BITS OF COMMENCEMENT
But Betty Wales couldn't forget it yet. It stood out in the midst of the
happy leisure and anticipation of senior week like a skeleton at the
feast,--a gaunt reminder that even the sheltered little world of college
must now and then take its share of the strange and sorrowful problems
that loom so much larger in the big world outside. But even so, it had
its alleviating circumstances. One was Miss Ferris's hearty approval of
the way in which Betty and Eleanor had managed their discovery, and
another was Jean Eastman's unexpected attitude of helpfulness. She
assumed her full share of responsibility, discouraging gossip and
speculation about the thefts as earnestly and tactfully as Betty
herself, and taking her turn of watching the Blunderbuss at the times
when Miss Ferris couldn't follow her without causing too much comment.
Betty and Eleanor tried to accept her help as if they had expected
nothing else from her, and Jean for her part made no reference to that
phase of the matter except to say once to Betty, "If Eleanor Watson can
stand by her I guess I can. Besides you stood by me, and I didn't
deserve it any more than this poor thing does. Please subtract it from
all the times I've bothered you."
Betty was very generous with the subtraction. She was in a generous
mood, wanting to give everybody the benefit of the doubt that, with a
good deal of a struggle, she had managed to give Georgia. Of course the
vindicating of the little freshman was quite the happiest result of the
whole affair. It didn't take Betty long to identify the amethyst pendant
as the one article which the Blunderbuss had said she couldn't return;
and she was at once relieved and disappointed, on going over the stolen
jewelry with Miss Ferris, to find that Nita's pin was certainly missing.
Of course that left room for the possibility that the Blunderbuss had
not taken it, and the next thing to do was to consult Georgia and make
sure. Betty waited until after dinner that evening for a chance to see
her alone and then, unable to stand the suspense any longer, broke
abruptly away from her own friends and detached Georgia from a group of
tired and disconsolate freshmen sympathizing over examinations.
"Let's go for a walk all by ourselves," she said.
"No fair, running off to talk secrets," Madeline called after the pair.
"Curiosity killed a cat," Betty chanted gaily back at her, leading the
way to the back campus.
"It's awfully nice of you to ask me to come, when so many people want
you," said Georgia shyly.
"Oh, no, it's not," protested Betty. "I shall have a whole week with the
others after you've gone. Besides, there's something I especially want
to talk to you about. Let's go and sit on the bank below the
observatory."
They found comfortable seats among the gnarled roots of an old elm,
where they could look across at Paradise and down on a bed of gorgeous
rhododendrons, over which great moths, more marvelously colored than
the flowers, flitted lazily in the twilight. Then Betty plunged into
the thick of things.
"You remember the pendant that you wore on your chain the night of the
Glee Club concert. You said it was a present. Would you mind telling me
who gave it to you? I have good reason for asking."
Georgia flushed a little and made the answer that Betty had hoped for.
"The senior Miss Harrison gave it to me last Christmas. I know you and
Madeline don't like her, and I don't like her a bit better. But what can
you do, Betty, when some one takes a fancy to you? You can't snub her
just because she happens to be stupid and unpopular--not if you're a
'Merry Heart,' anyway."
"No," said Betty, "you can't. But if you don't like her you won't feel
so bad about what I've got to tell you."
Georgia listened to the story aghast. "But I'm not so dreadfully
surprised," she said. "It explains so many things. She started to take
Caroline's class-pin one day in our room. I supposed she had picked it
up without thinking, so when she went away I asked her for it and she
acted so funny when she gave it back. And then the way she happened to
give me this pin. I went to call on her once last fall, after she had
asked me to dinner, and I noticed it shining under the edge of the
carpet. When I called her attention to it she didn't seem to understand,
so I picked it up myself. She acted queer then too, and when I admired
it and said what a pretty pendant it would make she fairly insisted on
my taking it. Of course I wouldn't, but she had it fixed to go on a
chain and sent it to me for Christmas." Georgia interrupted herself
suddenly. "It was ages after the Glee Club concert before you found out
about Miss Harrison. What did you think of me all that time?"
"Why just at first I couldn't understand it," said Betty truthfully,
"but after I'd thought it over I was sure you weren't to blame and I've
been getting surer and surer all the time. But I am awfully glad to know
how it all happened."
"And I am awfully glad that it was you who saw it," said Georgia
fervently. "I never wore it but that once. I couldn't make her take it
back, so I decided to send it to her after college was over--I knew
mother wouldn't want me to take such a valuable present from a girl I
knew so slightly, and I thought Miss Harrison would be glad to have it
back then. You see," Georgia explained, "I think she did things for me
in the hope that I would manage to get her in more with the girls I
knew. She has been awfully lonely here, I guess. Well, I felt ashamed of
having the pin and ashamed of knowing her, and the things Madeline said
about her worried me dreadfully, but I couldn't seem to shake her off.
Why, I've done everything I could, Betty, that wouldn't hurt her
feelings. I've fairly lived in other people's rooms, so that she'd never
find me at home, and that hurt my poor little roommate's feelings, so
the other day I had to tell her what the matter was. I've never told any
one else--I hate people who talk about that sort of thing--but I've been
just miserable over it,--indeed I have! And now it seems worse than
ever." Georgia's big brown eyes filled with tears.
But she smiled again when Betty assured her that she thought it was much
better to be bothered and to have things come out all wrong than to be
always thinking just of yourself.
"You see," Georgia confessed, "the first time I met her she seemed nice
enough and I accepted her first invitations without thinking, so when
she wanted to be intimate I felt as if I had been partly to blame for
letting her begin it."
"Yes, you do have to be careful about not being too friendly at first,"
said Betty soberly, "but I think there are a lot of mistakes worse than
that. I'm sorry though, if this has spoiled your first year here."
"Oh, it hasn't," said Georgia, eagerly; "it has just spotted it a
little. It was a lucky thing, I guess, that I had something to bother
me, or I should have been spoiled with all the good times you've given
me. I did try to be a good 'Merry Heart,' Betty. Perhaps I shall have
better luck next time."
"I'm sure you will," said Betty, heartily, and after they had arranged
for the returning of Nita's pin in such a way as not to involve Miss
Harrison, they started back to the Belden, Georgia to begin her packing
and Betty to join the rest of the "Merry Hearts," who were spending the
evening on the piazza.
But after all Betty slipped past them and went on up-stairs. She was in
a very serious mood. She realized to-night as she never had before that
her college days were over. The talk with Georgia had somehow put a
period to a great many things and she wanted to be alone and think them
over. Her little room was stiflingly hot and she threw the window wide
open and sat down before it in the dark, leaning her elbows on the sill.
The piazza was just below; she could hear the laughter and merriment,
and occasionally a broken sentence or two drifted up to her.
"There's nothing left to do now but commence," declared Bob Parker,
loudly.
"And when we have commenced we shall be finished," added Babe, and
laughed uproariously at her bad joke.
That was just Betty's trouble,--"nothing left to do but commence," which
was quite enough if you happened to be a member of the play committee.
But before you "began to commence" all the tangled threads of the four
happy years ought to be laid straight, and they weren't, or at least one
wasn't. Betty had always felt sure that before Eleanor graduated she
would get back her standing with the class. But if she had, there was
nothing to prove it; the feeling of her classmates toward her had
certainly changed but nothing had happened that would take away the
sting of the Blunderbuss's insult last fall and of Jean's taunts at the
time of the Toy Shop entertainment. Eleanor would go away feeling that
on the whole she had failed. Well, it was too late to do anything now.
Betty lit her gas long enough to hunt up a scarf that would furnish at
least a lame apology for her delay, and went down to the gay group on
the piazza. When thoughts will only go round in a circle, the best thing
to do is to stop thinking them.
"I say, Betty," cried Bob eagerly, "did you know that Christy had gone
home? I mean did you know she hasn't come back? She went just for senior
week and now her mother is too ill to leave and she's got to stay."
"Poor Chris!" said Betty, suddenly remembering Christy's note which, in
the excitement over the Blunderbuss she had forgotten to open. "How
lucky that she gave up Antonio."
"Isn't it?" agreed Bob. "She's coming back for Tuesday of course to run
the supper and get her precious little sheepskin. Her mother isn't
dangerously sick, I guess, but there are lots of children and Christy
seems to think she's the only one who can manage them."
"Think of her missing the play!" said Madeline.
"Perhaps she'll get back by Saturday night," suggested Eleanor,
hopefully.
"I think she's a lot more likely not to come back at all," declared
Babe, "but it's no use to worry about that yet. Who's going to meet Mary
Brooks?"
"Everybody who isn't a 'star,' or hasn't got to be made up early must
go," commanded Madeline. "She comes at four-ten, remember. Babbie and
Roberta, go in out of this damp."
Up in her room again Betty closed the window against the invading
June-bug and hunted high and low for Christy's note. She hardly expected
to find it after so long a time, but it finally turned up hidden in the
folds of a crumpled handkerchief which she had stuffed carelessly into
her top drawer. And luckily it was not too late to do Christy's
commission. She merely told of her hasty departure and wanted Betty to
be sure that the supper cards, with the menu and toasts on them, were
ready in time. The printer was about as dependable as Billy Henderson,
Christy wrote; he needed reminding every morning and watching between
times.
Betty dashed off a hasty note of sympathy and apology, promising to make
the printer's life a burden until he produced the supper-cards, and went
to bed.
Next day commencement began in earnest. Gay young alumnæ carrying
suit-cases, older alumnæ escorting be-ribboned class-babies and their
anxious nurses, thronged the streets; inconsiderate families began to
arrive a whole day before there was anything in particular for them to
do. All the afternoon the "mob" people and the other "sups" besieged the
stage door of the theatre waiting their turns to be made up, and then,
donning heavy veils hurried back up the hill. It was tiresome being made
up so early and having to stay indoors all the hot afternoon, but it
couldn't be helped, for there was only one make-up man and he must save
plenty of time for the principal actors.
So the campus dinner-tables were patronized by young persons with
heavily penciled eyebrows and brightly rouged cheeks, who ate cautiously
to avoid smearing their paint and powder, and than ran up-stairs to jeer
at the masculine contingent whose beards and moustaches had condemned
them to privacy and scanty fare.
"I shall die of starvation," wailed Bob Parker, when she reached the
theatre, confiding her sad story to Betty. "I said I didn't mind being a
Jew and having my toes stepped on when the Christians hustle me out of
court. But how can any one eat dinner with a thing like this," and she
held up her flowing beard disdainfully.
"I'm sure I don't know," said Betty absently, consulting a messy
memorandum as if she expected to find directions for eating with a beard
among its items. "Bob, where is Roberta Lewis? The make-up man wants her
this minute. It takes ages to fix on her nose."
"Portia is afraid she is going to be hoarse," announced another "supe"
importantly.
"Then find the doctor," commanded Barbara Gordon swiftly, as Betty
disappeared in search of Roberta. "Be careful, men. Look out for that
gondola when you move the flies. Rachel, please keep the maskers off the
stage."
"Why don't we begin?"
"Did you ever see such a mess?"
"Oh, it's going to be a horrible fizzle. I told you the scenery was too
elaborate."
But two minutes later the "street in Venice" scene was ready and
Antonio and "the Sals," as the class irreverently styled his friends,
were chatting composedly together in front of it.
The house was packed of course and there was almost as much excitement
in front as there was behind the scenes. Of course the under class girls
and alumnæ were delighted, but there was a distinguished critic from New
York in the fifth row, and when Shylock appeared he was as enthusiastic
as Mary Brooks herself. Even the cynical Richard Blake was pleased. He
had come up to see the play and also, so he explained, to be a family
to the bereft Madeline; but as Madeline was behind the scenes Eleanor
Watson was obligingly looking after him. Her father and mother weren't
coming until Saturday, and Jim could only make a flying trip between two
examinations to spend Monday in Harding, so Eleanor had plenty of spare
time with which to help out her busier friends.
"I'm going to make out a schedule of my hours," she told Mr. Blake
laughingly, "for it would be dreadful if I should forget an engagement
and promise to entertain two or three uncongenial people at the same
time."
"Indeed it would," agreed Mr. Blake soberly. "To-night, for instance, it
would have been fatal. I say, Miss Watson, keep an hour or two open
Monday evening. If Madeline should urge me, I believe I'd run up again
for that outdoor concert. It must be no end pretty. Ah, the carnival
scene. I never saw that put on more effectively, Miss Watson."
The next night the fathers and mothers and cousins and aunts went into
ecstasies over "that lovely Portia" and "sweet little Jessica," laughed
at young Gobbo's every motion, and declared that Shylock was "just too
wonderful for anything." A funny little old lady who sat next to
Roberta's father even went so far as to ask him timidly if he didn't
agree with her that Shylock was a man. "I've been telling my sister that
no college girl could act like that. I guess I know an old man when I
see one," she said, and blushed scarlet when he answered in his courtly
way, "Pardon me, madam, but Shylock is my daughter. She will appreciate
your unstudied compliment."
When the curtain finally went down on the last performance of the play
the committee were almost too tired to realize that they were through,
and Katherine Kittredge, alias Gratiano, sank down on the nearest grassy
knoll (made of green cambric) and expressed the universal sentiments of
the cast.
"Not for all the ducats in Belmont will I call Portia a learned judge
again."
"You needn't, K., but please hop up," said Barbara Gordon wearily.
"They're singing to us. Get into the centre, Roberta. We've got to let
them see us again; they won't stop clapping till we do."
And then you should have heard the noise!
"Three cheers for good old Shylock," called somebody, and they were
given with a will. Then they sang to her.
"Here's to you, Roberta Lewis,
Here's to you, our warmest friend!"
Then they sang to Barbara and to Kate Denise, and to both the Gobbos.
"I say, ain't you folks goin' home till mornin'?" shouted a jovial
stage-hand, thrusting his head out from the wings.
The crowd laughed and cheered him, then cheered everybody and went home,
singing to Roberta all the way up the hill.
"But you can't blame them," said Betty Wales. "They don't realize how
tired we are, and it's something pretty exciting to have given the play
that Miss Ferris and Mr. Masters both say is the best yet."
"And to have had a perfectly marvelous Shylock," added Kate Denise
warmly.
"And a splendid Portia," put in Roberta.
"Oh, wise young judges, please don't forget to mention Gratiano," said
Katherine Kittredge, and set them all to laughing.
"It's been splendid fun," said Barbara. "Don't you wish we could give it
all over again?"
Then they sat down on the green knolls and the gondolas and Portia's
best carved chairs, and talked and talked, until, as Babbie said, they
all felt so proud of themselves and each other and 19-- that the stage
wouldn't hold them. Whereupon they remembered that to-morrow was
Baccalaureate Sunday and that most of their families had inconsiderately
invited them out to breakfast,--two facts which made it desirable to go
home and to bed as speedily as possible.
It always rains in the morning of Baccalaureate Sunday, but it generally
clears up in time for the service, which is in the afternoon; and even
if it doesn't the graduating class and its friends are willing to make
the best of a bad matter because it would have been so much worse if the
rain had waited for Ivy Day. 19--'s Baccalaureate was showery in an
accommodating fashion that permitted the class to sleep late in the
morning because their families wouldn't want them to go out in the
rain, and cleared off just before and just after the service, so that
they didn't need the carriages that they couldn't possibly have gotten,
no matter how it poured.
And it cleared off for Ivy Day. Helen Adams was up at five o'clock
anxiously inspecting the watery sunshine to see if it would last.
"For they can't plant the ivy in the rain," she thought, "and if they
don't plant it how can they sing the song?"
But the sunshine lasted, Marie planted the ivy,--and the college
gardener carefully replanted it later, "'cause them gals will be that
disapp'inted if it don't live,"--the class sang Helen's song, and the
odes, orations and addresses were all duly delivered.
Then, as Bob flippantly remarked, the fun began. For Mr. Wales had
chartered three big touring cars and invited the "Merry Hearts" to go
out to Smugglers' Notch for luncheon, with Mrs. Adams, who had never
been in an auto before, for chaperon and himself, Will, and Jim Watson
as escorts and chauffeurs.
By the time they got back the campus was festooned with Japanese
lanterns, little tables ready for bowls of lemonade stood under all the
biggest trees, and a tarpaulin dotted with camp chairs covered a
roped-off enclosure near the back steps of College Hall.
"You've got tickets, father," Betty explained, "so you can sit down in
there and listen to the music. Will, you're to call for me."
"For Miss Ayres," Will amended calmly. "Watson is going to take you."
Judge and Mrs. Watson had seats too, so Eleanor and Mr. Blake, Betty and
Jim, and Madeline and Will wandered off together, two and two, enjoying
snatches of the concert, exploring the campus, and engaging in a most
exciting "Tournament"--Madeline's idea of course--to see who could drink
the most lemonade. Will was ahead, with Madeline a close second, when a
mysterious whistle sounded from the second floor of the Hilton.
"Oh, good-bye, Dick," said Madeline briskly, holding out her hand. "It's
time for you to go. Shall I see you to-morrow or not till I get to New
York?"
"Have we really got to go so soon?" asked Will sadly.
Betty nodded. "Or at least we've got to go and put on old dresses, so as
to be ready to join in our class march."
"Why can't we march too?" demanded Mr. Blake.
"Because you're not Harding, 19--," said Madeline with finality.
And so, half an hour later, another procession assembled on the spot
where the Ivy Day march had started that morning. But this time 19-- was
wearing its oldest clothes and heaviest shoes and didn't care whether it
rained or not. Four and five abreast they marched, round the campus, up
Main Street and back, round and round the campus again. "Just as if we
hadn't torn around all day until we're ready to drop," Eleanor Watson
said laughingly. It is a perfectly senseless performance, this "class
march," which is perhaps the reason why every class revels in it.
But the procession was moving more slowly and singing with rather less
enthusiasm, when a small A.D.T. approached the leaders. "Is Miss Marie
Howard in this bunch?" he demanded. "She orter be at the Burton, but
she ain't."
"Yes, here I am," called Marie quickly, and the small boy lit a
sputtering match, so that she could sign his book and read her telegram.
It was from Christy: "Awfully sorry can't come for supper. Writing."
"How perfectly dreadful," cried Marie, repeating the message to Bob, who
was standing beside her. Bob passed on the bad news, and the procession
broke up into little groups to discuss it.
"Why don't you appoint some one to take her place right now?" suggested
Bob. "Then she can sit up all night and get her remarks ready. She won't
have much time to-morrow."
Marie looked hastily around her and caught sight of Betty Wales standing
under a Japanese lantern that was still burning dimly.
"Betty!" she called, and Betty hurried over to her.
"I think we ought to fill Christy's place now," whispered Marie. "Shall
I appoint Eleanor Watson or have her elected?"
"Have her elected," said Betty, as promptly as if she had thought it
all out beforehand.
"Then will you propose her?"
Betty shook her head. "That wouldn't do. Eleanor knows how I feel toward
her. It must come from the people who haven't wanted her. They're all
here, I think." Betty peered uncertainly through the gloom to make sure
that Jean and her friends and the Blunderbuss were still out. "If the
whole class wants her badly enough, they'll think of her."
Marie stepped out into the light of the one lantern and called the class
to order. "It's a queer time to have a class-meeting," she said, "and
I'm not sure that it's constitutional, but who cares about that? You all
know about Christy and as Bob Parker says the new toastmistress ought to
have all the time there is left. So please make nominations."
"Why don't you appoint some one, Marie?" called Alice Waite sleepily.
"Because the toastmistress who presides over our supper ought to be the
choice of her class," said Marie firmly.
"Madam president,"--Jean Eastman's clear, sharp voice broke the
silence. "It's a good deal to ask of any one, to step in at the last
minute like this. Very few of us are capable of doing it,--of making a
success of it, I mean. In fact I only know of one person that I should
be absolutely sure of. Fortunately no one deserves such an appointment
more truly. I nominate Eleanor Watson."
A little thrill swept over the "queer" class-meeting. Everybody had
known more or less about the bitter feud between Jean and Eleanor, and
very few people had had the least suspicion that it had ended. Indeed
even Betty and Eleanor had not been sure how far Jean's friendliness
could be counted upon. Betty, standing back in the shadows where Marie
had left her, gave a little gasp of amazement and clutched Bob's arm so
hard that Bob protested.
"I second that motion, Miss President." It was the Blunderbuss, and her
stolid face grew hot and red in the darkness, as she wondered if any one
who knew that she didn't belong to 19-- now would question her right to
take part in the meeting. "But I was bound to do it," she reflected. "I
guess she isn't the kind of girl I thought she was. Anyhow I didn't
mean to hurt her feelings before, and this will sort of make up."
"Any other nominations?" inquired Marie briskly.
There was silence and then somebody began to clap. In a minute the whole
meeting was clapping as hard as it could.
"I guess we don't need ballots," said Marie, when she could be heard.
"All in favor say aye."
There was a regular burst of ayes.
"Those opposed?"
Silence again.
"There's a unanimous vote for you," cried Bob Parker eagerly. "Speech
from the candidate! Betty, you're killing my arm!"
"Speech!" The class took up Bob's cry.
"Where are you, Eleanor?" called Marie, and Eleanor, coming out from
behind a big bush said, "I'll try to do my best--and--thank you." It
wasn't a brilliant speech to come from the girl who has often been
called Harding's most brilliant graduate, but it satisfied everybody,
even Betty.
"I did it just to show you that I've got the idea," Jean Eastman
muttered sulkily, jostling Betty in the crowd; and that was satisfactory
too. Indeed when Betty went to bed that night she confided to the green
lizard that she hadn't a single thing left to bother about at Harding.