Part 18

Ruth had confessed that she had been led to college from her curiosity as to how she should feel as “the new woman” of whom all the newspapers were speaking. From their columns she judged that a college education was a very necessary part of this new woman’s equipment, and as she was fond of study she had persuaded her mother to let her take the Radcliffe course.

“Everything considered, you ought to have had a course in Domestic Economy,” said Polly with mischievous intent.

“Especially since your aims after college are so very evident to us all,” added Clarissa.

“Oh, I dare say that she’ll make just as good a housekeeper. A college-trained mind is really a very good possession for a minister’s wife.”

“Oh, Polly, Polly, you are incorrigible!” exclaimed Julia, returning at this moment, and handing Ruth a fire screen to shield her from the gaze of the others. Yet after all it was generally known that Ruth’s engagement would be announced on Class Day, and she and Will Hardon were situated so fortunately that the wedding, Julia knew, might take place within the year.

It is worth noting that almost all the party gave love of study as their chief reason for choosing college. They had turned their faces from the pleasantly idle life of the average American girl, and from seventeen to twenty-one had been hard workers. Every one of them had sacrificed something in order to achieve her end, and almost all of them intended that their education should benefit others. Although the majority of Julia’s guests—like the majority of the class—meant to be teachers, several were looking forward to other useful work. Even Annabel, in her secret soul, had an idea that she was to reduce the frothiness of the social set into which she should be thrown in Washington. Esther Haines was one of the few who proposed a definite career of altruism. She was to spend her first year after graduating in the College Settlement in the east side of New York. She said that after her year’s experience she would know whether or not it was wise to become the agent of some charitable organization. She had an idea that she might prefer the foreign field. Esther was one of the class whom Julia had come to know best in her Senior year. The latter often regretted that her acquaintance with Esther had come so late in her course, for Esther was not a pale, dyspeptic altruist, but one of the cheerful, rosy-cheeked kind, and it was easy to see that her mission to the poor would be one of joy and hopefulness.

Of the whole group Madge Burlap was the one, perhaps, who had had the hardest time in planning her course, for early in her Sophomore year her father had died, and at first it had seemed as if she must leave college. Instead of wealth, she now had nothing but a few hundred dollars in the bank and many books, pictures, and personal belongings. These things she gradually sold—so gradually that she did not draw on herself the pity of her classmates. It had been hard to part with that morocco-bound edition of Stevenson, at a time when her English instructor was urging them all to an intimacy with the great Scotchman. But after all, with the money in her pocket and the books on Julia’s shelves, she was not so very badly off; for in negotiating for the sale of the Stevenson, her pleasant acquaintance with Julia had deepened into friendship. It had been harder to part with her Ruskin, for this set had been divided, Polly taking “The Stones of Venice,” Annabel “The Seven Lamps of Architecture,” and one or two others taking the rest. Madge was a good business woman, and she disposed of all her superfluous belongings except her camera. Yet that could not be counted a superfluity, since she made it pay for itself many times over, and her artistic views of Cambridge and the surrounding country were beginning to be in demand at one or two well-known stationers.

“We know that you are a business woman and a photographer, and since you won’t tell us your exact aim, I prophesy that you will make a fortune, Madge, in artistic photography,” said Polly.

“Well, why not?” responded Madge, thinking of the three young brothers whom she was helping educate. “A fortune in our family would be both useful and ornamental.”

At last each girl of Julia’s party had read her confession, and the others had given their approval. Each in turn had promised Julia to record what she had written or said in the crimson-covered blank-book, as a beginning of the archives to which the exercises of Class Day and Commencement were bound to add so much. It was then that Annabel’s clear voice was again heard.

“You must not forget _my_ confession, although it is not for the red book.”

“Oh, then, let’s hear it,” cried Madge Burlap, and the others echoed her wish. It happened that the group was now sitting in a semicircle around the fire. Annabel was in the centre, and as she spoke the others turned instinctively toward her. It suited her to be the centre of interest, and she began very dramatically:

“Of course every one here remembers the afternoon when I recited so many things before the curtain went up, that afternoon two years ago when we had to wait so long for the Idler play to begin.”

Annabel knew, naturally, that every one present _did_ remember that day, and she continued: “You may recall, too, that there was much discussion afterwards about a strange girl who attended the performance—who—who threw me a very large bouquet. Well, perhaps some of you may also have heard that the girl was Loring Bradshaw in disguise, who took that way of seeing a Radcliffe play. I recognized him, of course, but for certain reasons he did not wish any one else to know that he had done this. He was a little under a cloud in college, and he thought that this wouldn’t do him any good with the Faculty. Well, the affair _did_ get out, and he always thought that this was the last straw that led to his suspension. He knew that I had not told, and he was sure that no man in college would have done so. Then, I happened to mention that you, Miss Herter, had spoken of it at Radcliffe, and he looked on you as the cause of his troubles with Harvard. So it happened one day that he walked home with me as I was carrying your note-book in History 100 that I had borrowed. Your name was in large letters on the cover, and he insisted on carrying the book away. I could not prevent him, for he simply took it from me. I wrote him a severe letter that night, and the book came back to me promptly the next day. He said that it had served his purpose, but I had no idea of his meaning until that newspaper article appeared. I did not care to tell people that Loring was undoubtedly responsible, and besides, just then, Miss Herter, I was perfectly willing to have it appear that you were to blame. They were certainly your notes, and I had no way of proving that Loring had concocted the article.”

There was silence when Annabel finished. Before any one else could speak, she continued: “I wish to say now that I am very sorry that I let so many hold a wrong opinion, for of course I knew that they held it. But I was annoyed about this, although I know now that Polly and Clarissa had nothing to do with the Mr. Radcliffe affair as I thought at first.”

“Thank you!” cried Polly.

“Well, I’ve realized for some time that I do not deserve to be Class President. In fact, even before Clarissa rescued me I had begun to see that I was a mean and jealous kind of a person.”

“There! there!” exclaimed Polly, rising to her feet, “we won’t allow too much humility in the President of the class. We’ve all made some mistakes of judgment, and I myself have been about the worst of all.”

“Ah!” continued Annabel, “you are too good, but I have learned more than any one else in finding out that girls can be generous to one another.”

“There!” cried Clarissa, taking her place beside Polly. “In the language of the poet, ‘Enough said.’”

Clarissa disliked scenes.

XXVII NEARING CLASS DAY

As Class Day approached, the class began to feel that the end was indeed near at hand. Thoughtful girls like Julia and Lois found a special significance in everything that they did; “for the last time” meant a great deal to them, and even the unsentimental Clarissa quoted Tennyson with an approach to correctness:

“Tears, idle tears, I know not why ye fall,— Tears from the depth of some divine despair.”

During May the class had had many attentions paid it by the other undergraduates, as well as by different professors and their wives,—“a continuous performance,” as Polly phrased it, of farewells; and that girl would indeed have been stony-hearted who had not felt that all these things had made her parting with Cambridge a little harder. There had come a lull in these festivities during the examination season of early June, for in comparison with all other examination periods this one had an enormous importance for many Seniors. Even girls who had done well throughout their course showed an unnecessary nervousness, and were sincere in fearing that in some unexpected way they might lower their records. Few of them, perhaps, expected to fail, but those girls who had set their hearts on a degree _summa cum_, _magna cum_, or even simply _cum laude_, felt that much depended on the marks of these final examinations.

But when the examinations were at an end, worry, too, departed, and few indeed were the Seniors who did not enter whole-heartedly into the pleasures of these last days.

The work of the various class committees had been completed some weeks before, and to the credit of the class all had worked together harmoniously. Even in the election of the committees most little rivalries and jealousies had disappeared, and if in all instances precisely the right girl was not in the right place, no one criticised or found fault. As Class President Annabel was Chairman of the General Committee, Ruth of the Invitation Committee, Julia was Chairman of the Committee on Class Exercises, Clarissa was chief of the Photograph Committee, and Pamela, in spite of her protestations, had a place on the Baccalaureate Committee.

So energetic had Clarissa been as Chairman of her committee and so conscientious in securing the best photographs that some of her classmates made really pathetic complaints.

“Sometimes, when I think that I am going to have an hour of leisure, an hour when I may sink in the depths of my easy-chair and refresh myself with Meredith,—George, not Owen,—there comes a gentle tapping at the door, and I rise to receive a note reminding me that I am part of a group that is to be photographed under the broiling noon sun, and that I am especially requested to wear a pleasanter expression than usual. I belong to so many groups,” concluded Polly sadly, “that my Senior May has been one long noonday glare of sittings before the camera. When there was nothing else happening, some amateur was taking a snap-shot, to add me to her album of Radcliffe views. I cannot tell you how many times I have been caught in unconscious attitudes, crossing the tennis court, or leaning against a tree, or seated on the steps. I always try to look my best at such times, because—”

“You spoke of _unconscious_ attitudes,” commented a listening Junior.

“Hush, child! When you are a Senior you will understand things better,” replied the irrepressible Polly; “and to prevent further criticism, I will give you a specimen of my most unconscious smile,” and the younger girl accepted Polly’s latest photograph—a full length in cap and gown.

“My time for teasing you, Polly, will come to-morrow,” said the Junior, “for you may be my vis-à-vis in a canoe, and if you are not careful I may tip you—just a little way—into the river.”

But Polly refused to be frightened by this mild threat, and when the canoe set out it was Polly who held the paddle. This excursion on the river was the form into which the Juniors offered their hospitality to the departing class, and a merry time they had with a picnic supper spread in a grove on the river bank.

The Sophomores invited the Seniors to a dramatic performance in the open air, after which—for almost the last time as undergraduates—the guests were treated to the familiar fudge and college ice. If the fudge was over-sweet and the ice over-watery, nobody criticised the feast. Indeed, the affair was considered remarkably successful, since the Sophomores were thought to have been extremely clever in having discovered that the Radcliffe grounds were large enough for such festivity. All the audience, to be sure, except the Seniors, had sat pretty closely together on rugs and shawls spread on the grass. But the Seniors in their camp chairs were not crowded; and though the setting of the mimic stage was rather Shakespearian in its simplicity, it sufficed for the little play. For the whole action was supposed to take place on the links where two golfers engaged in some sentimental sparring, and a caddie and a country maid furnished the burlesque element.

Of all the events of that last month none was more enjoyable than the reception given by the Athletic Association to the Senior basket ball team, as a special acknowledgment of its prowess in gaining the championship. For Clarissa and her nine had not only vanquished the younger classes, but had won certain victories over outside colleges that had almost turned the heads of the athletically inclined. Indeed, some of those girls who seldom set foot in the Gymnasium except when obliged to exercise went to this reception to honor the team. For it was the proud boast of the athletes that no girl on the team would have a degree graded lower than _cum laude_, and thus the outside world would see that mental and physical exercise could go on at the same time. As for Clarissa—well, every one knew that she showed marked ability in everything that she undertook, and no one, not even Annabel, grudged her her honors. To her undoubtedly belonged the chief credit for the glory that came to the class in bearing away the banner of championship. This was more than a compensation for their losses in the tennis tournament.

“Few classes,” said Polly proudly, “will go out in a greater blaze of glory. With Clarissa getting us the championship, and Pamela winning that two hundred and fifty dollar thesis prize, all eyes will be turned upon us.”

“They always are turned on the graduating class,” responded Julia, to whom she spoke. “But it’s delightful, is it not, that these special honors have come through girls to whom some of us were not inclined to pay much attention in our Freshman year.”

“‘Some of us’ is good,” rejoined Polly, “when we remember that you always had unlimited confidence in the two heroines.”

“I always liked them,” said Julia quietly, “as I saw that others must when they knew them better.”

To picture the scene in the Gymnasium demands the painter’s brush rather than the pen, for it was no formal reception such as any group of girls could give in any house. Far from it! Though the day was fairly warm, the star athletes did their best for the entertainment of their guests. They performed feats that made the blood of some of the uninitiated run cold. They went up and down ladders, and climbed ropes, and swung on rings, and leaped over bars, and showed enormous agility, if they undertook no difficult tests of strength.

Those girls who were not in the R. A. A. stood about in their light muslin gowns, and clapped and cheered a steady approval; and the others in their picturesque gymnasium suits clapped and cheered even more loudly. They did not shriek, not they, when Clarissa at the apex of a pyramidal arrangement of ladders seemed about to fall. They knew that she was safe, and Clarissa was soon ready for her triumphant descent.

But some of the girls in light gowns _did_ exclaim at the critical moment in tones loud enough to have frightened a timid gymnast, and some thought it a pity that Clarissa should have to work so hard when she was really the guest of honor, and some thought that she was making a needless display of her prowess. Yet as Clarissa poised herself at the top of the ladder before starting down, a mighty cheer went up from the whole throng, and Clarissa, with beaming eyes and flushed cheeks, waved them her appreciation of their appreciation before beginning the descent.

After the banner had been duly presented, after the team had made its acknowledgment, after every one who could make a speech had said the proper thing, the R. A. A. returned to everyday costume, and the three or four hundred girls wandered about the grounds until summoned to college ice in the Auditorium.

For Julia the spring had an added charm from the fact that Philip took so much interest in everything. Though working for his degree, he was constantly planning little parties of eight or a dozen to see this or that baseball game or the spring athletic meets. Whoever the others might be, Julia was always of the party.

“I have not known so much of Harvard doings in all my four years,” she said one day as they set out for a Princeton game, “and I feel foolishly frivolous in my old age.” There was no sign of old age in the bright-eyed girl who waved the Harvard flag, even up to the moment of Princeton’s victory. The general excitement, and the fact that it was a Princeton game, reminded Julia of that other Princeton game more than five years before when Harvard was victorious at football, and when Philip had shown himself just a little bored by having to escort a “parcel of girls.”

Thus with some pleasant diversions lightening the unescapable hard work of the examination period, the spring passed away, and the Monday before Class Day found the whole class ready to enjoy the happenings of the week. To Julia early that Monday morning came a note from Philip saying that his degree was assured, and that he had nothing to trouble him now except the fear that she might not get hers. Julia smiled as she read the friendly little note, and thought how greatly Philip had changed from the Philip of old.

The first event of the day was a luncheon given by the former Secretary of the Annex and Regent of Radcliffe and his wife, at their Cambridge house. To them more than to any others was due the credit of planning the collegiate work for women that had finally resulted in establishing Radcliffe College. The Secretary was always ready to answer the many questions asked by the eager girls about the small beginnings of the college, and to the more thoughtful it was a wonderfully interesting story.

After the luncheon Annabel was called upon for a speech, and she was followed by half a dozen others, each of whom were ready-witted in responding to the impromptu toasts.

From the luncheon they went on to a reception at Craigie House. The poet’s daughter had also been one of the founders of the college, and the girls or classes honored with an invitation to Craigie House were always envied by the others.

Clarissa and Pamela, on this afternoon of the class reception, in a spirit of veneration, went almost on tiptoe into the study, now looking just as Longfellow left it almost twenty years ago. There near a window overlooking the Charles they saw the high writing desk at which he wrote standing, with some of his quill pens lying on it. They noted the great orange tree in the other window that had grown from a seed planted by Longfellow. The portraits of Hawthorne and Emerson, and the little water-color sketch of the village blacksmith’s shop, all came in for their share of attention. But perhaps most interesting of all was the portrait of the poet himself, in his fur-trimmed coat, painted by his son, on an easel near the fireplace. The class wandered from the quaintly furnished room known as Martha Washington’s parlor to the large drawing-room back of the study, with its many art treasures gathered in Europe. They strolled over the broad lawn, and each girl felt that this reception at the Longfellow House was something that no other event of Commencement week could surpass.

Their own Class Day was the Wednesday before that of Harvard, and in the intervening day or two the class had little time to spare. The invitations had been out since the end of May, and all the preparations had been carefully made.

The literary exercises took place in the forenoon, with only the class as audience. “Thankful enough we ought to be,” said Ruth, “that cut and dried speeches in a hall have not yet been adopted by Radcliffe. It would be so hard to have to explain our jokes even to our sympathetic friends and relatives, and there would always be some present who would think undignified any alleged witticisms that we might offer.”

Sure, therefore, of a friendly audience, Annabel gave the Class History, and Polly the Class Prophecy. Ruth had written the words of a Class Song for which Julia had composed the music. There was a Class Poem by Estelle Ambler, a girl whose verses had lately appeared in several of the magazines, and it was rumored that Clarissa was to make an original contribution to the programme which no one was to know about until the last moment.

Annabel’s History was even cleverer than her classmates had expected. She reviewed brightly the various events of the undergraduate years, scholastic and athletic, with the usual gentle gibes at History I and English 22, and the trials offered by Junior forensics and daily themes; and she made all laugh by the originality of her class statistics.

“We are 1,378 years old,” she read from her manuscript, “2,942 feet high, and we weigh a little less than four tons. During our four college years we have studied 26,134,720 minutes, and at Mrs. Agassiz’ Wednesday afternoons we have drunk in all about 7,000 cups of tea. During our four years we have used about 260 pints or 32.5 gallons of ink, and 5,636,250 pages of theme paper, which would cover about 5,000,000 square inches. The actual time spent in writing examinations has been just 96 days, of 24 hours each. For this work 5,240 blue-books have been necessary, and 320 quarts of Mrs. Hogan’s beef tea. In listening to lectures we have spent 30,000 hours, or 1,800,000 minutes. The Secretary knows that we have been eager searchers for knowledge, for at the lowest estimate we have asked her 2,470 questions, to which she has returned 2,470 patient and obliging answers. Now that we are about to depart to the four corners of the earth, we shall never forget old Radcliffe, nor the blue-books, even though we forget what filled them. We shall always remember the honored President and the Dean and the Secretary, and all who have smoothed our path here for us, and we shall never forget that we shall always belong to the Class of 189— of Radcliffe College.”