“You should see the darling’s pride in her new, white linen uniforms. All her old blue gingham, ‘probationer’ ones she is leaving for any other girl who wants to be a nurse and hasn’t money for her clothes. You’d think it was bridal finery to see Sophy handle those garments: see her fondle the spotless aprons and dainty caps; and hear her murmur: ‘At last, at last! I am authorized and free to do for others what has been done for me!’ She looks so pretty, so earnest, so noble, that I’m sure some of our ‘boys’ will want to break a bone or two just to have her attend them.
“I’ve paid my last visit, too, to Granny Briggs in her apartment. She is as happy as Sophy and as proud, but far more weighed down with the cares of life. ‘What will I do with this here painted plate, what Miss Montaigne first et Indian puddin’ off?’ ‘Them granite pots ’t Ephraim Marsh bought, and don’t need scourin’ all the time, I certain can’t leave them behind to be thrown into a rubbish heap!’ Ephraim sits and chuckles and says that he too, ‘at last, is on the road to freedom. Sophia Badger that was has badgered the life out of him ’cause he’s so forgetful and will eat stuff no man of his age ought to, though it’s never hurt him a mite. Fire the whole mess of trash into the garbage box, Sophia, and let the poor ash-man get the benefit of ’em. We don’t need no New York truck on our ranch, Sophia. We’re going home to Sobrante.’
“The dear old fellow is as happy as a child; but, mother darling, there’s a lump in my throat every time I hear him say that sweet word ‘home.’ He is going. He must hold out till he gets there and maybe, oh! maybe, the ‘superfine air of Californy, where folks live to be a hundred and fifteen years old, some of ’em,’ may put that new life into his veins that he anticipates. But there are moments when my eyes fill looking on his blessed, honest, rugged face and I see how worn and thin it is. ‘Sophia Badger’ sees the change in him, as well. She has never said so and I would not ask her if she did. I couldn’t bear to hear my own fear put into words. She merely cossets him and feeds him and scolds him more than ever; yet does it all with that maternal smile that makes my heart ache. The two poor, dear old creatures! Who still talk of their childhood ‘scrapes’ in ‘Cawnco’d’ as if it were but yesterday. Ephraim has sent up-river for Buster and that happy broncho is also ready for his homeward trip.
“Altogether, we shall be, must be a merry, merry party; and I can hardly realize that I have come to a time when I am writing my very last letter to you. Before another one could reach you we shall be together, face to face.
“Till then, and hoping you are duly prepared for the girl you haven’t seen in five long years—just because you thought it wiser and better for me that I should mature outside the family garden—I bring this long one to a close.
“Your daughter,
“Jessica.”
Commencements are much alike. This one that witnessed Jessica Trent’s graduation, might have been any other of her whole school course, so far as outward appearances went. There were the same artistic decorations, the same superabundance of flowers, the same well-spread tables. There was almost the same old crowd of eager spectators so like were these to the gatherings gone before.
But there was always, as there always will be, a great difference to the maidens most concerned.
To Jessica’s vast astonishment, she had been chosen valedictorian of her class; and with a fine ambition that here, at least, she might make her mother proud, she had worked night and day on her essay and had brought it to what even Madame pronounced a fine and graceful climax. Jessie had a gift of speech and she had a gift of pen; but— Let us not forecast!
Almost the same Faculty occupied the platform. Almost the same teachers sat beside the stately Madame; and almost the same group of white-clad maidens waited with fluttering hearts for their bit of sheepskin which the President would soon present them.