COMMENCEMENT
"Commencements----" declared Gyp, wise with her fifteen years, "are like
weddings--all sort of weepy."
"What do _you_ know of weddings, little one?" from Graham.
"I guess I've been to five, Graham Westley! And some one is always
crying at them. Why, when Cousin Alicia Stowe was married she cried
herself!"
"Did you cry, mother?" asked Tibby curiously.
Mrs. Westley laughed. "I did--really. And I cried at my Commencement.
There were only twelve of us graduated that spring from Miss Oliver's
Academy and none of us went to college, so you see it really _was_ the
end of our school days. I was very happy until it was all over--then, I
remember, as I walked down the aisle in my organdie dress--we wore
organdie then, too, girls--with a big bouquet of pink roses on my arm
and everyone smiling and nodding at all of us, it came over me with a
rush that my school days were all over and that they'd never come back.
So I cried--for a very weepy half-hour I wanted more than anything else
to be a little girl again with all childhood before me. I was afraid--to
look ahead into life----"
"But there was father--you knew him then, didn't you?"
A pretty color suffused Mrs. Westley's cheeks. "Yes--there was father. I
said I only cried for half an hour. Two years afterward I was
married--and I cried again. Of course I was very, very happy--but I knew
I was going away forever from my girlhood."
"Mother----" protested Isobel. "You make me feel dreadfully sad. I
wanted to cry yesterday when Sheila Quinn spoke at the Class-day
exercises. Wasn't she wonderful when she said how Lincoln School had
given us our shield and our armor and that always we must live to be
worthy of her trust! I thrilled to my toes. But if it makes one cry to
be _married_----"
"Darling"--and Mrs. Westley took Isobel's hand in hers--"we leave our
childhood and again our girlhood with a few tears, perhaps, but always
there is the wonder of the bigger life ahead. I think even in dying
there must be the same joy. And though we do shed tears over the youth
we tenderly lay aside, they are happy tears--tears that sweeten and
strengthen the spirit, too."
"Well, I'm glad _I_ have two more years at Highacres," cried Gyp,
looking with pity at Isobel's thoughtful face.
"And _I'm_ glad," Isobel added, slowly, "that I decided to go to
college. It must be dreadful to know that school is all over. I wouldn't
be Amy Mathers for _anything_. It sounds so silly to hear her talk of
all she's going to do next winter--such _empty_ things!" Isobel, in her
scorn, had forgotten that only a few weeks back she had wanted to do
just what Amy Mathers was planning to do!
"Well,"--Graham stretched his arms--"school's all right but _I'm_ mighty
glad vacation has come."
Through their talk Jerry had sat very still. To her the Class-day
exercises of the school had opened a great well of sentiment. All
through her life, she thought, she would strive to repay by worthiness
the great debt of inspiration she owed to the school. She had not
thought of it in just that grand way until she had heard Sheila Quinn,
until Dana King had given the class prophecy, until Ginny had read the
school poem, until Peggy Lee had presented the class gift to the school.
A young alumna of the preceding class had welcomed the proud graduates.
Dr. Caton had presented the Lincoln Award--to Dana King. A murmur had
swept the room when he announced that, through a mistake in the records,
the Award went to Dana King instead of either Miss Cox or Miss Travis.
Jerry sat next to Ginny and, as Dr. Caton spoke, she squeezed Ginny's
hand in a way that said plainly, "If I had it all to do over again I'd
do the same thing!" Afterward Dana King had shaken her hand warmly and
had declared that he "couldn't understand such good fortune and it meant
a lot to him--for it made college possible."
It seemed to Jerry as though they were all standing on a great shining
hill from which paths diverged--attractive paths that beckoned; that
precious word college--Isobel, Dana King, Peggy Lee were going along
that path; Sheila Quinn was going to study to be a nurse. Amy Mather's
had chosen a more flowery way. Would her happiness be more lasting than
the pretty flowers that lured her? Jerry's own path was a steep, narrow,
little path, and led straight away from Highacres--but it led to
Sunnyside! So with the little ache that gripped her when she thought
that she must very soon leave Highacres forever, was a great joy that in
a few days now she would see her precious Sweetheart--and Gyp and Isobel
would be with her.
The whole family was in a flutter over the Commencement. Graham's class
was to usher; the undergraduates were to march in by classes, the girls
in white, carrying sweet-peas, the boys wearing white posies in the
lapels of their coats.
Mrs. Westley inspected her young people with shining eyes.
"You look like the most beautiful flowers that ever grew," she cried in
the choky way that mothers have at such moments. "I wish I could hug you
all--but it would muss you dreadfully."
"Thank goodness, mammy, that you don't find any _dirt_ on me," exclaimed
Graham, whose ruddy face shone from an extra "party" scrubbing.
"Am _I_ all right, mother?" begged Isobel, pirouetting in her fluffy
white.
Uncle Johnny rushed in. He was very dapper in a new tailcoat and a
flower in _his_ buttonhole. He was very nervous, too, for he was to give
the address of the day. He pulled a small box from his pocket.
"A little graduating gift for my Bonnie." It was a circlet pin
of sapphires. He fastened it against the soft, white folds of
her dress. "You know what a ring is symbolic of, Isobel? Things
eternal--everlasting--never ending. That's like my faith in you." He
lifted the pretty, flushed, happy face and kissed it. "Come on,
now--everybody ready?"
If they had not all been so excited over the Commencement they must have
noticed that there was something very different in Uncle Johnny's
manner--a certain breathless exaltation such as one feels when one has
girded one's self for a great deed.
He _had_ made up his mind to something. The day before, while he had
been preparing the Commencement address, all kinds of thoughts had
haunted him--thoughts concerning Barbara Lee. That half-hour with her in
her little office, when she had told him she was going away, had opened
his eyes. He had cried out: "What will we do without you?" He had really
meant, "What will _I_ do without you?"
Absurd--he tried to reason the whole thing calmly--absurd that this slip
of a girl, who knew _Chinese_, had become necessary to his happiness!
How in thunder had it happened? But there is no answer to that--and he
was in no state of mind to reason; she was going away--and he could not
_let_ her go away.
So all the while he was dashing off splendid things about loyalty (John
Westley had won several oratorical contests at college) his brain was
asking humbly, "Will she laugh at an old bachelor like me--if I tell
her?" He had hated the face he saw in the mirror, edged above his ears
with closely-clipped gray hair. Thirty-six years old; he had not thought
that so very old until now; contrasted with Barbara Lee's splendid youth
it seemed like ninety.
"I'll tell her--just the same," was his final determination; she was on
her way to the "stars," but he wanted her to know that he loved her with
a strength and constancy the greater for his thirty-six years.
From the platform he stared out over the sea of serious young faces--and
saw only the one. He stood before them all, speaking with an earnestness
and a beauty of thought that was inspired--not by the detached group of
graduates, listening with shining eyes, but by Barbara Lee, sitting with
a rapt expression that seemed to separate herself and him from the
others and bring them very close.
"Loyalty" was his theme; "loyalty to God, loyalty to one's highest
ideals, loyalty to one's country, to one's fellowmen."
After he had finished there was the stir which always marks, in a
gathering of people, a high pitch of feeling. Then someone sang, clear,
soprano notes that drifted through the room and mingled with the spring
gladness. The air was fragrant with the sweetness of the blossoms which
decked the big room; through the long windows came the freshness of the
June world outside. It was a day, an hour, sacred to the rites of youth.
More than one man and woman, worn a little with living, sat there with
reverence in their hearts for these young people who, strong with the
promise of their day, stood at the start----
Then the school sang their Alma Mater--the undergraduates singing the
first two verses, the graduates singing the last. The dear, familiar
notes rang with a truer, braver cadence--one voice, clearer than the
others, broke suddenly with feeling.
"Wasn't it all perfectly _beautiful_?" cried Gyp as the audience moved
slowly after the files of graduates. "You couldn't _tell_ which was best
of the program and it _was_ sad, wasn't it? Wasn't Uncle Johnny
_splendid_? And didn't the girls look fine? You know Sheila Quinn was
just sick over her dress--it was so plain--and she looked as lovely as
_any_ of the others. Oh, goodness, _think_ how you'd feel if we were
graduating. But I hope our Commencement will be just as nice! There's
Barbara Lee, let's _hug_ her--think how _dreadful_ to have her go away.
And Dana King's just waiting for you, Jerry----" Gyp ended her outburst
by rushing to Miss Lee and throwing her long arms about her shoulders.
John Westley advanced upon them--with the strange new look still in his
eyes.
"Gyp--you're wrinkling Miss Lee's pinkness." He tried to make his tone
light. "Will you come into the library for a moment, Miss Lee? There's a
book I want you to find for me." His eyes pleaded. Wondering a little,
Barbara Lee walked away with him.
"Well, I never----" declared Gyp, disgusted. Then, in the stress of
saying good-by to some of her schoolmates, she forgot Uncle Johnny and
Barbara Lee.
John Westley had felt that the library would be quite deserted. Standing
in the embrasure of the window through which the June light streamed, he
told Barbara Lee in awkward, earnest words all that was in his heart.
There was a humility in his voice, as he offered her his love, that
brought a tender smile to the corners of her lips.
"I wanted you to know," he finished, simply. "I don't suppose--what I
can offer--can find any place in your heart alongside of your splendid
dreams--but, I wanted you to know that you have----"
"There's more than _one_ way to the stars----" she interrupted, lifting
glowing eyes to his.
Gyp had said good-by to everyone she could lay a finger on. Then she
remembered Uncle Johnny.
"Do you s'pose they're in the library _yet_?"
She and Jerry tiptoed along the corridor and peeped in the door. To
their embarrassed amazement Uncle Johnny and Barbara Lee were standing
looking out of the window--with their hands clasped.
Gyp coughed--a cough that was really a funny sputter.
"Did--did you find your book, Uncle Johnny?"
Uncle Johnny turned--without a blush.
"_Hello_, Gyp!" (As though he'd never seen her before!) "I didn't find
the book--because I wasn't really after a book. But I _did_ find what I
wanted. What would you say, Gyp and Jerry, if I told you that your
Barbara Lee is _not_ going away?"