Chapter 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.”

A Class Poem can never be very original, but Estelle Ambler offered one that was extremely smooth and pleasing, and to the point. Polly followed it with a Prophecy, in which she imagined all kinds of things likely to happen to the rest of the class. “Prophecies contrary to fact,” many of them might have been called, for Polly foretold the early marriage of several of those girls who were the least devoted to society and the most devoted to study, while for Annabel and Ruth and Clarissa she prophesied many long years of toil as teachers or professors in school or college. Business careers were foretold for the unpractical, and those girls gifted with a sense of humor had a chance, in Polly’s gentle satire, to see themselves as others had seen them; and they all smiled at her concluding words, which she said embodied the sentiments of most of those inclined to give advice to college girls that the main advantage of a college education for a woman is that it fits her, or ought to fit her, “to take up the duties and responsibilities of a household, that by bringing her accurately trained mind to bear upon the practical details of life, and exercising the acquired acumen of her mind, she can make homes happier than they ever were before, and—” The final words were lost in the applause that greeted this familiar commonplace; and Polly, acknowledging a wreath of roses laid at her feet, bowed gracefully as she descended from the Auditorium stage.

There was a hum of expectation as Clarissa followed Polly on the stage, carrying a large, stiff-looking roll. Unfolding it, she announced that she had been made Class Attorney, and that to her had been intrusted the making of the Class Will, which she would now read.

The things that she bequeathed were chiefly the common property of the class, such as “the superior smile when some underclass girl asks a question that cannot be answered;” to the incoming Freshman class the “privilege of profiting by the advice which their Senior advisers will give upon every occasion;” and last, though not least, in the minds of some, “the privilege of collecting on the slightest provocation sums of money, great or small, in exchange for tickets to entertainments, or without such consideration, to support divers good causes in Boston and Cambridge, especially those connected with settlement and college work; and the less ready money any girl is supposed to have, the more urgent shall be the appeals.”

To the Sophomores among other things were given the right of assuming “the nonchalant title of Junior,” and “the faculty and right of saying to Seniors who are loath to depart this college life, ‘Oh, well, we have a whole year more,’ in a way that makes a year sound an eternity.”

The Senior rights in various college officials and in certain college properties were likewise bequeathed, and the mock solemnity of the whole thing brought the programme to a close with a chorus of laughter. Then after the class had sung Julia’s Class Song, there was an informal half-hour of choruses and solos, and then a great hurrying homeward, that each girl might have an hour of rest before the grand climax of the day.

For some of the class, however, there could be no rest, as many, besides those on the committees, were anxious to do their part in helping. But beautiful though the decorations of Fay House were, they paled into insignificance before the outdoor glories, for clever brains and skilful hands had made the most of the opportunities afforded by the limited area of the grounds. There were lines of lanterns between the trees, and a wonderful pagoda that seemed to be constructed of lanterns; there were tables on the lawns, laden with refreshments, and each Senior shook hands with dozens of persons and answered scores of questions, and had little opportunity to talk with the person she most wished to talk with, and walked ten miles more or less showing each of her special guests the points of interest in and around the college buildings. Each Senior, too, looked her very best in her simple white gown, and the crowds of Harvard students who were in attendance testified that socially at least Radcliffe was in no way unpopular with the older college. So weary were the Seniors as the evening advanced that they had little strength left to dance in the new Gymnasium. But the undergraduates and their other guests made up for their own lack in this respect.

Pamela had invited Miss Batson and all the young ladies who boarded with her, and probably no guests enjoyed the day more than they. Besides her own family and some of her younger Newton friends, Lois invited Miss Ambrose, and those who were in the secret of Miss Ambrose’s aspirations could see that through her interest in Lois her own youth had been renewed. There was a rumor that she and Lois were to go to Europe that summer, and whether that was true or not, any one seeing them together could perceive that the feeling between them was stronger than that of mere friendliness. Clarissa’s father and mother had come on from Kansas, and several of her friends and relatives from the West. Annabel’s father, a New York politician, was so pleased that his daughter had retained the Presidency of the class that he was anxious to do all kinds of pleasant things for her constituents, and had finally arranged a mammoth pop concert party for Saturday evening. Julia, like the other Boston girls, had many guests, but the Bostonians were better able to entertain themselves than those who came from a distance.

Julia, for example, felt little responsibility for her uncle and aunt. They had many friends on the grounds, as had Nora and Edith and the rest of their party. She caught glimpses of Brenda constantly flitting about in her firefly fashion, with Arthur Weston in attendance. It was an open secret that Brenda’s engagement to Arthur was to come out before Commencement, and those who knew them the best had already offered the young people their congratulations. Many of the class, too, knew that Ruth and Will Hardon were also on the verge of having their engagement announced, and an observer might have thought that there was something more than good comradeship in the devotion with which Philip followed Julia from place to place. Julia had used not only the invitations to which she was entitled as a member of the class, but she had been able to secure many in addition from girls who did not need all their own allotment. She was able, therefore, to invite not only her former classmates at Miss Crawdon’s, but the teachers, too. Miss South was there in the light mourning that she wore for Madame Dulaunay. Those who knew her were wondering what she would do with the great house that her grandmother had left her, which it would be hard to keep up on a comparatively small income.

Of all those whom Julia had known best at Miss Crawdon’s school, Belle alone was missing. By this it need not be understood that any one really missed her, for Belle, since she had been sent to New York to boarding-school, had really dropped out of the little set in which she had once been a leading member. In vacations some of her new friends visited her or she visited them, and she laughed at the ways of her Boston contemporaries as “far behind the time.” She and Brenda always kept up a correspondence, and her letters, though wholly about herself, were always entertaining. She had already left Boston to stay with friends at Mount Desert.

“But why Radcliffe College?” asked one of Polly’s guests, her cousin from New York.

“Yes, where did you get that name?” asked another cousin, walking with her.

“Why, from Lady Anne Moulson, of course,” responded Polly, not at all unwilling to tell the story. “From Lady Anne Moulson, who was once Anne Radcliffe, and who founded the first scholarship at Harvard. The fact was unearthed just as the poor little nameless Annex was ready to appear out as a regular institution, and so she was christened Radcliffe College. Some did not care for the name, and would have preferred Longfellow College or something else local, but on the whole it seemed the best that could have been chosen.”

“I trust that Lady Moulson deserved the posthumous fame that has come to her, for certainly your college will give her name undying glory,” said one of the cousins gallantly in true Southern fashion, though he modified his praise slightly lest Polly should think that he wholly approved of a college education for girls.

To show herself impartial, Julia carried Tom Hearst’s flowers as well as Philip’s on Class Day. But it was Philip with whom she walked about the grounds after her duties as hostess were over, and Philip with whom she promised to go to Memorial Hall on the evening of Harvard Class Day, and Philip who was to be her escort at the Yale game the succeeding Saturday. Yet though they had many little conversations, and although what they said was largely personal, it must be admitted that there was not a word of sentiment in it all,—of sentiment, at least, as it is understood in its more romantic sense. They did talk, however, a great deal about their plans for the immediate future. Philip had decided to regard his father’s wishes, by taking his two years in the Law School, hoping that his previous reading and some special effort would take him through in less than three years. Julia confided to him certain ideas that she and Miss South hoped to carry out in the form of a training school for girls of the Angelina type. Philip’s face clouded when she told him that she should sail for Europe in July, with her uncle and aunt and Brenda and Miss South.

“But you’ll be back in the autumn?” urged Philip.

“Oh, possibly.”

“But I’m depending on you for advice and that kind of thing.”

“Edith is a better adviser than I.”

“Ah, but Edith isn’t a college graduate.”

“Nor am I yet,” and Julia would give Philip no further satisfaction. Instead she wandered off, with a hasty good-bye to Philip, explaining only that as one of the hostesses of the day, she must look after her other guests.

Philip, following her, soon found himself in a group of which the central figure was Pamela. The two had not met since the spring following the sugar episode, and altogether had seen each other but two or three times. Yet now the recognition was mutual, and both had instantly the same thought, that each had greatly improved during the intervening three years. He lingered to talk to Pamela, and he had no chance to talk to Julia until later in the evening.

Although Philip felt dissatisfied, Julia had really given him more time than most Seniors had given to any one person on that busy, busy Class Day. Yet he kept his eye on her, and whenever he could induce her to leave her other guests, he would get her to walk with him over the building or through the grounds, on the pretext that there were many things that he wished to have explained about Radcliffe ways. Together Julia and Philip watched the gay throng of dancers in the Auditorium, and in an interval when the latter laughed at the crowded condition of the floor, Julia repeated the rumor that the next Senior class would dance in the great Gymnasium, as those in authority had already given their consent to this plan.

“That will be the proper thing, because—”

“Hush!” cried Julia, “the Glee Club is going to sing;” and as she spoke, to the air of “Fair Harvard” floated the words:

“Now a song for our Radcliffe, so young and so fair,
With the light of the dawn in her eyes,
With the garlands of May in her beautiful hair,
Blest child of the true and the wise.”

As the song finished, Mrs. Barlow approached Julia, to remind her that the hour was late, and that the two carriages were already waiting,—one to take the Barlow party back to Boston, and one to convey Julia and Ruth to Mrs. Colton’s.

As Julia and Ruth drove homeward, the former gave a sigh of relief.

“Aren’t you glad it’s over?” asked Ruth.

“Partly glad and partly sorry,” responded her friend. “It has been tiring, of course, but then so pleasant.”

“Yes, and to-morrow when we are rested, we shall be sorry that Class Day is past.”

“I am sorry now,” returned Julia, “for it marks the beginning of the end.”