Brenda's Cousin at Radcliffe: a Story for Girls
Copyright© 2024 by Helen Leah Reed
Chapter 12: Harvard Class Day
Had Jane Townall stayed in Cambridge until Commencement, Julia might have had more interest in the Radcliffe Class Day. But illness in her family had called Jane home as soon as her examinations ended.
“I am sorry not to get my degree from the hands of the President at Commencement, but I’m glad to escape the flurry of Class Day. I really could not afford the expense. I’m coming back, though, for my Ph.D. sometime. I’ll take that in person.”
“There’ll be no Radcliffe Ph.D. next year, nor yet the year after,” said Polly, shaking her head.
“Oh, it will be years before I return,” responded Jane cheerfully. “I must save the money first. By that time women will be receiving the Ph.D. from Harvard itself.”
“Doubt it!” cried Polly.
“Well, I’d come back cheerfully for the two years of graduate study, even without the Ph.D. at the end.”
“I’m not with you there,” interposed Clarissa, who had joined the group. “When I’ve earned a Ph.D. I’ll try to get it.”
“Then you wouldn’t have been a contented Annex graduate, with a certificate instead of a degree, stating that you had received an education the equivalent of that for which the degree of A.B. is given at Harvard College.”
“Poor things!” replied Clarissa. “No, I couldn’t have borne all that they bore. I’m not that kind of a pioneer.”
Jane had secured a fine position in an Indiana High School for the coming year, and her regrets at leaving Cambridge were mingled with pleasure at the prospect opening before her of having a fair income.
Julia and Ruth returned to Cambridge the day before Harvard Class Day. As evening came they worried about a few overhanging clouds, yet when Friday came, the girls, looking through the trees shading their window, saw that it was a regular Class Day sky, blue, cloudless, while the air coming in over the casement was warm and sultry.
“Julia,” cried Ruth at breakfast, “how can you be so calm? I feel as if I might be Brenda, I am so excited. I’ve always longed for a real Harvard Class Day. I was only a little girl when my cousin Augustus was a Senior, and I remember how I stood about and watched his sisters dressing for his spread. Even a year in Cambridge hasn’t destroyed the glamour surrounding the day. Yesterday, when I saw that the seats had been put up around the Tree, I felt that the curtain was about to be lifted from the show. You are too calm, Julia, you really are, and you have such a lovely dress!”
“It is no lovelier than yours, Ruth. Come to my room when you are dressed; I am very anxious to see it on you.”
The girls were now on their way upstairs, and when a half-hour later Ruth entered Julia’s room, each girl gave an exclamation of delight. A third person might have found it hard to tell which dress was the more beautiful, Julia’s white organdy, with its rows and rows of tiny lace-edged ruffles, or Ruth’s yellow muslin worn over a pale yellow slip. Ruth was a brunette with Irish blue eyes, and her yellow gown and leghorn hat with yellow crush roses was very becoming. Julia’s white hat had a pink lining, and was very becoming to her rather colorless type. “You look like a white rose just touched with pink,” exclaimed Ruth, in a rather unwonted vein of poetry.
The two girls walked in a leisurely fashion to Fay House, where, according to the arrangements made by Mrs. Barlow, Toby Gostar, Nora’s younger brother, met them to escort them to Memorial Hall. Here in the Chapel Brenda and Nora and Mrs. Barlow were waiting.
“We were so afraid that you would be late,” cried Brenda as they approached. “You know that our tickets won’t be good for anything after half-past ten. The doors are opened to the public then.”
“As it is now only quarter-past ten, Brenda, your anxiety was rather misplaced, but as we are now all here we can hasten to our seats.”
Mrs. Barlow, gathering up her voluminous skirts, marshalled her quartette to the narrow wicket gate through which so many, many thousands of persons have entered Sanders Theatre, and up the broad stairs into the great amphitheatre. Toby stayed behind to take his chances with the ticketless throng, crowding around the outer door.
“It’s like a garden,” said Ruth, gazing about on the rows of seats rising tier above tier, filled for the most part with young women and girls, whose light gowns and flower-trimmed hats gave the place the aspect of a flower garden.
There were mothers there, of course, or an occasional father; but on the whole the great interior was given up to girls, who fanned themselves and listened to the orchestra, and wondered if it wasn’t almost time for the Class to appear. Very promptly at eleven o’clock the Class did appear, fresh from the service in Appleton Chapel and the breakfast at the President’s. The Marshals led the way, one of whom was Philip’s friend, Tom Hearst; and as the rest of the Seniors in cap and gown followed closely and took their places in the seats on the floor, every girl in the theatre tried to identify her own brother or cousin or friend.
“It does seem too bad about Philip,” and Nora leaned over toward Julia; “besides, if he hadn’t failed so, Edith would have been here. Just think of her near England at this very minute, when she ought to have been here.”
“I dare say that she is more comfortable at this very minute than we are. Only imagine how refreshing an ocean breeze would be blowing over our heads.”
“Oh, Julia, how terribly matter of fact you are!”
Julia’s feelings, however, were deeper than her jesting words implied. In the group below, as she recognized one after another of Philip’s friends, she realized how much he was losing. There is only one Class Day for each undergraduate; and although he may make up scholastic deficiencies, and get his degree with some other class, if he loses his Class Day, something has gone that can never be made up to him.
So although Julia listened to the Oration with its review of the Class history and its promises for the future, although she gazed with admiration at the fluent Poet whose lofty lines were delivered in a rather feeble voice, although she laughed at the witticisms and local hits of the Ivy Oration (without always seeing the force of the joke), her thoughts sometimes were wandering far away. Indeed, it is to be feared that the last part of the Oration was lost upon her, for when the Class rose in a body to sing the Class Ode to the air of “Fair Harvard,” she was surprised to find that the first part of the Class Day programme was ended. Of course, like many others, Nora and Brenda and Julia and Ruth lingered to scan the scattering throng for familiar faces. Naturally, too, Tom and Will and other Seniors whom they knew came up to shake hands with them, and receive their congratulations on having reached this point in their career; and naturally, too, these same young men escorted Mrs. Barlow and her charges first to the “Pudding” spread (where nothing resembling pudding was to be had, except, perhaps, the ice called frozen pudding), and then from the “Pudding” to one or two private spreads, and then—why, then before they knew it it was four o’clock, and every one was wondering if it wasn’t almost time to go to the Tree. Where had the day gone?
“Ah, here you are!” exclaimed a cheerful voice, as Nora and Julia stood on the lawn of Wadsworth House, a little tired, a little the worse for wear, holding their empty plates, and wondering how they had managed to lose sight of Mrs. Barlow and Brenda and Ruth.
“Oh, papa!” cried Nora, for the cheerful voice belonged to Dr. Gostar. “Oh, papa, I didn’t know that you were coming out. How delightful! Are you going to the Tree? But there, I suppose that you haven’t a ticket; they’re so very hard to get.”
“Ticket!” and there was genuine merriment in Dr. Gostar’s laugh. “Why, you are forgetting who I am. I’m a graduate, and Class Day belongs partly to the graduates. At least, the Tree part of it does.”
“Oh, then we’ll see you there. What fun!”
“You’ll hear me certainly. Really, I ought to be saving myself now for the cheering. But I met Mrs. Barlow just outside; she had to go with Brenda and Ruth to Matthews for a little while. Elmer Robson was with them; there was something in his room that he was anxious to show Brenda. Mrs. Barlow felt that she could go when I promised to take you under my wing. We are to meet in Stoughton, where Will Hardon has a room looking out on the Tree.”
“But I thought that his rooms were in Holworthy?”
“So they are. But he thought that it would be pleasant for his guests to have a room to rest in before going to the Tree and near it. By the way, we have no time to spare,” looking at his watch. “If you are ready, young ladies, I shall be happy to escort you, although I’m rather surprised that you haven’t some younger cavalier.”
“Well, papa, we have had, but you see the Seniors have all gone off now to dress for the Tree, and even Toby, after he had gone with us to one or two spreads, seemed to grow restless. I suppose he thinks there’d be more fun with some of his classmates. There are a few undergraduates hanging about on the outskirts of things.”
“I hope that he hasn’t neglected you.”
“Oh, no, indeed”—Julia was the speaker—”oh, no indeed, he has been remarkably entertaining. He pointed out all kinds of amusing college personages, and cleared the way for us through several crowds, and saw that our plates were heaped with ices, and altogether has been very helpful.”
“He really has, papa,” added Nora. “You see the Seniors can pay little attention to any single person, they have so many to look after. It’s the greatest fun to see them trying to be equally attentive to half a dozen persons at once when all the time they’re dying to talk to some one person by herself. Even Will Hardon, who seldom is disturbed, was half beside himself. He hadn’t had a chance for a word with Ruth, and wherever he was to-day there were three tall, thin cousins of his from New York who wished to know about everything and to see everything, and who hardly left his side for a moment. I think that Ruth was disappointed, too.”
“Why, Nora!” and Julia shook her head in disapproval. But Dr. Gostar was too much absorbed in the scenes in the Yard to notice this speech of Nora’s.
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