” “What is telegraph?” interrupted that saucy little squirrel who had no regard even for a stranger’s presence. “Telegraph is a big rope that people send letters to their friends on. It is under the water in the ocean, and the letters travel so fast that we have never yet been able to see them, though we have watched night and day.” “Wonderful, strange,” they all murmured.