THE VAGABOND

He addressed it to her, and then filled out the rest of the envelope according to regulations,--sender's name, rate, and address in upper left, and "FREE" in upper right.

The weekend had been something that didn't happen to most people, and Vag knew that it couldn't happen again to him--not unless he started growing younger every year. Vag was literal-minded enough to rule out this odd chance. The letter under his hand was only a formal little period to an occasion that had ended two days before. He wondered why he'd written it, now that he thought it over. The letter didn't lead on to anything else. Social habit, maybe. No. And people didn't write bread and butter notes when there was no more bread and butter. In three weeks Ann would be leaving Radcliffe, which closed out the league for good as far as Vag was concerned.

He was afraid of his own absurd sentimentality, and the things it had led him to say in the letter. There were all those sentences about the Concord picnic, and the firelight party in the field house the night of the dance. Every trite and sentimental thing that anyone had ever written, Vag had put into his letter because he couldn't express himself any better. He wondered what had happened to his old flair for originalities.

Yet Vag believed what he had written, in spite of its damned melodrama. The picnic had been a success--a perfect afternoon and evening, and the sunburn on his face had brought back a partly forgotten feeling of well-being as he had lain on the ground gazing up through the trees. When it had gotten dark, the firelight and the singing had flickered through the woods together. The others had sung unconcernedly, as if there were more picnics coming soon. It wasn't the way Vag had expected them to sing on the last of their Concord evenings together.

When he remembered, it seemed more natural that he should have written Ann about the little sadnesses that had moved across his heart when he heard a snatch of a tune that carried a particular time back to him that night. It had made Vag aware with painful suddenness of people and places he had forgotten. And when that sadness had rushed over him, he had glanced over at Ann to see how she was doing.

Because he had wanted her to share that nearly imaginary sadness, he had written how he had felt seeing her for the last time at the door of Whitman, saying he'd had a nice time as loudly as he could so as to be heard over the gaiety of high tea. They had shaken hands like two freshmen at a Brooks House get-together. Yet the letter had made it sound like the end of an era.

An era? Vag could remember a couple of Yard Concerts, a few dances, some rainy evenings when he and Ann had slushed across the Common--somewhere in the long procession of grey lectures. There were a few friends. And Ann again, in the back of his mind, in phone reach, while he had fought with his work on Friday and Saturday nights.

There were people who could treat even the end of an era gracefully, because they knew it had to end. Vag envied them their grace.