CUTHBERT'S DIARY

(When the old Winthrop dwelling house was torn down to make place for the Trumbull Block, this diary of Cuthbert Pay son was found in the mixture of trash and treasure trove in the garret. It is too late to know how it came to be there, as Cuthbert graduated more than half a century ago, and never roomed in the house if the catalogs can be trusted. It seems that there was considerable social life in Hanover during Cuthbert's time. Strangely enough many whose names Cuth mentions, notably the young ladies, cannot be identified now. Not too much of it will be a plenty.)

January 1, 18xx. I virtuously propose to keep a diary a whole year. It may be of value when lam old. This has been the Happy New Year's Day. I read my chapel speech to Prof. Sanborn. He praised my feeble efforts in the class, but didn't have anything to say about the speech. He spent most of the time in proving that Daniel Webster didn't drink (much). Anyway the speech got by. In the afternoon started on a round of calls with Hamlin, but half of them had baskets out. Well, if they want to kill a good old custom, that's the way to do it. Went to New Year's reception at Prexy's. Went early by special request. So did SO others. Stupid show. No Hanover girls. And what there are can't talk. There were just a lot of old dames. Miranda can talk, though, and I wish she would talk more to me. Played whist in Hamlin's room till 12.30.

Jail; 2. 22° below zero. Choral Society in the evening. Went home with Tottie. Nice little thing. But I've got no time for girls for just eight years.

Jan. 3. 25° below zero. Gosh, how cold it was in chapel! Got my chapel speech off my chest, and thank goodness I'll never go on that stage again. But I got out of it pretty well for they did listen some. Catkin had an awful idiotic noise worthy of Daniel Pratt, and the fellows wooded up and howled after every sentence. Even Prof. Bully had to laugh. Prexy said, "Tranquility is more conducive to productive ratiocination." But he didn't say it very severely, and the boys didn't tranquilize or ratiocinate, I don't know which. Went to see Miranda, but" two other fellows were there. She is too indiscriminate, but what do I care. She said she'd been hearing some nice things about my chapel speech.

Jan. 4. Met Prexy on the street. Said he was much interested in my chapel speech. What a liar! But he's a good old boy all the same, and I guess I can work that on father. He thinks I'm not doing much because I don't lead my class. Went and asked Miranda to go bowling in the gym tomorrow. She told me confidentially that Prof. Piper didn't treat the boys right, and that she was doing her best to square it. She is going, and Bill Kent has hitched up Regina Dido. Spuds says that the mercury went down to — 45° this morning.

Jan. 5. Warmed right up to — l5°. Got one good thing out of bowling this morning, — a cup of real coffee affectionately presented by Miranda, who wasn't through her breakfast when I went for her. I didn't know that anybody ever had breakfast as late as eight o'clock in this place. Bowled. And how the girls-scattered the balls! I made 174, Bill 161, and the girls 43 and 51 respectively but not respectfully. The Queen talks too much. This afternoon they went sleigh-riding to Enfield with Binney and Tuxon. Nice crowd that. The mail has been 1 to 3 hours late every day this year.

Jan. 7. Sunday. Went to class prayer meeting, church, morning and afternoon, monthly concert in the evening. How's that? Kept a diary a week; it's easy. Warmer. Snowing hard.

Jan. 8. Prexy cut prayers this morning, so we didn't have any Greek Testament. Some of the drifts are 6 feet deep. Got vaccinated. Made a call at Prof. Parker's. Stupid; me, I mean; couldn't think of anything to say. Told Mrs. P. that now that the boys were going away they would be awfully lonesome. She laughed, but she didn't say anything. Then went to see Miranda. Found Hamlin there, and we went home together and talked her over. Well, he can hang around there if he wants to; I won't.

Jan. 9. Choral Society. Got invita- tion to Fanny B's wedding in Worcester. Do I go? I do not. I haven't the spon-dulix or the store clothes. Prof. Proctor got off a good one this morning. He was calling us up by the monitor's list, and just at the end of the hour it was Eastern, Enderby, &c." Eastern was a sure rush, and fat Enderby was a sure flunk. So when he called Eastern, Enderby whispered, "For the love of Mike, save my life." There couldn't be anything slower than Jack's translation. Not unless it went backwards. But when it did come it was just right. Prof. Proctor is a mighty fine man, but just a little nervous, and you could see his left foot wiggle under the table as Jack stalled and drawled along and went back and repeated all he had said, saving Enderby's life. Johnny wanted awfully to do the reciting himself. When Jack had used up four minutes in reading three lines — and there wasn't any slip to get hold of either — the Prof, just broke loose like this, "Please be as expeditious as is consistent with success." How the fellows laughed! He's a dry one. At all the clubs when they wanted another glass of milk or another piece of pie, if they could get it, they say you didn't hear a thing but "Please be as expe- ditious as is consistent with success."

Jan. 10. Week of prayer for colleges. So I went to prayer-meeting; also to society, and later to class meeting, at which there wasn't any row. Wish something would happen to put into my diary.

(In this emergency Cuth has the brilliant idea of filling in with descriptions of class-mates, professors and village belles, — a little crude and too frank to quote. Some of the persons described are living yet; others have relatives who, while agreeing with the truths uttered, might object to their publication. It is a pity too.)

Jan. 12. Well, I got it, — the cash to square up, but not much over. I see how I have a quiet vacation in this last place in the world, — 3 long weeks, Jan. 17 to Feb. 8.

Jan. 13. Played lots of whist.

Jan. 14. Sunday again. Church &c. Quimby is reading "Eric Williams or Little by Little" to any fellows that will come to the vestry. Went today. It's a bum story, and Quib reads it in a minor tone full of warning. I think Eric is going to hell. Give me "Tom Brown."

Jan. 15. Saw Prexy after chapel to get recommendation. All the fellows get them, I don't know what for. Told prexy I shouldn't have asked him, if I didn't know that he gave them to everybody. Somehow he didn't like that but I only meant that I was shy about asking. Crammed an hour. Passed in metaphysics. Celebrated with whist. Told the inspector (Quib) that I wanted my room this vacation.

Jan. 16. Finished exams. Passed them all. It looks blue to see the fellows getting ready to leave. But I'm fixed. Got key to Frater library, to gym and to Bill Kent's room, two packs of cards and Jack's melodeon. Choral; crowd. Thought Miranda came alone, and asked to see her home; got thrown down. "Howl" at Moulton's. Not asked. Went over to Hale's room and found a small "bust" in progress; pop corn, butternuts, and maple sugar (last year's) for refreshments. Some singing, but those things don't make much noise.

Jan. 17. Just loafed and circulated among the fellows here. Accidentally met the inspector as I was going to dinner, and he told me that the faculty were crowding us all out of the buildings, even the Thayer School men. Said it made some difference about insurance. I was much provoked. Won't stay here. Going somewhere. Called on Dr. Labaree to say goodby; he's leaving. The good old lad knows how to talk to the boys. But his wig will slip. The inspector came in while I was there. Offered me a room in his house for vacation without charge. Quibob is a better fellow than I thought. But I'm going just the same.

(Cuthbert departed on the 18th, and returned on Feb. 6th. He seems to have had a very unpleasant vacation. He spent it with his widowed grandmother, an unworldly old lady with sufficient resources which she largely devoted to charity. It appears from Cuth's account that she lived in four rooms, renting the rest of her ample house; that she had no appetite or regular times to eat; that she read only her Bible and the weekly religious paper of her denomination, and was very conscientious with Cuth in the distinction between Sunday and "secular' reading; and that she had no acquaintances under fifty years of age. Cuthbert wrote that she can't help being" an angel she is so sinless and kind, but that the experience has entirely changed his views of the desirability of heaven. He states that he was as bad as he could be with only two dollars more than the fare back to Hanover, but sets down no particulars.)

Feb. 5. Boston. Who should I run on here but Bill Kent, bless his ugly mug. I said, "Bill, I'm perfectly reckless ; you lend me four dollars, and I'll stay over and we'll do the town." Bill had it, so I got a room at the Quincy House — fine place; my father used to stay there — and Bill ate there because I was paying $2 for supper, bed and breakfast; and then in the evening we went to the Museum and saw Annie Clarke as Lucy in "The Streets of New York." She's wonderful; so sweet and kind of tender. We both of us said we never saw a girl like her.

Feb. 6. Hanover. I never thought I'd be thankful to come back to this dead place in the winter, with half the fellows out teaching, but I am. Had to go to the hotel for supper. Hod was cross. Said he'd be damned if he'd have students coming for just one meal. If Mrs. Frary wasn't so solemn I'd think she winked at me. And then she said, "You got to take just what we got; this ain't the Parker House or the Fifth Avenoo Hotel." I filled up all right on fish and cream, hot biscuits and apple sauce. Fell on the icy steps of Reed going to the well; broke two pitchers, bruised my face and cut my hand.

Feb. 8. Called on Miranda. She wanted to know who I'd been fighting with.

Feb. 11. Sunday. The gas fixtures in the church look like spiders.

Feb. 13. Dimond gave us a lecture in Culver. Tried to burn a watchspring, but it wouldn't go. Spent most of the time in talking about the evils of flirting. Old Spuds has done it again. Professor Parker gave us sight-reading — something new —, and Spuds came to "triste lupus stabulis" which he read "the sorrowful wolf in the stables." There weren't many who saw the joke until the polite old gentlemen said, "Yes, yes; the wolf a grievous thing to the folds" reading right along just as if that was the way Spuds said it. Something like that in "Tom Brown." Queer. Choral. Election of officers. I'm on the business committee.

Feb. 20. Choral Society is going to enter the Peace Jubilee in Boston. There's a riot. Mrs. Squires and Mrs. Moulton are pulling hair. A mere man can't know just what it is all about, but I guess they both want to be boss. We got scared for fear one or the other would break away and take her little crowd with her. So I went to see Mrs. Young; you can always trust her. She said, "Cheer up; you couldn't lose either of them if you tried. Don't notice it and go right along." I hear they've patched it up somehow and now it's who can bluff through the hard places best, and be leader when the other women sort of swallow their voices.

Feb. 23. Went to the exhibition of the Home School for Girls. Was just in time to help carry a piano upstairs. Full moon. Just rained and froze. Bill Kent, Hamlin, Eastern and I borrowed Phil Ogden's double-runner and coasted down river hill. I steered. It was glare ice, and she went a mile a minute. Couldn't steer at all. Just kept her in the road to save our lives. Didn't mean to go over the last dip, but it was impossible to stop. There was a team in the bridge and we yelled "Road, road" like a mad baby. We almost ran into a sleigh with the driver fighting to swing a scared horse out of the way. A shaft just grazed Ham's shoulder. There wasn't much snow in the bridge, so of course we stopped pretty sudden and all went in a heap. Nobody killed. Everybody hurt. Served us right for being fools. But we could get home. When he found that we could all walk you ought to have heard the way that driver cursed us. Well, we were fools.

Feb. 24. Awful stiff and lame, but now that I think it over I'm glad I'm not dead. There's a notice up today forbidding coasting on the hill under the penalty of the law. Prof. Phussey got screwed into his recitation room this morning and all his class with him. They got out of the window. Three well-placed gimlets did the business. They say the faculty have already got the fellow that did it. If they have they have got the wrong fellow. *

Feb. 25. Had congregational singing in the church today for the first time in my knowledge. They have thrown away the old Watts and Select. Prof. Quimby, precentor, and Mrs. Squires, our leading soprano, had a little competition on time — tempo, you know — and she beat him. He smiled a sad sweet smile and gave it up.

Feb. 2. Senator Wilson spoke at Lebanon, and the whole class got excused from Geology to go down. About 150 students went. Kent and I each smoked a cigar coming home. Didn't make me sick. Kent only smoked half of his.

Feb. 28. Society. Among other things George Clark had a review of Fox's Book of Martyrs. They gave it to him for a joke. But he took it awful seriously and roasted the jokers. I looked at some of the pictures and I guess it isn't so very funny. Snowed all day. No mail.

March 3. Dr. Thomas Crosby was buried today. Episcopal service in our church. The church was offered to Mr. H. because his down there on the corner of Lebanon St. was so small. He gave out from his pulpit in the morning that the funeral services would be "in the College meeting-house." Honest.

March 4. Looks like serious business between Queen Dido and Tom Bowen. He hasn't got a cent; he'll have to wait four or five years and then marry a girl 6 years older than he is. All right, but if you ask me, I shouldn't advise it. Choral Society is booming. $1 tax voted tonight.

March 6. After society had delegation meeting. Decided to go in with P D Q's and Q E D's and run class day. Piggins wants to be orator, which makes trouble right off.

March 8. Went to a meeting of the selectmen in Precinct Hall. The students want to get their names on the list of voters. Clark had quite a chin with old Duncan about it and got the best of him too, but they wouldn't let him vote. Said he didn't live here, and he said he was alive right now. Went to Prof. Young's lecture on the sun. They say he knows more about the sun than anyone there is.

March 9. One of the ladies said that Quibob was going to give a lecture on the evening we are going to have our concert, and representing the business committee, Rodney and I went to him and told him it wouldn't do. I don't think he liked it, but I bet he doesn't give his lecture then. (Cuthbert adds later, "And he didn't.")

Prof. Young got one on me in Physics this morning. He gave me a problem to do on the blackboard, and I guess I would have got it, but he called on me too soon. He just glanced at it and then explained a better way to do it than I had. He's quicker than a toad's tongue, and that is all we've got against him. When he got done talking he said, "You see the point? You see the point?" Well, I didn't, but I said "Yes, sir," just the way we always do. "Well, what is it?" he asked. While I was stuttering around and all the fellows were laughing, the bell rang and he laughed and said, "Never mind; we'll hear about it tomorrow." Hang it! He'll remember it too. He never forgets anything, except he says he has forgotten his own name once or twice1. He can say the names of our class right through the same as they are on the monitor's list without looking.

Senator Patterson gave a very fine speech about politics.

March 12. Charley Young did forget that this was a holiday. Walked over to town meeting place' with Hale (He isn't teaching this winter.) They call the place Mill Village. They ought to call it Etna because of the eruptions they have in the meetings. Ha ha! It was in a little smelly hall over a store. They talked about building a road somewhere, and one of the farmers said, "Guess the grade'll be a leetle skurse." And another said, "Better go round the mounting and cross the hog-back by Gray's holler." About half the profs were there. I shouldn't think they'd go so far when the "going," as they say, is always so bad; but some one said they couldn't vote anywhere else. Prof. Bully said the town meeting was one of the pillars of liberty. Forget what he said the others were.

March 12. Prof. Young is away giving a lecture and Tutor Emerson had the Physics. The fellows like him. He isn't so quick as Charley, but we can understand him better maybe. They have done us up on class day. The "beats" and the "seeds" in all the fraternities (unholy combination) joined up with the I O U's and the C A D's, sprung a meeting on us and elected their whole ticket. Awfully dishonorable thing to do.

March 17. Sunday. New scheme. Sunday chapel at 5 in the afternoon, instead of in the morning. Now we can. lie abed till church time.

March 20. Last rehearsal before concert. Couldn't be worse. All the women ready to cry. George Hale and I walked along home with Mrs. Young and Miranda. Hale got funny and told Miranda that she was most old enough to go without a, beau, and then he told a story about an old maid he knew at home. I really think Miranda has a sweet temper or she would have bitten him.

March 22. .Concert. Splendid! The Sophomore quartet was wonderful; Deserved the cake. Tom was scared and sang off the key in his duet with Mrs. Moulton, but his nerve was good, and after a while he came back onto the track all right. We made $9O, and I think the women are going to grab it for a piano, or something for the vestry. Now those of us that aren't going to the Peace Jubilee are out of it. I'll have nothing more to do with singing people. Too touchy.

March 25. About 2 feet of snow, softened in the sun. We had a rich old snow-ball fight with the Juniors coming out of recitation. Broke 20 or 30 panes of glass. Miranda had to go down to Lebanon and I drove her. We had Tip Good name. Awful horse. Jaw like a ton of coal. Never stops or slows up till he gets ready. Almost Tip-ped her over turning out. Binney did tip her over a week ago.

March 26. A big open sleigh load of us went down to Leb to see Darling Daisy's Dazzling Dancers. Bum. It took lots of saw-dust to make them look even human, and some of them didn't have any teeth. A big gang of .Lebanon "dirties" snowballed us on the way home, and some of the snowballs smelled like bad eggs. Some of the fellows wanted to stop and fight but Hen who drove said they would have to walk home if they did, as he wasn't going to risk the team in any row. They were three or four to one anyway with more coming. Smoked another cigar. I'm getting tough.

March 27. We heard yells of fire a little after 11, and then the bell began to ring. Of course we all skipped out of recitation. The fire was in one of those houses over by the KKK house, I don't know whose. It burned to the ground, but they saved everything within half a mile. We had lots of fun with the fire company, hollering and throwing snowballs at them. They turned the hose on us but it wouldn't throw far enough to hit. We were going to take it away if it did. Read Merchant of Venice at society. I was Shy lock. It went so well we are going to read lots of plays.

April 16. Been too busy writing a prize essay to write anything here. Went to a "high" over in Tom's room. Maple sugar, eggs, pickles, singing, and — don't mention it — a turkey! The fellows are off tomorrow for six days. Going to stay here and write.

April 20. Bought a stove-pipe hat.

April 21. Wore my stove-pipe hat to church.

April 24. Chapel again this morning. Jubilee Singers of Fisk University gave concert in the church. I never spent a quarter better. The blackest one had a voice like my idea of a big cannon, if it could keep going. Wanted to take Tottie or Miranda or some of them, but they don't do it.

May 1. Junior Ex in the afternoon, and concert in the evening. And the mock programmes! Gosh and gosh again! One edition on the seats in chapel, and another distributed around town in the night.

May 9. I am working all the time that I can get on The Dartmouth. George Clark who had to get out this month's number, asked permission to go home and when they wouldn't give it to him he went anyway. And now he is visiting a Woodstock minister, and I am doing his Dartmouth. He's got the best of it, for there are some nice girls in Woodstock.

I won't date this. But what's the use in keeping a diary anyway! It's baseball time.

IN FRONT OF THE OLD ROW

Looking toward the site of Wilson Hall from the Hotel

Main Street looking north. Professor Sanborn in front of his home

Scoring a Dartmouth point against Columbia at Lake Placid

FRANK SHERWIN STREETER '74