“You’ve got to graduate with us!” they exclaimed. “We’ve been together through the years, and we can’t afford to have the line broken now!”
One half hour later, supported by them, I was placed in the carriage and carried triumphantly to my room in the dormitory, where I was to remain quiet and patient until evening, when I should go down to the brick church for my diploma!
From the lofty height of my dormitory window I could look down on the house-tops of the city and see the hazy hills far, far against the distant sky-lines. I could also look down between the veil of elm leaves and see the processions of visitors and the hurrying forms of my classmates, as they passed over the tar walk, under the shady arch of the trees towards the gymnasium, where a banquet was to be served in honor of my class.
There was a clatter outside my door, and the classmate who had been chosen to deliver the speech for us in the gymnasium appeared in my doorway with a hearty,
“How do I look, Priddy?”
No groom ever did better with a frock coat, a white, flowered vest, a brilliant tie, and neatly combed hair, and I told him so. He then left me for the momentous occasion in which he was to figure after dinner, when he would stand up at the head of all the tables, strike his pose, and in his best manner—with an incidental throwing back of his frock coat to display his grand white vest—give the felicitations, the thanks, the hopes, and ideals of our class.
So I sat apart from the revelry of the day, with a beating, thankful heart, waiting for the arrival of evening. After supper a student came into the room, fitted me into the best collar that I had, fastened the groomish, white silk tie skilfully about it, put the golden links into my new cuffs, and then helped me insert myself into my new frock coat!
“There,” he cried, stroking the front of my coat and then standing back for the effect, “I think you are ready to be escorted down to the church by the missionary; she will meet you in the reception room. Good luck to you, Priddy!”
I was so faint that I walked through the great congregation of visitors and friends as through a blur. I took my seat in the front of the church with my classmates and saw only the array of palms and flowers on the communion table. I needed to marshal every ounce of nerve and strength in order to get through the service without accident. A terrible fear rushed into my heart, as my head kept whirling like a top and leaving me exhausted, a fear that I should tumble from my seat and spoil the exercises.
One after another of my classmates crowded past me, ascended to the pulpit, and delivered his speech. Next my name on the program, and the subject of the speech on which I never wrote, was a star, followed by the note: “Excused on account of illness.”