Happy House

Excerpt

THE LETTER

Through the stillness of a drowsy June day broke the intoning of the library bell, chiming the hour.

Three heads lifted quickly to listen. Three pairs of eyes met, the same thought flashed through three minds.

"Won't we miss that bell, though? I've seen grads when they've come back stand perfectly still and listen to it with their eyes all weepy looking. That's the way we'll feel by and by," one of them said slowly.

"And the chimes used to make me dreadfully homesick! Don't those frosh days seem ages ago?"

The third girl slammed the lid of the trunk that occupied the centre of the disordered room. She crossed to the window.

Over the stretch of green between the dormitory and the campus many people were slowly walking. Their fluffy dresses, their gay parasols, the aimlessness of their wandering steps marked them as visitors. The girl in the window frowned as she watched them.

"I always hate it when the campus fills up with gawking, staring people! It ought to be kept—sacred—just for us!"

One of the three laughed merrily in answer.

"How selfish that sounds, Claire! Haven't all those people come to see one of us graduate? This is their day—ours is past." She stopped short. "Did you see Thelma King's sister at the class-day exercises? She's a peach! She's going to enter next fall. She's a leader in everything at the High where she goes. She'll make a good college girl; you could see the right spirit in her face. How I envy her! It's dreadful when you think of new ones—coming—taking our places! I wish I was just beginning my Freshman year—I'd even be willing to endure Freshman math."

The third of the group who had been sitting on, the floor staring out over the tree tops with the dreamy gravity of one who—as long ago as yesterday—graduated from the great University, suddenly interrupted.

"Dear girls, cease your whining! What do those pieces of sheepskin reposing somewhere in the mess on yonder bureau stand for? Remember what that man said yesterday—how we mustn't think this Commencement is the end of anything—it's just the beginning. Why, this new world that's been born out of the frightful war is full of work for our trained minds and hands! We mustn't look back for a minute—we must look ahead!" Thrilled by her own words she leveled a reproachful glance upon her two companions.

Claire sighed. "I never could get the inspiration from things that you always seem to, Anne. I guess I'm not built right! I couldn't make myself listen to half that man said. I can't think of anything right now but what a job it's going to be getting everything into that trunk. Mother was heartless not to stay over and do it for me!"

"Never mind, Claire, we'll help you. Of course you and I can't see things in the big, grand way that Anne can because she's found herself and we haven't. But when our work does come we'll do it! It may not be off in Siberia or China or Africa—like Anne's—but, wherever it is, I guess our Alma Mater won't be ashamed of us!" The girl's eyes softened with the passionate tenderness of the new graduate for her University....