Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

“ The people standing up to go cannot go, but stay and watch them, these thousand children of many ages, this marvellous show of light-heartedness and loyalty. Till at last the costumes drift together in platoons and disappear slowly; and the crowd thins and the last and most stirring act of the commencement-day drama is at hand.
It has come to be an institution that after the game the old graduates should go, class by class, to the house of the president of Yale, to renew allegiance. ”

“ It has come to be an institution that he, standing on the steps of his house, should make a short speech to each class. The rainbow of men, sweeping gloriously down the city streets with their bands, dissolves into a whirlwind at the sight of that well-known, slight, dignified figure on the doorstep of the modest house—this is a thing which one who has seen it does not forget ”

“ The windows of every story of the gray stone facade are crowded with a deeply interested audience; grizzled heads of old graduates mix with flowery hats of women; every one is watching every detail, every arrival. In front of the Hall is a drive, and room for perhaps a dozen carriages next the fence—the famous fence of Yale—which rails the campus round. Just inside it, at the north-east corner, rises the tree. People stand up in the carriages, women and men; the fence is loaded with people, often standing, too, to see that tree.
All over the campus surges a crowd ”

“ In the afternoon of commencement day there is a base-ball game at Yale Field. To that the returning classes go in costume, mostly marching out afoot, each with its band of music, through the gay, dusty street, by the side of the gay, dusty street, by the side of the gay, crowded trolley-cars loaded to the last inch of the last step with a holiday crowd, good-natured, sympathetic, full of humor as an American crowd is always. The men march laughing, talking, nodding to friends in the cars, in the motors, in the carriages which fly past them ”

“ Men and women learn—sometimes—as they grow older, how to shut the doors against disappointments so that only the vital ones cut through, but at twenty all doors are open; the iron had come into his soul, and the girl had given it a twist which had taken his last ounce of courage. He lay still a long time, enduring—all he could manage at first. It might have been an hour later that he got up and went to his desk and sat down in the fading light, his hands deep in his trousers pockets ”

“ Somewhere in the last days of June, New England is at its loveliest and it is commencement time at Yale. Under the tall elms stretch the shady streets, alive eternally with the ever-new youth of ever-coming hundreds of boys. But at commencement the pleasant, drowsy ways take on an astonishing character; it is as if the little city had gone joyfully mad. Hordes of men of all ages, in startling clothes, appear in all quarters. ”

“ The thirty-five-year graduates, eighty strong, the men who are handling the nation, wear a unanimous sudden growth of rolling gray beard. Class after class they come, till over a thousand men have marched out to the music of bands, down Yale Field and past the great circle of the seats, and have settled in brilliant masses of color on the "bleachers." Then from across the field rise men's voices singing. They sing the college songs which their fathers sang, which their sons and great-grandsons will sing. ”

“ The habit of bigness, once caught, possesses one as quickly as the habit of drink; Johnny McLean was as unhampered by the net of smallnesses which tangle most of us as a hermit; the freedom gave him a power which was fast making a marked man of him.
There was dissatisfaction among the miners; a strike was probable; the popularity of the new superintendent warded it off from month to month, which counted unto him for righteousness in the mind of the president, of which Johnny himself was unaware. ”

“ The girl sitting in the window of Durfee understood thoroughly the character and the chances of the day. The seniors at the tree wear derby hats; the juniors none at all; it is easier by this sign to distinguish the classmen, and to keep track of the tapping. The girl knew of what society was each black-hatted man who twisted through the bareheaded throng; in that sea of tense faces she recognized many; she could find a familiar head almost anywhere in the mass and tell as much as an outsider might what hope was hovering over it. She came of Yale people ”

“ Yet there is service and love, too, and happiness and the slippery bright blade of success in the kit of Life the sculptor; so they stand and watch, a bit pitifully but hopefully, as the work begins, and cannot guide the chisel but a little way, yet would not, if they could, stop it, for the finished job is going to be, they trust, a man, and only the sculptor Life can make such.
The boy called Johnny McLean glanced up at the window in Durfee; he met the girl's eyes, and the girl smiled back and made a gay motion with her hand as if to say, "Keep up your pluck; you'll be taken." ”

“ How to keep the men patient; how to use his influence with them; how to advise the president—for young as he was he had to do this because of the hold he had gained on the situation; what concessions were wise—the young face fell into grave lines as he sat, hands deep in his pockets as usual, and considered these questions. Already the sculptor Life was chiselling away the easy curves with the tool of responsibility. ”

“ In New Haven, on the last Thursday of May, toward five in the afternoon, one becomes aware that the sea of boys which ripples always over the little city has condensed into a river flowing into the campus. ”

“ She knew as certainly as if the fifteen seniors had told her that Floyd would be "tapped for Bones." The crew captain and the foot-ball captain are almost inevitably taken for Skull and Bones. Yet five years before Jack Emmett, captain of the crew, had not been taken; only two years back Bert Connolly, captain of the foot-ball team, had not been taken. The girl, watching the big chap's unconscious face, knew well what was in his mind. "What chance have I against all these bully fellows," he was saying to himself in his soul, "even if I do happen to be crew captain? ”

“ The papers told of the crowds gathering, of the Red Cross, of the experts come to consider the situation, of the line of patient women, with shawls over their heads, waiting always, there at the first gray light, there when night fell; the girl, gasping at her window, would have given years of her life to have stood with those women. The second day she read that they had closed the mouth of the shaft; it was considered that the one chance for life below lay in smothering the flames. When the girl read that, a madness came on her. ”

“ From California and Florida, even from China and France, they come swarming into the Puritan place, while in and out through the light-hearted kaleidoscopic crowd hurry slim youngsters in floating black gown and scholar's cap—the text of all this celebration, the graduating class. Because of them it is commencement, it is they who step now over the threshold and carry Yale's honor in their young hands into the world. But small attention do they get, the graduating class, at commencement. The classic note of their grave youthfulness is drowned in the joyful uproar ”

“ With shining face the lad comes back later and is slapped on the shoulder and told, "good work, old man," cordially and whole-heartedly by every friend and acquaintance—by lads who have "made" every honor possible, by lads who have "made" nothing, just as heartily. For that is the spirit of Yale.
Only juniors room in Durfee Hall. On Tap Day an outsider is lucky who has a friend there, for a window is a proscenium box for the play—the play which is a tragedy to all but forty-five of the three hundred and odd juniors. ”

“ It happens at times that a big, attractive, self-possessed man is secretly as shy, as fanciful, as the shyest girl—if he cares. Once and again indeed the idea flashed into the mind of Johnny McLean—that perhaps she had been so sorry that she did not dare look at him. ”

“ Me, the superintendent of the Oriel mine! Holy mackerel!" gasped Johnny, and sat down.
The proportion of fighting in the battle of life outweighs the "beer and skittles"; as does the interest. Johnny McLean found interest in masses, in the drab-and-dun village on the prairie. He found pleasure, too, and as far as he could reach he tried to share it; buoyancy and generosity were born in him; strenuousness he had painfully acquired, and like most converts was a fanatic about it. He was splendidly fit; he was the best and last output of the best institution in the country ”

“ It seemed that the president of the big mine needed a superintendent, and wishing young blood and the latest ideas had written to the head of the Mining Department in the School of Technology to ask if he would give him the name of the ablest man in the graduating class—a man to be relied on for character as much as brains, he specified, for the rough army of miners needed a general at their head almost more than a scientist. ”

“ There the flood divides and re-divides; the junior class is separating and gathering from all directions into a solid mass about the nucleus of a large, low-hanging oak tree inside the college fence in front of Durfee Hall. The three senior societies of Yale, Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, and Wolf's Head, choose to-day fifteen members each from the junior class, the fifteen members of the outgoing senior class making the choice. Each senior is allotted his man of the juniors, and must find him in the crowd at the tree and tap him on the shoulder and give him the order to go to his room. ”

“ Grave and responsible seniors worked swiftly here and there through the tight mass, searching each one his man; every two or three minutes a man was found and felt that thrilling touch and heard the order, "Go to your room." Each time there was a shout of applause; each time the campus rushed in a wave. ”

“ For each class goes away confident that the president at least shares its conviction that it is the best class ever graduated. Life might well be worth living, it would seem, to a man who should hear every year hundreds of men's voices thundering his name as these men behind the class banners.
Six weeks after the disaster of the Oriel mine it was commencement day in New Haven and Johnny McLean, his broken arm in a sling, a square of adhesive plaster on his forehead, was back for his Triennial. ”

“ It came to him in a vague, comforting way that probably the best game a man could play with his life would be to use it as a tool to do work with; to keep it at its brightest, cleanest, most efficient for the sake of the work. ”

“ I see a man among you whose life has added a line to that saying, who has shown to the world that it is the courage of the commonplace which trains for the courage of the crisis. And that's all I've got to say, for the nation is saying the rest—except three times three for the glory of the class of —, the newest name on the honor roll of Yale, McLean of the Oriel mine. ”

“ It wasn't decent, to hit a man when he was down. A woman ought to be gentle—if his mother had been alive—but then he was glad she wasn't. With that a sob shook him—startled him. Angrily he stood up and glared about the place. ”

“ So"—the iron face broke for a second into a whimsical grin—"so I offered you a motor. And you wouldn't take it. I knew, though you didn't explain, that you feared it would interfere with your studies. I was right?" Johnny nodded. "Yes. And your last year at college was—was all I could wish. I see now that you needed a blow in the face to wake you up—and you got it. And you waked." The great engineer smiled with clean pleasure. "I have had"—he hesitated—"I have had always a feeling of responsibility to your mother for you—more than for the others. ”

“ Hough, who's so rich and dull—he's Bones."
"You've got statistics at your fingers' ends, haven't you?" said Mrs. Anderson. "Anybody might think you had a brother among the juniors who you weren't hopeful about." She looked at the girl curiously. Then: "They must be about all there," she spoke, leaning out. "A full fifty feet square of dear frightened laddies. There's Brant, coming across the campus. He looks as if he was going to make some one president. I suppose he feels so. There's Johnny McLean. ”

“ Was there such a combination to be found, he asked, in a youngster of twenty-three or twenty-four, such as would be graduating from the "Tech"? If possible, he wanted a very young man—he wanted the enthusiasm, he wanted the athletic tendency, he wanted the plus-strength, he wanted the unmade reputation which would look for its making to hard work in the mine. ”

“ The older woman agreed. "I suppose on the whole it's a good institution. And it's wonderful what wisdom the boys show. Of course, they make mistakes, but on the whole they pick the best men astonishingly. So many times they hit the ones who come to be distinguished."
"But so many times they don't," the girl followed her words. Her father and Brant were Bones men—why was the girl arguing against senior societies? "So many, Mrs. Anderson. Uncle Ted's friend, the President of Hardrington College, was in Yale in the '80's and made no senior society ”

“ The Courage of the Commonplace by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
The girl and her chaperon had been deposited early in the desirable second-story window in Durfee, looking down on the tree. Brant was a senior and a "Bones" man, and so had a leading part to play in the afternoon's drama. He must get the girl and the chaperon off his hands, and be at his business. This was "Tap Day." It is perhaps well to explain what "Tap Day" means; there are people who have not been at Yale or had sons or sweethearts there. ”