AS COMMENCEMENT drew near, and Fairy began planning momentous things for her graduation, a little soberness came into the parsonage life. The girls were certainly growing up. Prudence had been married a long, long time. Fairy was being graduated from college, her school-days were over, and life was just across the threshold—its big black door just slightly ajar waiting for her to press it back and catch a glimpse of what lay beyond, yes, there was a rosy tinge showing faintly through like the light of the early sun shining through the night-fog, but the door was only a little ajar! And Fairy was nearly ready to step through. It disturbed the parsonage family a great deal.
Even the twins were getting along. They were finishing high school, and beginning to prate of college and such things, but the twins were still, well, they were growing up, perhaps, but they kept jubilantly young along in the process, and their enthusiasm for diplomas and ice-cream sodas was so nearly identical that one couldn't feel seriously that the twins were tugging at their leashes.
And Connie was a freshman herself,—rather tall, a little awkward, with a sober earnest face, and with an incongruously humorous droop to the corners of her lips, and in the sparkle of her eyes.
Mr. Starr looked at them and sighed. "I tell you, Grace, it's a thankless job, rearing a family. Connie told me to-day that my collars should have straight edges now instead of turned-back corners. And Lark reminded me that I got my points mixed up in last Sunday's lesson. I'm getting sick of this family business, I'm about ready to—"
And just then, as a clear "Father" came floating down the stairway, he turned his head alertly. "What do you want?"
"Everybody's out," came Carol's plaintive voice. "Will you come and button me up? I can't ask auntie to run clear up here, and I can't come down because I'm in my stocking feet. My new slippers pinch so I don't put them on until I have to. Oh, thanks, father, you're a dear."
After the excitement of the commencement, the commotion, the glamour, the gaiety, ordinary parsonage life seemed smooth and pleasant, and for ten days there was not a ruffle on the surface of their domestic waters. It was on the tenth day that the twins, strolling down Main Street, conversing earnestly together as was their custom, were accosted by a nicely-rounded, pompous man with a cordial, "Hello, twins."
In an instant they were bright with smiles, for this was Mr. Raider, editor and owner of the Daily News, the biggest and most popular of Mount Mark's three daily papers. Looking forward, as they did, to a literary career for Lark, they never failed to show a touching and unnatural deference to any one connected, even ever so remotely, with that profession. Indeed, Carol, with the charm of her smile, had bewitched the small carriers to the last lad, and in reply to her sister's teasing, only answered stoutly, "That's all right,—you don't know what they may turn into one of these days. We've got to look ahead to Lark's Literary Career."
So when humble carriers, and some of them black at that, received such sweet attention, one can well imagine what the nicely rounded, pompous editor himself called forth.
They did not resent his nicely-rounded and therefore pointless jokes. They smiled at them. They did not call the Daily News the "Raider Family Organ," as they yearned to do. They did not admit that they urged their father to put Mr. Raider on all church committees to insure publicity. They swallowed hard, and told themselves that, after all, Mr. Raider was an editor, and perhaps he couldn't help editing his own family to the exclusion of the rest of Mount Mark.