They made rose water and a concoction from the spice pinks. Then they preserved cherries. Uncle Win took them driving toward night and said some day they would go over to Dorchester. He had several friends there.
The next excitement for Doris was the college commencement. Mr. Adams was disappointed that his son should not stand at the head of almost everything. He had taken one prize and made some excellent examinations, but there were many ranking as high and some higher.
There were no ball games, no college regattas to share honors then. Not that these things were tabooed. There were some splendid rowing matches and games, but then young men had a desire to stand high intellectually.
A long while before Judge Sewall had expressed his disapproval of the excesses at dinners, the wine-drinking and conviviality, and had set Friday for commencement so that there would be less time for frolicking. The war, with its long train of economies, and the greater seriousness of life in general, had tempered all things, but there was gayety enough now, with dinners given to the prize winners and a very general jollification.
Doris went with Uncle Winthrop. Commencement was one of the great occasions of the year. All the orations were in Latin, and the young men might have been haranguing a Roman army, so vigorous were they. Many of the graduates were very young; boys really studied at that time.
The remainder of the day and the one following were given over to festivities. Booths were everywhere on the ground; colors flying, flowers wreathed in every fashion, and so much merriment that they quite needed Judge Sewall back again to restrain the excesses.
Mr. Adams and Doris went to dine at the Cragie House, and Doris would have felt quite lost among judges and professors but for Miss Cragie, who took her in charge. When they went home in the early evening the shouts and songs and boisterousness seemed like a perfect orgy.
Someone has said, with a kind of dry wit, "Wherever an Englishman goes courts and litigation are sure to prevail." Certainly our New England forefathers, who set out with the highest aims, soon found it necessary to establish law courts. In the early days every man pleaded his own cause, and was especially versed in the "quirks of the law." Jeremy Gridley, a graduate of Harvard, interested himself in forming a law club in the early part of the previous century to pursue the study enough "to keep out of the briars." And to Justice Dana is ascribed the credit of administering to Mr. Secretary Oliver, standing under the Liberty Tree in a great assemblage of angry townspeople, an oath that he would take no measures to enforce the odius Stamp Act of the British Parliament or distribute it among the people.
And now the bar had a rank of its own, and Winthrop Adams had a strong desire to see his son one of the shining lights in the profession. Cary had a fine voice and was a good speaker. More than once he had distinguished himself in an argument at some of the debates. To be admitted to the office of Governor Gore was considered a high honor then, and this Mr. Adams gained for his son. Cary had another vague dream, but parental authority in well-bred families was not to be disputed at that period, and Cary acquiesced in his father's decision, since he knew his own must bring about much discussion and probably a refusal.
Mrs. King came to visit her mother this summer. She left all her children at home, as she wanted to visit round, and was afraid they might be an annoyance to Aunt Priscilla. Little Ruth had gone home very much improved, her eyes quite restored.