Page:The plastic age, (IA plasticage00mark).pdf/354

328 gone forever. Some of the drunken ones seemec very silly, some of them seemed almost offensive; al of them were pathetic.

They had come back to Sanford where they hac once been so young and exuberant, so tireless in pleasure, so in love with living; and they were try¬ ing to pour all that youthful zest into themselves again out of a bottle bought from a bootlegger, Were they having a good time? Who knows? Probably not. A bald-headed man does not par¬ ticularly enjoy looking at a picture taken in his hirsute youth; and yet there is a certain whimsical pleasure in the memories the picture brings.

For three days there was much gaiety, much sing¬ ing of class songs, constant parading, dances, speech-making, class circuses, and endless shaking of hands and exchanging of reminiscences. The seniors moved through all the excitement quietly, keeping close to their relatives and friends. Grad¬ uation was n’t so thrilling as they had expected if to be; it was more sad. The alumni seemed to be having a good time; they were ridiculously boyish: only the seniors were grave, strangely and unnat¬ urally dignified.

Most of the alumni left the night before the graduation exercises. The parents and fiancees re¬ mained. They stood in the middle of the campus and watched the seniors, clad in caps and gowns,