“You bet your life I can remember my speech!” said Junior boastfully. “When did I ever forget a speech, if I wanted to make one? Never broke down in my life. Why should I now? I’m going to try the old bank a little and if I don’t like it, I’m going to be a lawyer. I think it would be a lot of fun to be a lawyer, and you bet a lawyer doesn’t forget a speech. You needn’t sit and shake and worry, or Father either. Don’t have cold feet and hot sweats.”
The driver of the omnibus halooed and called to Junior to hurry, that he was two minutes late. In order to show his authority and his position in the village, Junior deliberately stepped inside the door. He could not think of a thing on earth to use as an excuse for having done so. His handkerchief was in his pocket, the notes for his speech he had placed himself in order that he might refresh his memory if he felt a bit rattled as his turn came to speak. He had no need to look in the mirror to see that he was as handsome as a boy well could be. His mother hurried after him.
“Junior, what is it?” she cried in a panic.
“Oh, I just thought I’d wet my whistle once more,” said Junior, starting toward the dining room. His mother hurried to bring him a drink of water, and when he was perfectly ready, Junior kissed her, telling her to get his father and hurry up because she should be in her place before the march down the aisle began. Mrs. Moreland, comfortable in the dignity of reserved seats, also took her time. She was to be separated from her lord who sat upon the platform as President of the School Board.
She left Mr. Moreland at the side door opening into the small room where the official board of the church transacted its business. He was the last one of the officials to arrive. His fellow townsmen and neighbours amused Martin Moreland that night. They stood so straight, their faces were so grave, they were gasping in the heat, they felt over their hair and held their heads at an angle calculated best to allow the perspiration to run down their necks without touching their stiffly starched high collars.
In casting his eyes over the gathering, he noted with satisfaction the absence of his old enemy, Mahlon Spellman. Not that Mahlon knew that he was the enemy of the banker. He did not. He thought that Martin thought that they were friends. There was no intuition which told him that Martin Moreland hated his precision of language, hated his taste in dressing, hated his poise and self-possession, hated to loathing scorn his fidelity to the paths of virtue, cordially hated any appearance in public that he ever had made. It certainly was unfortunate for Mahlon that only the spring preceding Mahala’s graduation his period on the School Board had elapsed and a new man had taken his place.
As Mahlon made his way down the church aisle with Elizabeth on his arm, he was probably the only man in the room who was not perspiring. A sort of clammy indifference seemed to have settled upon him. It was purely from force of habit that he ran his fingers over his hair, felt of his tie, and went through the old familiar gestures of flecking his sleeve and straightening his vest as he stepped into the light of the chandeliers and marched to the strains of the organ down to their reservations.
The unconscious Elizabeth was in the height of her glory. She had waited for this, she had prayed for this; only God knew how she had worked for it. She had just accomplished the delivery of her offspring at the side door of the church without a fleck of dust having touched her shoes of white satin, without a fold or crease disfiguring the billowing skirts of her frock. She had done her share perfectly. Never a fear crossed her mind that Mahala would fail. When had Mahala ever failed? Why should she?
As Mahala stood a second to shake out her skirts after stepping down, her mother had deliberately gone to the door and looked in upon the assembled graduates. She had eyes for only one figure. She wanted to see Edith Williams. Standing in the centre of the room, Edith had given her a distinct shock.
All day the girl had been nervous, frantically trying to remember her speech. In the humid heat of the evening she had gotten herself into a closely fitting dress of heavy white velvet. It was a dress that a queen might have worn upon a state occasion. Pearl-white like the shell of an oyster, very plain both as to waist and skirt—a dress that trusted to the richness of its material to make up for any lack of the elaborate trimmings of the day. As Edith had stood before her mirror giving the finishing touches to her toilet she had seen above the tightly embracing waist her face flushed with the strain of fear that she might forget her speech, her figure tense with the nerve strain of her unaccustomed public appearance. That minute she was wildly envying even Susanna who could have been called upon and recited any one of a hundred poems from the readers that had been used in the school course or supplementary works on elocution. The doubt and uncertainty in her mind had given to the girl a flashing vividness she never before had possessed.