Madeline shook her head. “Only so that I could be in on the right side of the dress reform movement,” she said. “The Farmers’ Almanac predicts sizzling weather for next week, and I foresee that you’ll all be overcome by heat and weariness, whereas I shall sit in peace in the gymnasium basement and other cool and shady nooks and only venture out into the open after sunset.”
The Farmers’ Almanac and Madeline were both right. Never in the history of Harding College had there been a hotter commencement, and it was a weary little group of junior ushers who gathered in the gymnasium gallery on the last day of all, “to watch the animals feed,” as Katherine Kittredge put it, “and by and by to pick up a few crumbs ourselves.”
Everybody but the seniors and the junior ushers had gone home, and all the cooks and waitresses from the campus houses were helping to serve the annual collation to the seniors, faculty and visiting alumnæ. “So it’s wait for crumbs here or starve,” Katherine added sorrowfully.
“I’m sure we’d better have gone down-town,” sighed Babbie Hildreth. “Perhaps we’d better go now.”
“But I can’t afford to,” objected Betty. “I’ve had to borrow fifteen cents to get my trunk to the station to-morrow, as it is.”
“Well, your trunk won’t do you any good if you die of hunger,” retorted Babbie.
“I don’t believe we’re going to do that,” laughed Rachel Morrison. “I saw Mary Brooks talking to Belden-House-Annie, and yes—here she comes this minute.”
“Miss Brooks tole me ye were starvin’ up here,” said the grinning Irish maid, whose gay good-nature had made her a favorite with generations of Harding girls. “You take this ’ere salad and san’wiches, and I’ll be afther findin’ yez some cake an’ cream.”
“Annie, you’re an angel,” said Betty, solemnly. “You’ve saved our lives.”