Ellen had always had objective points, as it were, in her life, and
she always would have, no matter how long she lived. She came to
places where she stopped mentally, for retrospection and
forethought, wherefrom she could seem to obtain a view of that which
lay behind, and of the path which was set for her feet in advance.
She saw the tracked and the trackless. Once, going with Abby Atkins
and Floretta in search of early spring flowers, Ellen had lingered
and let them go out of sight, and had sat down on a springing mat of
wintergreen leaves under the windy outstretch of a great pine, and
had remained there quite deaf to shrill halloos. She had sat there
with eyes of inward scrutiny like an Eastern sage's, motionless as
on a rock of thought, while her daily life eddied around her. Ellen,
sitting there, had said to herself: "This I will always remember. No
matter how long I live, where I am, and what happens to me, I will
always remember how I was a child, and sat here this morning in
spring under the pine-tree, looking backward and forward. I will
never forget."
When, finally, Abby and Floretta had run back, and spied her there,
they had stared half frightened. "You ain't sick, are you, Ellen?"
asked Abby, anxiously.
"What are you sitting there for?" asked Floretta.
Ellen had replied that she was not sick, and had risen and run on,
looking for flowers, but the flowers for her bloomed always against
a background of the past, and nodded with forward flings of
fragrance into the future; for the other children, who were wholly
of their own day and generation, they bloomed in the simple light of
their own desire of possession. They picked only flowers, but Ellen
picked thoughts, and they kept casting bewildered side-glances at
her, for the look which had come into her eyes as she sat beneath
the pine-tree lingered.
It was as if a rose had a second of self-consciousness between the
bud and the blossom; a bird between its mother's brooding and the
song. She had caught sight of the innermost processes of things, of
her wheels of life.
Ellen waked up on that June morning, and the old sensation of a
pause before advance was upon her, and the strange solemnity which
was almost a terror, from the feeble clutching of her mind at the
comprehension of infinity. She looked at the morning sunlight coming
between the white slants of her curtains, an airy flutter of her new
dress from the closet, her valedictory, tied with a white satin
ribbon, on the stand, and she saw quite plainly all which had led up
to this, and to her, Ellen Brewster; and she saw also the
inevitableness of its passing, the precious valedictory being laid
away and buried beneath a pile of future ones; she saw the crowd of
future valedictorians advancing like a flock of white doves in their
white gowns, when hers was worn out, and its beauty gone, pressing
forward, dimming her to her own vision. She saw how she would come
to look calmly and coldly upon all that filled her with such joy and
excitement to-day; how the savor of the moment would pass from her
tongue, and she said to herself that she would always remember this
moment.
Then suddenly--since she had in herself an impetus of motion which
nothing, not even reflection, could long check--she saw quite
plainly a light beyond, after all this should have passed, and the
leaping power of her spirit to gain it. And then, since she was
healthy, and given only at wide intervals to these Eastern lapses of
consciousness from the present, she was back in her day, and alive
to all its importance as a part of time.
She felt the bounding elation of tossing on the crest of her wave of
success, and the full rainbow glory of it dazzled her eyes. She was
first in her class, she was valedictorian, she had a beautiful
dress, she was young, she was first. It is a poor spirit, and one
incapable of courage in defeat, who feels not triumph in victory.
Ellen was triumphant and confident. She had faith in herself and the
love and approbation of everybody.
When she was seated with her class on the stage in the city hall,
where the graduating exercises were held, she saw herself just as
she looked, and it was with a satisfaction which had nothing weakly
in its vein, and smiled radiantly and innocently at herself as seen
in this mirror of love and appreciation of all who knew her.
[Illustration: The valedictory]
When the band stopped playing, and Ellen, who as valedictorian came
last as the crown and capsheaf of it all, stepped forward from the
semicircle of white-clad girls and seriously abashed boys, there was
a subdued murmur and then a hush all over the hall. Andrew and Fanny
and the grandmother, seated directly in front of the stage--for they
had come early to secure good seats--heard whispers of admiration on
every side. It was admiration with no dissent--such jealous ears as
theirs could not be deceived. Fanny's face was blazing with the
sweet shame of pride in her child; Andrew was pale; the grandmother
sat as if petrified, with a proud toss of her head. They looked
straight ahead; they dared not encounter each other's eyes, for they
were more self-conscious than Ellen. They felt the attention of the
whole assembly upon them. Andrew was conscious of feeling ill and
faint. His own joy seemed to overwhelm him. He forgot his stocks, he
forgot his borrowed money, he forgot Lloyd's; he was perfectly happy
at the sight of that beautiful young creature of his own heart, who
was preferred before all others in the sight of the whole city. In
truth, there was about Ellen a majesty and nobility of youth and
innocence and beauty which overawed. The other girls of the class
were as young and as pretty, but none of them had that indescribable
quality which seemed to raise her above them all. Ellen still kept
her blond fairness, but there was nothing of the doll-like which
often characterizes the blond type. Although she was small, Ellen's
color had the firmness and unwavering of tinted marble; she carried
her crown of yellow braids as if it had been gold; she moved and
looked and spoke with decision. The violent and intense temperament
which she had inherited from two sides of her family had
crystallized in her to something more forcible, but also more
impressive. However, she was, after all, only a young girl, scarcely
more than a child, whatever her principle of underlying character
might be, and when she stood there before them all--all her
townspeople who represented her world, the human shore upon which
her own little individuality beat--when she saw those attentive
faces, row upon row, all fixed upon her, she felt her heart pound
against her side; she had no sensation of the roll of paper in her
hand; an awful terror as of suddenly discovered depths came over
her, as the wild clapping of hands to which her appearance had given
rise died away. Ellen stood still, holding the valedictory as if it
had been a stick. A little wondering murmur began to be heard.
Andrew felt as if he were dying. Fanny gripped his arm hard. Mrs.
Zelotes had the look of one about to spring. Ellen had the terrible
sensation which has in it a nightmare of inability to move, allied
with the intensest consciousness. She knew that she was to read her
valedictory, she knew that she must raise that white-ribboned roll
and read, or else be disgraced forever, and yet she was powerless.
But suddenly some compelling glance seemed to arouse her from this
lock of nerve and muscle; she raised her eyes, and Cynthia Lennox,
on the farther side of the hall, was gazing full at her with an
indescribable gaze of passion and help and command. Her own mother's
look could not have influenced her. Ellen raised her valedictory,
bowed, and began to read. Andrew looked so pale that people nudged
one another to look at him. Mrs. Zelotes settled back, relaxing
stiffly from her fierce attitude. Fanny wiped her forehead with a
cheap lace-bordered handkerchief. There was a stifled sob farther
back, that came from Eva Tenny, who sat back on account of a break
across the shoulders in the back of her silk dress. Amabel, anæmic
and eager in a little, tawdry, cheap muslin frock, sat beside her,
with worshipful eyes on Ellen. "What ailed her?" she whispered,
hitting her mother with a sharp little elbow. "Hush up!" whispered
Eva, angrily, surreptitiously wiping her eyes. In front, directly in
her line of vision, sat the woman of whom she was jealous--the young
widow, who had been Aggie Bemis, arrayed in a handsome India silk
and a flower-laden hat. Eva's hat was trimmed with a draggled
feather and a bunch of roses which she had tried to color with
aniline dye. When she got home that night she tore the feather out
of the hat and flung it across the room. She wished to do it that
afternoon every time she looked at the other woman's roses against
the smooth knot of her brown hair, and that repressed impulse, with
her alarm at Ellen's silence, had made her almost hysterical. When
Ellen's clear young voice rose and filled the hall she calmed
herself. Ellen had not folded back her first page with a flutter of
the white satin ribbons before people began to sit straight and
stare at each other incredulously. The subject of the valedictory,
as well as those of the other essays, had been allotted, and Ellen's
had been "Equality," and she had written a most revolutionary
valedictory. Ellen had written with a sort of poetic fire, and,
crude as it all was, she might have had the inspiration of a Shelley
or a Chatterton as she stood there, raising her fearless young front
over the marshalling of her sentiments on the smooth sheets of
foolscap. Her voice, once started, rang out clear and full. She had
hesitated at nothing, she flung all castes into a common heap of
equality with her strong young arms, and she set them all on one
level of the synagogue. She forced the employer and his employé to
one bench of service in the grand system of things; she gave the
laborer, and the laborer only, the reward of labor. As Ellen went on
reading calmly, with the steadfastness of one promulgating
principles, not the excitement of one carried away by enthusiasm,
she began to be interrupted by applause, but she read on, never
wavering, her clear voice overcoming everything. She was quite
innocently throwing her wordy bomb to the agitation of public
sentiment. She had no thought of such an effect. She was stating
what she believed to be facts with her youthful dogmatism. She had
no fear lest the facts strike too hard. The school-master's face
grew long with dismay; he sat pulling his mustache in a fashion he
had when disturbed. He glanced uneasily now and then at Mr. Lloyd,
and at another leading manufacturer who was present. The other
manufacturer sat quite stolid and unsmiling beside a fidgeting wife,
who presently arose and swept out with a loud rustle of silks. She
looked back once and beckoned angrily to her husband, but he did not
stir. He was on the school-board. The school-master trembled when he
saw that imperturbable face of storing recollection before him. Mr.
Lloyd leaned towards Lyman Risley, who sat beside him and whispered
and laughed. It was quite evident that he did not consider the
flight of this little fledgling in the face of things seriously. But
even he, as Ellen's clearly delivered sentiments grew more and more
defined--almost anarchistic--became a little grave in spite of the
absurd incongruity between them and the girlish lips. Once he looked
in some wonder at the school-teacher as much as to say, "Why did you
permit this?" and the young man pulled his mustache harder.
When Ellen finished and made her bow, such a storm of applause arose
as had never before been heard at a high-school exhibition. The
audience was for the most part composed of factory employés and
their families, as most of the graduates were of that class of the
community. Many of them were of foreign blood, people who had come
to the country expecting the state of things advocated in Ellen's
valedictory, and had remained more or less sullen and dissenting at
the non-fulfilment of their expectation. One tall Swede, with a
lurid flashing of blue eyes under a thick, blond thatch, led the
renewed charges of applause. Red spots came on his cheeks, gaunt
with high cheekbones; his cold Northern blood was up. He stood
upreared against a background of the crowd under the balcony; he
stamped when the applause died low; then it swelled again and again
like great waves. The Swede brandished his long arms, he shouted,
others echoed him. Even the women hallooed in a frenzy of applause,
they clapped their hands, they stood up in their seats. Only a few
sat silent and contemptuous through all the enthusiasm. Thomas
Briggs, the manufacturer, was one of them. He sat like a rock, his
great, red, imperturbable face of dissent fixed straight ahead. Mrs.
Lloyd clapped wildly, on account of the girl who had read the
valedictory. She had slept through the greater part of it, for it
was very warm, and the heat always made her drowsy. She kept leaning
towards Cynthia as she clapped, and asking in a loud whisper if she
wasn't sweet. Cynthia did not applaud, but her delicate face was
pale with emotion. Lyman Risley, beside her, was clapping
energetically. "She may have a bomb somewhere concealed among those
ribbons and frills," he said to Lloyd when the applause was waxing
loudest, and Lloyd laughed.
As for Ellen, when the storm of applause burst at her feet, she
stood still for a moment bewildered. Then she bowed again and turned
to go, then the compelling uproar brought her back. She stood there
quite piteous in her confusion. This was too much triumph, and,
moreover, she had not the least idea of the true significance of it
all. She was like a chemist who had brought together, quite
ignorantly and unwittingly, the two elements of an explosive. She
thought that her valedictory must have been well done, that they
liked it, and that was all. She had no sooner finished reading than
the ushers began in the midst of the storm of applause to approach
the stage with her graduating presents. They were laden with great
bouquets and baskets of flowers, with cards conspicuously attached
to most of them. Cynthia Lennox had sent a basket of roses. Ellen
took it on her arm, and wondered when she saw the name attached to
the pink satin bow on the handle. She did not look again towards
Cynthia since the old impulse of concealment on her account came
over her. Ellen had great boxes of candy from her boy admirers,
that being a favorite token of young affection upon such occasions.
She had a gift-book from her former school-teacher, and a
ninety-eight-cent gilded vase from Eva and Amabel, who had been
saving money to buy it. She heard a murmur of admiration when she
had finally reached her seat, after the storm of applause had at
last subsided, and she unrolled the packages with trembling fingers.
"My, ain't that handsome!" said Floretta, pressing her muslin-clad
shoulder against Ellen's. "My, didn't they clap you, Ellen! What's
that in that package?"
The package contained Ellen's new watch and chain. Floretta had
already received hers, and it lay in its case on her lap. Ellen
looked at the package, not hearing in the least the Baptist minister
who had taken his place on the stage, and was delivering an address.
She had felt her aunt Eva's and Amabel's eager eyes on her when she
unrolled the gaudy vase; now she felt her father's and mother's. The
small, daintily tied package was inscribed "Ellen Brewster, from
Father and Mother."
"Why don't you open it?" came in her ear from Floretta. Maria was
leaning forward also, over her lapful of carnations which John
Sargent had presented to her.
"Why don't she open it?" she whispered to Floretta. They were all
quite oblivious of the speaker, who moved nervously back and forth
in front of them, so screening them somewhat from the observation of
the audience. Still Ellen hesitated, looking at the little package
and feeling her father's and mother's eyes on her face.
Finally she untied the cord and took out the jeweller's case from
the wrapping-paper. "My, you've got one too, I bet!" whispered
Floretta. Ellen opened the box, and gazed at her watch and chain;
then she glanced at her father and mother down in the audience, and
the three loving souls seemed to meet in an ineffable solitude in
the midst of the crowd. All three faces were pale--Ellen's began to
quiver. She felt Floretta's shoulder warm through her thin sleeve
against hers.
"My! you've got one--I said so," she whispered. "It isn't chased as
much as mine, but it's real handsome. My, Ellen Brewster, you ain't
going to cry before all these people!"
Ellen smiled against a sob, and she gave her head a defiant toss.
Down in the audience Fanny had her handkerchief to her eyes, and
Andrew sat looking sternly at the speaker. Ellen said to herself
that she would not cry--she would not, but she sat gazing down at
her flower-laden lap and the presents. The golden disk under her
fixed eyes waxed larger and larger, until it seemed to fill her
whole comprehension as with a golden light of a suffering,
self-denying love which was her best reward of life and labor on the
earth.