Usually the four walls of the church heard nothing gayer than “Onward Christian Soldiers” or “Marching to Zion,” but it was conceded to the youth of the city that on Commencement night the organist might tackle what was spoken of, in rather awed tones, as “sheet music.” It was customary to hire, for these occasions, a graduate from the Fort Wayne Conservatory to sing several solos. This marked a high light in the exercises. These graduates from a musical school might do the daring thing of coming clothed in billowing silks of peach-blow pink. In one instance, the crowd had lost its breath over such a dress glaringly trimmed in blood-red. This, in conjunction with a bared breast and arms, a becurled head as yellow as the cowslips down by the Ashwater river, had been almost too much for the morality of the audience. The young lady had saved the situation by a sobbingly pathetic rendition of “When the Flowing Tide Comes In.” When she had her audience audibly weeping over the “ships that came in clouds like flocks of evil birds,” and then led them on to the salt-saturated ending of “remembering Donald’s words,” the weeping crowd so thoroughly enjoyed the performance that they forgave what they considered the extreme bad taste of the blood-decorated pink dress. In gathering the graduates, it might have been instinct on the part of the driver, and it might have been suggestion on the part of authority, at any rate, it was customary to bring in the poor and the unimportant and give them this one ride of their lives in state, usually down Hill Street, past the bank, the main business buildings, and the Court House, ending at the side steps of the Methodist Church. After all the poor and the unimportant had been collected, then by degrees came the socially and financially prominent, it being generally conceded that the boy or girl having the salutatory came next to last, while the valedictorian held the place of honour.