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II. Commencement
- University of Iowa Press
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He put his arm around her, feeling a new warm affection go out to her when he said that word "dear." He was whispering, so that they wouldn't hear him in the other room. Any minute the girls might come into the dining room. That made these minutes more precious. "Now it's all right. Isn't it? Listen, Lillian. I'm not going with her any more. 1 never did want to. I don't know why • • • Gee, I feel better now I've told you about it, Lillian. Listen. You're going to wear my pin, aren't you? Because I want you to." He felt the movement of her head against his cheek. He whispered, "You didn't mind when I tried to kiss you that night, did you?" He felt her stillness. Shame and happiness and tenderness together came flooding over him. It was all right now! Everything was. He felt Lillian's shy kiss return his own with a restrained , frightened fervor. It was all the sweeter being in here together, with the others so perilously close. But then voices seemed suddenly to be very loud and surrounding. Lillian gathered up some dishes blindly and went out to the kitchen with them. Carl waited a moment, dazzled by this new delight, ashamed to think where he had learned it first, feeling with awed wonder how his heart was beating. Then he smoothed back his hair quickly and went into the sitting room, trying to look natural and ingenuous, while his blood was racing and singing. "Gee!" he said. "That was a good supper, folks." II. COMMENCEMENT As soon as the academic procession had passed out of the church into the openness of the hot noon sunlight, the Senior class began to scatter. The little group who had received honorary degrees (mostly Presbyterian ministers) had to be detained on the lawn for a final photograph for the church paper. But the Seniors were through. They were out in the 109 world. That hoary promise of chapel orators had all at once: informally come true. The boys began to get rid of their caps and gowns at once, according to manly tradition. The girls kept theirs on a little longer, not sure of how their hair might look if they took off their mortar boards. Now they all began to move about in a strange kind of let-down freedom. Carl looked around for the folks. He had thought he might locate them somewhere in the audience when he had come down after taking his degree; but that had all been so brief, it had passed in a kind of high, hot daze. Then he caught sight of them over at the edge of the sidewalk-the folks and Bunny, the girls hadn't come. Carl hurried over with his gown flapping open. "Hello, there! Been looking for you." He kissed his mother, shook hands with his father-"How are you, dad?" Today he could feel a pleasant sense of patronage and protection toward them as he saw them here at the college in their middle-aged simplicity. He drew his little brother up to him in a cherishing hug. "How's the big kid?" "Don't you see who else we've brought along?" his father asked. "Well, I certainly do. How are you, Lillian?" The fresh pink in Carl's cheeks flushed deeper. He still kept the rosy cheeks over which the old ladies in the church used to exclaim admiringly when he ushered on Sundays. He said, trying to laugh, "Excuse the damp paw." He was hot and perspiring . He felt awkward and funny, shaking hands with .Lillian this way. For a long time now, they had kissed each other at meeting and parting. But they couldn't very well do that here in front of the folks and everyone. He had expected the folks to bring Lillian, of course; and yet he felt this. embarrassment at seeing her here. In some way that he wasn't ready to go into, it made a complication. He could feel how all the fellows were looking at Lillian, and the girls giving her bright, curious glances. She was being appraised by everyone as "Carl's gir1." Carl Ferguson's "girl at home" had been only a tantalizing rumor until now, explaining why, although he was so goodlooking and popular, he never took out any girl more than three 110 [18.206.160.129] Project MUSE...