So Little Time (23 page)

Jeffrey held the paper in front of him but he did not need to read from it because he knew it, word for word. He could see his father looking toward him, but not at him. In the room there was a stale odor of pipe and cigar smoke.

“Five minutes and forty-five seconds,” his father said. “That's a nice speech, Jeff. It went all right.” Then he stood up. There were voices in the hall. “Your grandfather's coming.”

Jeffrey's grandfather and his Aunt Mary were standing in the hall. They had driven in from the farm in the buggy with the dapple-gray horse that was tied at the hitching post. His Aunt Mary was in black, like his Aunt Martha, and his grandfather had on his best black clothes. His hair was snow-white. His nose was thin and hooked, and his face was faintly pink. He was like the house—you took him entirely for granted. His hand was thin and cold when Jeffrey shook it.

“Well,” he said, “how's the Wonder Boy?”

“Now, Pa,” Aunt Martha said, “don't joke about him. Jeffrey's nervous.”

“I'm not joking about him,” his grandfather said. “What I need is a drink. What about it, Howland?”

“Father,” Aunt Mary said, “not right in the morning! You can have a little something when we get home.”

“At my age,” the old man said, “I can have a little something right now. How about it, Howland?”

The parlor shades were drawn, so that it was cool and dusky. Jeffrey's grandfather and his father sat on the horsehair sofa, and Aunt Martha brought in a tray with a whisky bottle and two small glasses.

“You give me a good slug, Martha,” his grandfather told her. He smacked his lips when he took the little glass. “Here's a toast for you. ‘I hope you may all be hung, drawn and quartered—hung with the finest jewels, drawn in the handsomest carriages, and quartered in the most comfortable residence in the land.' Did you ever hear that one?”

“Father!” Aunt Mary said. “Don't give him any more, Howland.”

Jeffrey stood in front of his grandfather.

“So you're feeling scared, are you?” his grandfather asked.

“I didn't say I was scared, sir,” Jeffrey answered.

“If you'd been where I was at your age,” the old man said, “by God, you'd have been scared.”

“Father,” Aunt Mary said, “don't start talking about the war.”

She was referring to the Civil War, but it had never seemed possible to Jeffrey that his grandfather could have been in any war. Jeffrey's father looked at his watch again.

“We ought to be going, Father,” he said, “if you want a seat up front.”

The old man teetered unsteadily on his feet, and clung to Jeffrey's arm.

“Easy now,” he said, “don't shake me.”

“Father,” Aunt Mary said, “there was something you were going to tell Jeffrey.”

“What—” his grandfather asked—“what was I going to tell him?”

“You were going to tell him how proud we are,” Aunt Mary began.

“All right,” his grandfather said, “I didn't say we weren't.”

“And then,” Aunt Mary said, “you were going to tell him something that's a surprise.”

His grandfather's hand tightened on Jeffrey's arm.

“Your Aunt Mary,” he said, “who can't ever keep her fingers out of other people's affairs, means I'm going to put you through Harvard College.”

There was a silence in the dusky room, and Jeffrey knew that something had been offered him which he should deeply appreciate, but the thing was entirely intangible.

“You see,” his Aunt Mary said, “it's your grandfather's graduation present to you, Jeff.”

But Jeffrey was only wondering how keenly it would affect Alf later in the afternoon, because the gift appeared to involve no money.

“Jeff,” his father said, “say ‘Thank you' to your grandfather.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jeffrey said.

He was thinking about Alf's song—telegraphing your baby, who'd send ten or twenty maybe, so you wouldn't have to walk back home.

“You can pay back part by working summers,” his grandfather said. “I've been to see Mr. Thompson at the carpet factory. He wants an office boy, and you can start in tomorrow.”

“Oh, Pa,” Aunt Martha said, “can't he have a week off?”

“If I'm paying for it,” his grandfather said, “he can start in at the carpet factory tomorrow.”

“Jeffrey,” his father said, “say ‘Thank you' to your grandfather.”

“Thanks,” Jeffrey said, “thanks a lot, Grandpa.”

Jeffrey sometimes tried to recall what he had been like when he was Jim's age. Jim's environment was so dissimilar from his own that whenever Jeffrey began that familiar speech, “When I was your age …” it carried no possible conviction. There was only one thing of which he was sure. When he was Jim's age, life must have conveyed more; his thoughts surely must have been more vivid. When Jeffrey was salutatorian of his graduating class at the Bragg High School, he could not have been as completely callow as Jim.

The Town Hall was a boxlike brick building that stood on a patch of lawn behind a white fence. It had two doors in front and between the doors was a bulletin board with a voters' list and lost-and-found announcements. The boys and girls of the graduating class stood on a far corner of the lawn watching the audience move into the hall. The girls' faces were fresh and shining, because even a touch of rouge meant, then, that you were not a nice girl. The boys' necks looked high and stiff and their hair was plastered unnaturally to their skulls. The class exchanged glazed glances with Jeffrey when he joined the group. Even Summers Harris seemed nervously lost in his own thoughts, although he was known in town as “the King of Bragg High.” Jimmy Ryan stood snapping his knuckles one by one. Milt Rolfe's wrists hung too far out of the sleeves of his blue serge coat. Mr. Oakley's bald head and pince-nez glasses glittered in the sun.

“You'll be toward the head of the line, Wilson,” Mr. Oakley said, “and you're to walk with Christine Blair. Find Miss Blair, we'll be starting in a minute.”

It was not difficult to find Christine Blair. Christine's nose looked pinched and she was biting her lips, but they were still thin and white. Christine was the Class Prophet and she was standing alone and whispering to herself.

“I had a dream the other night,” she was whispering, “and I woke up in an awful fright. I saw the future drifting by, and my classmates of the Old Bragg High.”

It was a great relief that Christine would be his partner, for it might have caused foolish talk if he had walked up the aisle with Louella Barnes; but he was conscious of Louella, although he only stole a glance at her. She was so pretty, with her yellow hair and her gold and purple bow, that he was afraid to look.

“Now, remember,” Mr. Oakley was saying, “it's a fancy step—first one foot forward and then hesitate with the other, in time to the music. When you reach the stage, the girls go left and the boys right. And Ryan, spit out that gum.”

Everyone looked at Jimmy Ryan but only with detachment because of the approaching crisis. Jeffrey felt in his inside pocket for his paper. The palms of his hands were clammy.

“I saw the future drifting by,” Christine was whispering, “and my classmates of the Old Bragg High.”

The classmates of the Bragg High were already walking dazedly but firmly up the Town Hall steps. A group of small boys stood by the entrance uttering soft catcalls and such personal remarks as Yoo hoo, Christine. Kiss me, Ella.” But the classmates scarcely noticed these mild obscenities as they approached the ordeal before them.

There was a smell of clean linen and of ferns and the piano on the stage was playing. Jeffrey looked straight ahead of him, moving one foot and then the other. It was a strange dragging approach, half a walk and half a slide. He could see backs and heads and flowers on hats rising from the long wooden settles. He could see the School Committee and Mr. Peterson, the Congregational minister, already on the stage. Jeffrey's place was with them in the front row, and a printed program was resting on his chair. The first item was a prayer by Mr. Peterson, and then came the Class Song, composed by the Class Odist. Then he saw his own name. “S
ALUTATORY
A
DDRESS
… J
EFFREY
W
ILSON
.” It was the first time he had ever seen his name in print; his hands felt very moist as he put them across his eyes while Mr. Peterson prayed. Mr. Peterson was asking God to guide the steps of these, the boys and girls from Bragg. He was imploring God, in measured tones, to help them lead upright lives, and Jeffrey hoped that it would last for a long while. Anything was desirable which would stave off his ordeal, but time was moving on inexorably. The class had risen with their programs and they were singing the Class Song.

“The way we take from Old Bragg High is narrow, steep and long …” His mouth felt dry and there was a tremor in his knees. The road through life from Old Bragg High had tribulations and difficulties, but the light of faith and their gratitude to Old Bragg High would lead them, onward and upward. The Class was sitting down.

“The Salutatory Address,” he heard Mr. Oakley say. “Jeffrey Wilson.”

At the sound of his name, unseen hands seemed to jerk Jeffrey out of his chair. He was met by a round of applause as he made his way to the center of the stage and came to a stop by a table that held the stack of diplomas and a large crockery jar full of pink petunias. The faces in front of him were blurred into one face and the applause was dying down, and nothing could put off the moment when he must speak unless he dropped down dead or ran away. He turned with a spasmodic swivel motion toward the elders in their chairs.

“Mr. Oakley,” he said. He was aware of a quaver in his voice and he tried to steady it. “Members of the School Committee—Ladies and Gentlemen.”

He reached slowly toward his breast pocket, but his fingers did not touch the paper. He snatched out his hand and felt in his side pockets, but the paper was not there. The faces in front of him faded to a mist as he thrust his hand for a second time into his inside pocket. The feeling of relief which surged through him when his fingers finally found it must have been shared by his audience, for he became aware of a faint sighing sound, of an uneasy shifting of feet.

“Stand up and take it easy,” he could hear his father saying. “You have lots of time.” But he only had a sense of the whole world's waiting while he unfolded the paper.

“We, the graduating class of the Bragg High School, greet you. We have learned much. I hope we have learned more than we have forgotten.”

He wanted to remember to do it right, now that he was standing there. “Wait there,” he heard his father saying. “Give them time to laugh.”

He waited, but in front of him there was only dull expectancy. He waited for another moment until it became plain to him that neither he nor his audience was in any mood for literary merriment.

“When we step from this hall we will step into a larger sphere of activity.”

Jeffrey could hear his voice continuing, and he looked up and swallowed.

“And, so, in behalf of the senior class of the Bragg High School, I take the liberty of paraphrasing a little of what the gladiators in ancient Rome used to say when they entered the Colosseum.” Jeffrey swallowed again, and cleared his throat. “We, the senior class of Bragg High School, who are about to go out into the world, salute you.” Jeffrey bowed like a seasick passenger. He was pale and he was shaken, but he was through with it. His knuckles holding the paper were white. He turned his back and retired quickly to his seat in the midst of the applause.

“And now the Class Prophecy,” Mr. Oakley was saying.

Christine had one advantage; she did not have a pocket, and the prophecy was in her hand. The first words came in a whisper.

“I had a dream the other night, and I woke up in an awful fright. I saw the future drifting by, and my classmates of the Old Bragg High.”

At first Jeffrey could not give the Prophecy his full attention, but gradually the dream of Christine impinged more clearly upon his consciousness. It seemed that a great deal had happened before Christine had awakened. By some odd piece of fortune, there had been revealed to her much of the public and not a little of the private lives of every member of the class as they appeared, of all things, in the distant future of nineteen hundred and thirty-three. Summers Harris was a soldier and a wonder to behold, and he had three lovely children with pompadours so bold. Jimmy Ryan's butcher shop was always neat and clean and Jimmy never would short-change you, because he wasn't mean. Jeffrey fidgeted in the chair.

“Jeff Wilson, that great orator, is known the world around.

The bands play, and they wave the flags, when Jeff Wilson comes to town.

Who helps him with his speeches I can very easily see,

Her first name has Lou and Ella in it, and her last begins with B.”

At this moment Jeffrey would have welcomed death. He sat there wondering how he could take up life and go on. It was not so much a misery that concerned himself, for another shared in this libel. He could sense the humiliation which Louella Barnes must have felt to have her name publicly connected with his own. And there was her father on the stage, the chairman of the School Committee, and before they left that stage, they must meet head on—since Mr. Barnes himself was presenting the diplomas. He could never explain to Mr. Barnes that this libel was completely groundless—that he had always been afraid of girls, particularly of Louella, and that he had hardly exchanged a word with her during the entire High School course.

Mr. Barnes was standing up, a tall, pale man handing out the diplomas. The boys and girls were marching forward, and as Jeffrey moved toward the table, Mr. Barnes was holding out his hand.

“That was a fine talk you gave us,” he said. “Congratulations.”