It was as simple as that. He was aware that he nodded to Sloane and said something inconsequential. Then he was walking out of the office. His lips were tingling and his fingertips were numb; he walked as if he were asleep, yet he was intensely aware of his surroundings. He brushed against the polished wooden walls in the corridor, and he thought he could feel the warmth and age of the wood; he went slowly down the stairs and wondered at the veined cold marble that seemed to slip a little beneath his feet. In the halls the voices of the students became distinct and individual out of the hushed murmur, and their faces were close and strange and familiar. He went out of Jesse Hall into the morning, and the grayness no longer seemed to oppress the campus; it led his eyes outward and upward into the sky, where he looked as if toward a possibility for which he had no name.
In the first week of June, in the year 1914, William Stoner, with sixty other young men and a few young ladies, received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Missouri.
To attend the ceremony, his parents--in a borrowed buggy drawn by their old dun mare--had started the day before, driving overnight the forty-odd miles from the farm, so that they arrived at the Footes' shortly after dawn, stiff from their sleepless journey. Stoner went down into the yard to meet them. They stood side by side in the crisp morning light and awaited his approach.
Stoner and his father shook hands with a single quick pumping action, not looking at each other.
"How do," his father said.
His mother nodded. "Your pa and me come down to see you graduate."
For a moment he did not speak. Then he said, "You'd better come in and get some breakfast"
They were alone in the kitchen; since Stoner had come to the farm the Footes had got in the habit of sleeping late. But neither then nor after his parents had finished breakfast could he bring himself to tell them of his change of plans, of his decision not to return to the farm. Once or twice he started to speak; then he looked at the brown faces that rose nakedly out of their new clothing, and thought of the long journey they had made and of the years they had awaited his return. He sat stiffly with them until they finished the last of their coffee, and until the Footes roused themselves and came into the kitchen. Then he told them that he had to go early to the University and that he would see them there later in the day, at the exercises.
He wandered about the campus, carrying the black robe and cap that he had hired; they were heavy and troublesome, but he could find no place to leave them. He thought of what he would have to tell his parents, and for the first time realized the finality of his decision, and almost wished that he could recall it. He felt his inadequacy to the goal he had so recklessly chosen and felt the attraction of the world he had abandoned. He grieved for his own loss and for that of his parents, and even in his grief felt himself drawing away from them.
He carried this feeling of loss with him throughout the graduation exercises; when his name was spoken and he walked across the platform to receive a scroll from a man faceless behind a soft gray beard, he could not believe his own presence, and the roll of parchment in his hand had no meaning. He could only think of his mother and father sitting stiffly and uneasily in the great crowd.
When the ceremonies were over he drove with them back to the Footes', where they were to stay overnight and start the journey home the following dawn.
They sat late in the Footes' parlor. Jim and Serena Foote stayed up with them for a while. Every now and then Jim and Stoner's mother would exchange the name of a relative and lapse into silence. His father sat on a straight chair, his legs spread apart, leaning a little forward, his broad hands clasping his kneecaps. Finally the Footes looked at each other and yawned and announced that it was late. They went to their bedroom, and the three were left alone.
There was another silence. His parents, who looked straight ahead in the shadows cast by their own bodies, every now and then glanced sideways at their son, as if they did not wish to disturb him in his new estate.
After several minutes William Stoner leaned forward and spoke, his voice louder and more forceful than he had intended. "I ought to have told you sooner. I ought to have told you last summer, or this morning."
His parents' faces were dull and expressionless in the lamplight.
"What I'm trying to say is, I'm not coming back with you to the farm."
No one moved. His father said, "You got some things to finish up here, we can go back in the morning and you can come on home in a few days."
Stoner rubbed his face with his open palm. "That's--not what I meant. I'm trying to tell you I won't be coming back to the farm at all."
His father's hands tightened on his kneecaps and he drew back in the chair. He said, "You get yourself in some kind of trouble?"
