“And every night,” proceeded the bachelor, “when the bells were ringing we would wake up and Robin would tell us all about the day inside the gates. Of course I can’t remember all, but I will tell you all I know.” * * * * * “Perhaps I can help you a little,” spoke out an old fish who had come up the stream unobserved some time before. “I lived in Lake Chautauqua myself for some years until my daughter sent for me to come and live with her in yonder lake.” They all looked at the old fish with great veneration, and thanked him kindly. “Well, how shall we begin?” said an impatient daisy. “I should think the first thing to be done is to make a motion that we have a Chautauqua,” Bachelor said. Then rose up a tall old fern. “I make a motion to that effect.” “I second it,” chirped a sparrow. “All in favor of the motion say ‘aye,’” said Bachelor, in a deep, important voice. And then arose such a chorus of “aye’s” as never was heard before in that grove. The wind blew it, the brook gurgled it, the great forest trees waved it, all the little flowers filled the air with their perfumed voices, the far-off lake murmured its assent, the purple mountain nodded its weary old head, the sun shot triumphantly through the dark clouds, and all God’s works seemed joining in the “aye aye, aye,” that echoed from hillside to wood. * * * * * “A unanimous vote, I think,” said Bachelor, after the excitement had somewhat subsided. “The next question is, When shall we have it?” “Oh! right away, of course,” nodded a buttercup. “See! the sun has come out to help us.” “But,” objected white Violet, “we can’t. We must invite all the flowers and birds and brooks and trees all over the world, and they will have to get ready. It will take the flowers the rest of this summer and all of next winter to get their dresses made and packed in their brown travelling seed trunks. I’m sure it would me if I were to go away from here for the summer, and it is late in the season already. We couldn’t get word to them all in time.” “Yes,” said the fish, “and there are the travelling expenses to be arranged for such a large company. We should have to secure reduced rates. They always do on Chautauqua Lake.” “Oh! as to that,” said the wind, “I and the birds would do the transportation free of charge, and the brook would do all it could, I’m sure.” “Of course, of course,” babbled the brook. “That is very kind of you indeed,” said Bachelor. “But I should think that the earliest possible beginning that we could hope to have would be next spring.” After much impatient arguing on the part of the buttercups and daisies, it was finally agreed that the first meeting of their Chautauqua should be held the following spring. “It must last all summer,” they said, “because some of us can come early and some late. There is the golden-rod now, it never can come till late in the fall.”