But he had remembered--it was Commencement. To-day, a thousand miles to
the east, a company of grave young gentlemen sat in semi-circular rows
before a central altar, while above them rose many tiers of mothers and
sisters and sweethearts, listening to the final word. He could see it all
very clearly: the lines of freshly shaven, boyish faces, the dainty gowns,
the flowers and bright eyes above, and the light that filtered in through
stained glass to fall softly over them all, with, here and there, a vivid
splash of color, Gothic shaped. He could see the throngs of white-clad
loungers under the elms without, under-classmen, bored by the Latin
addresses and escaped to the sward and breeze of the campus; there were
the troops of roistering graduates trotting about arm in arm, and singing;
he heard the mandolins on the little balconies play an old refrain and
the university cheering afterward; saw the old professor he had cared for
most of all, with the thin white hair straggling over his silken hood,
following the band in the sparse ranks of his class. And he saw his own
Commencement Day--and the station at the junction where he stood the
morning after, looking across the valley at the old towers for the last
time; saw the broken groups of his class, standing upon the platform on
the other side of the tracks, waiting for the south-bound train as he and
others waited for the north-bound--and they all sang "Should auld
acquaintance be forgot;" and, while they looked across at each other,
singing, the shining rails between them wavered and blurred as the engine
rushed in and separated them and their lives thenceforth. He filled his
pipe again and spoke to the phantoms gliding over the dust--"Seven years!"
He was occupied with the realization that there had been a man in his
class whose ambition needed no restraint, his promise was so complete--in
the strong belief of the university, a belief he could not help knowing--
and that seven years to a day from his Commencement this man was sitting
on a fence rail in Indiana.