Commencement in the Stadium
The first thing Mary Jane did when she wakened the next morning was to run and look out of the window. All their plans for the day depended upon the weather. Year after year the Harvard commencement had been held in Sanders Theatre, one of the rooms in Memorial Hall, and as the graduating class was always so large and the theatre so small in comparison, it was impossible for each student to have more than one ticket—and of course that meant that Mary Jane was not to go. But this year, partly through the influence of her own Uncle Hal, it had been decided to hold the exercises in the Stadium—if the weather permitted. And that meant that Mary Jane could go; in fact, she had the ticket all ready, the ticket marked so plainly “not good in case of rain.”
A glance at the sky showed her she was not to be disappointed. It was clear and blue and the few dainty white clouds scattered about looked as unlike rain clouds as could be. It was a perfect June day.
“Goody!” she exclaimed, as she ran back to take a peep at the precious ticket. Not many little girls of six ever went to a Harvard commencement, and Mary Jane guessed that she was very fortunate.
Mrs. Merrill suggested that as both girls had had a good night’s sleep, they dress and take a bit of a walk before breakfast, stopping on the way for Mary Jane’s shoes which were to be ready. So Mary Jane slipped on a dark gingham dress after her bath, and they started out. There was only time for a short walk as they were tempted into the library and lingered to enjoy the pictures. Mary Jane knew the story of the Holy Grail, as every girl should, and she and Alice both enjoyed looking at the lovely paintings.
“Let’s come again!” exclaimed Alice as her mother reminded them that they simply must not stay any longer now, as Uncle Hal would be waiting.
“Oh, I just love it here!” whispered Mary Jane as they walked down the broad marble staircase. “Doesn’t it make you feel like a princess in your own castle? I can just see my subjects walking behind holding up my train and thinking how grand and lovely I look.”
“Seems to me a good many things make you feel ‘like a princess,’” said Mrs. Merrill smilingly, “the swan boats and now the marble stairs of the library.”
“Well, I guess Boston must be a princess-y sort of a place,” replied Mary Jane, “’cause I never felt that way in Chicago. I like Boston. I like Chicago too,” she added loyally, “but Boston is more princess-y feeling.”
They crossed the Square and hurried up to their room to dress. The girls were to wear the dainty little organdies they had worn on Class Day. Mrs. Merrill had had them pressed and when the girls stepped into the room there they were on the beds—as fresh and crisp as new. And now that the new shoes were fixed with a soft pad of leather at the heel to keep them from slipping up and down and making a blister, there was nothing likely to mar the day.
It didn’t take long to dress as everything was laid out ready, and soon the three Merrills were in the subway, dashing out to meet Uncle Hal at Harvard Square. There wasn’t much time for visiting; and anyway, Mary Jane didn’t feel much like visiting just “common-like” with a queer-looking uncle who wore a long black dress and had a funny pointed cap on his head. Her mother explained that it was a “gown” not a dress, and that all the students who graduated that day and all the men of the university wore them. Mary Jane had, of course, seen a good many of them on Class Day but she couldn’t get used to her own Uncle Hal having such a funny gown.
They all went over toward the Stadium together, and as they stepped upon the bridge across the Charles River, Uncle Hal picked her up and set her on his shoulder while Mrs. Merrill took a picture of them.
“There now,” said Hal as he set her down again, “if anybody ever doubts that you came to my commencement they can just look at that! There’s the Charles River in it and the Stadium in the background and you and I in front—if we didn’t break the camera.”
In the row in front of them, in the Stadium, sat Hal’s friends, Mr. and Mrs. Humphrey. Alice and Mary Jane had never met them before, though Mrs. Merrill had known them some time.
“I’m so sorry you’ve been here all these days and we’ve been away,” exclaimed Mrs. Humphrey, as the Merrills were seated. “We just got in this morning. I’m wondering if you and these nice girls wouldn’t like to go for a drive this afternoon? Have you been down on the south shore? Toward Nantasket?”
“We haven’t done a thing but Harvard!” laughed Mrs. Merrill, “because Hal wanted us to go to all the exercises and parties. We’ve had a marvelous time, but aside from one short ride, we haven’t tried to see anything of Boston—I thought that would keep till the job of graduating my brother was over,” she added.
“That’s just the way I knew you would feel,” answered Mrs. Humphrey, “because I know how Hal’s been counting all winter on your seeing everything. But now that it’s so soon over you’ll have time for a ride with us. You’re not going to the boat races are you?”
“No,” said Mrs. Merrill, “I thought that would be almost too much of a crowd for the girls, so we’ve planned to go to Plymouth to-morrow while Hal and some friends go to the boat race, and then I want to stop over night with a dear cousin in Marshfield.”
The talk was interrupted just then by the arrival of the first of the long procession of men entering the Stadium. Mary Jane could hardly sit still she was so thrilled by the sight of the long line of marching men—all in black gowns relieved here and there by the capes of scarlet or blue or purple some wore. And the bands playing and the crowds of people all interestedly watching—of course she couldn’t understand it all, but she loved seeing it—it seemed like a scene from an old time pageant.
But by the time the exercises were over Mary Jane was tired enough from sitting on the hard stone seat and from watching and trying to understand. So the idea of lunch at some place in Cambridge without waiting to go back to Boston, sounded very welcome.
“We’ll go where Uncle Hal goes sometimes,” suggested Mrs. Merrill. “I know the very place on the way back to the Square. You may have a sandwich and some ice cream and anything else they have, that you’d like.”
“And is it all over?” asked Mary Jane as she ran along beside her mother, glad of the chance to hurry a bit and limber up the muscles stiffened by long sitting.
“All over, I think, honey,” replied Mrs. Merrill. “All over for us anyway, as we’re not going to the races. And won’t we love that ride this afternoon? Hal will be busy packing up, and we’ll get just that extra bit of fun thrown in.”
Mary Jane found just what she wanted for lunch and was much refreshed, so, leaving a note in Hal’s room in order that he would know their plans, they took the subway back to their hotel to change and make ready for the drive. White organdy dresses were not the most suitable frocks for an all-afternoon motor trip.
Promptly at two o’clock Mrs. Humphrey arrived in a beautiful limousine. Mary Jane, who wasn’t used to a car of her own, had puzzled considerably as to what sort of a car Mrs. Humphrey might have, and had insisted that she wanted to wear a grown-up-lady veil so as not to muss her hair.
“You won’t need a veil, dear,” Mrs. Merrill had said, positively, “little girls don’t need veils when their hair is short, no matter what kind of a car they ride in.”
“But I saw a picture that had a little girl with a veil and a lady with a veil,” said Mary Jane, “and I want to wear the big pink one, I do.”
“Suppose you take it instead of wearing it,” suggested Mrs. Merrill. “Then you’ll have it if you need it, and you won’t be bothered taking it off if you don’t need it.”
So Mary Jane went out to the car carrying a long floating veil of pink chiffon, and from her grand manner it was plain to see that again she felt “just like a princess.”
Mrs. Merrill sat with Mrs. Humphrey in the big back seat and Alice and Mary Jane sat on the chairs just in front of them.
Mary Jane was much thrilled by the dignified looks of the middle-aged chauffeur and when Mrs. Humphrey said, “We’re ready now, Higgins, drive down the south shore the way we like best, you know the route?” she couldn’t keep her enthusiasm to herself.
“I think Higgins is an awfully nice name,” she confided to Mrs. Humphrey. “I read a book, that is, mother read it to me, and it had a Higgins in it and I liked him a lot. I always thought I’d like to talk to a Higgins.
“Does yours talk again?” she added as she saw no sign of conversation in the straight shoulder before her.
Mrs. Humphrey’s lip twitched. How explain to eager little Mary Jane that Higgins was so dignified everyone had to be careful of his feelings? Higgins was the most dignified of all the story-book Higginses ever invented! So she merely said, “I think he’s rather busy driving just now, and we want to have a careful driver, don’t we dear?” And then, in an effort to change the subject she added, “Isn’t that a lovely garden?”
But Mary Jane wasn’t that easily diverted and Higgins was very much on her mind—as Mrs. Humphrey was to discover later.