“We promised to hang out a sign,” Rachel remembered, and borrowed Helen’s red sweater, which, tied by the sleeves to a sapling down near the fence, pointed unerringly to the presence of picnickers on the hill.
“If you don’t send Mr. James Watson packing the minute the concert is out, you’ll miss the sensation of this commencement,” Madeline warned Betty solemnly when she arrived. There was a smudge of brown paint across her white linen skirt, and Nita declared feelingly that she would never make another pair of wings, no, not for any aftermath parade that ever was. These were the only clues to the extra-special features that they had planned for the evening.
At seven the returning flat-car halted by the fence, and the revelers went singing home to dress for the concert.
“Come to the gym basement for your costume,” Nita whispered to Betty and K. “Find me or Jean. Madeline is as likely as not to forget all about being there.”
When Jim and Betty reached the campus it was gay with lanterns, and girls in evening dress and their escorts were everywhere.
“How about a hammock in a quiet spot?” suggested Jim. “The music is prettiest from a distance, don’t you think?”
Of course, all the hammocks were full long since, but the obliging Georgia Ames and three other footsore junior ushers politely vacated theirs, insisting that they were only resting for a minute, and Jim sat on the ground at Betty’s feet and inquired for her stage-struck friend, the cheery Mrs. Post, and the Morton Hall-ites, and then for Betty’s summer schedule.
“I might be in Cleveland,” Jim announced tentatively. “The firm is working on plans for two houses out there.”
“Then you could come out to the cottage for Sundays,” Betty said cheerily. “Will would love to take you sailing. I hate to go in those bobbing little boats, so I stay on shore.”
“I’m not so very keen about sailing, either,” Jim said.