Through the school: The experiences of a mill boy in securing an education

FROM the ether cone which a house surgeon had held over my nostrils I breathed unconsciousness and peace. I awoke in a tower room, with a semi-circle of bright windows letting in the morning sun on me, and with a quiet-motioned, white-capped nurse watching me as I struggled free from grim dreams and tried to regain my right mind. The merest turn of the eyes toward the low windows permitted me to see the May day outside: a day in which salmon fishers came in boats up the river and patiently, skilfully lured giant fish from the deep waters to their bags.

The little, bare room was soon colored with gifts of flowers from friends in my parish, from my classmates in the Seminary, and from the missionary. Letters of consolation and good cheer, visits from the president of the Seminary, who told me not to fret about examinations, because I should graduate, and cheering minutes with my class friends took the edge from my suffering. One morning a delegation of little children came bashfully into the room, and after standing in a row before me, each waiting for the other to speak,—for they represented the children whom I had organized in the mission church, two years before,—one of them, a little girl, stepped forward and with a quick thrust put on my white coverlet a paper bag, saying:

“Mr. Priddy, we’re sorry you’re sick and hope you’ll soon be well. We chipped in for those and hope you’ll like ’em, please.”

When they had left the room, the nurse opened the bag and discovered one half-dozen maximum-ripened bananas.

But graduation! Should I be in the hospital while my classmates enjoyed the festivities, the sobering joys, the inspiration of that event? The doctor, who with his trail of a clinic examined me each morning, had been given a word by the President, for though a stern man in appearance and very blunt in speech, he would turn, half fiercely, in mock ferocity to my nurse and say,

“This young man must be ready for the sixth of June. Remember, he is not to be in this place on that day!”

Though he never smiled as he said this; yet because he said it I imagined him as the best friend I had ever called friend, for the sixth of June was the day of graduation!

From the fragments of news which came to me, day by day, I knew that the Seminary was shaping itself for the graduation exercises. The oral examinations had been held; the visiting alumni had met for their annual meeting; the reception, in one of the professors’ homes, had been given; and on the morrow, in the evening, my classmates would stand before the pulpit in the brick church while the President handed them their diplomas.

Graduation morning found me shaved, expectant and nervous, sitting at one of the windows watching a little girl cruelly strip a tiny sapling of its first glorious flowers. Suddenly the nurse came into the room, with a knowing smile, and said that there was a stranger to see me!

There followed the scrape of a foot along the rubber-carpeted corridor and into the room, dressed in demure black, came the missionary! She had followed the leading of her heart and had come down to cheer me on for graduation, for a strange dream had come to her the night I had been smitten down, a dream that came before any news of my illness had reached her, in which some spirit of warning had whispered that I was suffering, in danger of my life! Then the mail had brought her the truth, and there she stood before me to share the honors of the day sympathetically with me.

By ten o’clock two classmates rattled into the hospital yard in a carriage; came into my room, their arms loaded with my best clothes.

“You’ve got to graduate with us!” they exclaimed. “We’ve been together through the years, and we can’t afford to have the line broken now!”

One half hour later, supported by them, I was placed in the carriage and carried triumphantly to my room in the dormitory, where I was to remain quiet and patient until evening, when I should go down to the brick church for my diploma!

From the lofty height of my dormitory window I could look down on the house-tops of the city and see the hazy hills far, far against the distant sky-lines. I could also look down between the veil of elm leaves and see the processions of visitors and the hurrying forms of my classmates, as they passed over the tar walk, under the shady arch of the trees towards the gymnasium, where a banquet was to be served in honor of my class.

There was a clatter outside my door, and the classmate who had been chosen to deliver the speech for us in the gymnasium appeared in my doorway with a hearty,

“How do I look, Priddy?”

No groom ever did better with a frock coat, a white, flowered vest, a brilliant tie, and neatly combed hair, and I told him so. He then left me for the momentous occasion in which he was to figure after dinner, when he would stand up at the head of all the tables, strike his pose, and in his best manner—with an incidental throwing back of his frock coat to display his grand white vest—give the felicitations, the thanks, the hopes, and ideals of our class.

So I sat apart from the revelry of the day, with a beating, thankful heart, waiting for the arrival of evening. After supper a student came into the room, fitted me into the best collar that I had, fastened the groomish, white silk tie skilfully about it, put the golden links into my new cuffs, and then helped me insert myself into my new frock coat!

“There,” he cried, stroking the front of my coat and then standing back for the effect, “I think you are ready to be escorted down to the church by the missionary; she will meet you in the reception room. Good luck to you, Priddy!”

I was so faint that I walked through the great congregation of visitors and friends as through a blur. I took my seat in the front of the church with my classmates and saw only the array of palms and flowers on the communion table. I needed to marshal every ounce of nerve and strength in order to get through the service without accident. A terrible fear rushed into my heart, as my head kept whirling like a top and leaving me exhausted, a fear that I should tumble from my seat and spoil the exercises.

One after another of my classmates crowded past me, ascended to the pulpit, and delivered his speech. Next my name on the program, and the subject of the speech on which I never wrote, was a star, followed by the note: “Excused on account of illness.”

After the addresses, the President came down from the pulpit throne and we stood lined up before him, with the vast audience at our backs. I could not listen to the words of parting that our mentor gave us, for I felt every minute that I should tumble back like a stricken ninepin; bowled over by my insufficient strength. Sweeps of pain, of cold and heat went through me like differing winds. Slowly, ever so slowly, the diplomas were handed us, seeming to take a day or more, and every minute I felt like stopping the solemn service and asking to be allowed to go back to my seat.

Finally the last of the diplomas were given, we turned our faces to the congregation, walked nervously back to our seats, and waited for the exercises to be concluded.

The organ thundered its exultant recessional, the people crowded into the aisles and intercepted us as we struggled through, seeking out sweethearts, friends, parents, whose congratulation we sought first. The missionary was waiting for me near an exit door, anxious for me, as I saw by her face. I had just shown her my diploma, with its blue silken bow, when suddenly the Dean tapped me on the shoulder and politely requested my diploma, saying,

“You may have it again, Mr. Priddy, after you have completed your deferred examinations!”