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the Chautauqua grounds became crowded, there was an annual "Camp Fire," all the members in a great circle standing around a great bonfire at night singing songs and listening to short speeches. These are only a few of the social influences which make the C. L. S. C. more than merely a list of readers. It is a brotherhood, a family bound together by a common interest. The opening day of the Chautauqua readings is October first. On that day at noon, the members of the circle living at Chautauqua and others in the adjacent towns meet at the Miller bell tower on the Point. As the clock sounds out the hour of twelve all present grasp a long rope connected with the bells and together pull it, over and over again, sounding forth the signal that the Chautauqua year has begun. It is said that every true Chautauquan the world over, from Mayville to Hong-Kong, can hear the sound of that bell and at the summons open their books for the year's reading. In one of the earlier years we received at the office a letter from the wife of an army officer stationed among the Indians, and far from any settlement. She wrote that she was a hundred and twenty-five miles from any other white woman, and felt keenly her loneliness. But on the day when her bundle of C. L. S. C. books arrived, she clasped it to her bosom and wept tears of joy over it, for she felt that she was no longer alone, but one in a great company who were reading the same books and thinking the same thoughts and enjoying one fellowship. In one of the early classes was a young lady who, soon after sending in her name, sailed for South Africa to become a teacher in a girl's boarding-school. One day in the following June, when it was in the depth of winter in South Africa,--for in south latitude our seasons are reversed; they have a saying at the Cape "as hot as Christmas"--she came to her classes arrayed in her very best apparel. The girls looked at her in surprise and asked "Is this your birthday?" "No," she answered, "but it is the Commencement Day at Chautauqua in America, and everybody dresses up on that day!" The thousands of readers in the Chautauqua fellowship naturally arranged themselves in two classes. About half of them were reading by themselves, individuals, each by himself or herself,--mostly herself, for at least three-fourths of the members were women, and their average age was about thirty years. The other half were united in groups, "local circles," a
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