Vassar College, f/ay 19.
My dear Mother,— 1895.
I hope you are having as beautiful weather as we, it has
been cool, just cool enough to be pleasant, all the week- very good weather
for studying, and I hope we will continue to have it cool for two or three
weeks, for that reason, because we have a good deal of studying before
us- The last two weeks are always filled with "extra work" such as
reading up about things, and doing all sorts of things out of the ordinary -
which is harder than the usual routine. Tomorrow we finish up our lab-
oratory work in chemistry, and have review and written lessons the rest
of the time. We are having written lessons In almost everything. Miss
Macurdy told us to learn the names and subjects of Plato's thirty-six
dialogues, for next lesson,- a sample of the craay things she has us do.
This morning Dr. Huns tone of Brooklyn preached. We have only one more
church service in the chapel here, beside the Baccalaureate sermon. I
suppose you will have Children's Day the Sunday before I get home.
By the way, we have had some more discussion this week about
how we shall get home. The Nickel Plate and the B and O are both anxious
to have us travel on their lines - The Nickel Plate offer a ticket for about
nine dollars, with a stop-over at Niagara Falls- A number of the Western
girls are going that way and going to stop at the Falls. X could not find out
the particulars about this ticket yesterday because the girl who knows about
it was not at home when I went to ask her. To take the B and O we would go
May 12, 1895 - 2
to New York first, and from there we would take the B and O and the fare
from New York to Cleveland would be about nine dollars. This goes by
way of Washington, and allows a stop-over at Washington, for the day, leaving
there in the evening. This, you see, gives a chance to see the "capitol of
the Nation", though it is round-about. But it would cost less, or at any
rate not more, than the regular fare on the New York Central, counting in
the cost of being at Washington during the day. The girl who is advertizing
for this way, will get the circulars and time tables in a few days, so that
we will know more about it. I don't know whether or not you could find out
about these ways at home, but I should think you could. Fares must be
getting cheaper, for the Nickel Plate gives fare from New York to Chicago
for thirteen dollars.
Maude Warner went home yesterday- She lias been sick a great
deal this year, and so thought she might as well go now. She will have to
make up all her examinations the first part of next year. You know she is
the girl who lives in Cincinnati.
Yesterday we did an extravagant thing. We went to see "Buffalo
Bill", who is in town. We were talking about him at the table at lunch
yesterday and some of the girls were describing the glories of his exhibi-
tion to Miss Macurdy. She listened with a great deal of contempt at first.
She has never even been to a circus in her life, her taste running chiefly
May 19. I89i> « 3
to Latin and Greek plays and Boston lectures. But she really became
interested in Buffalo Bill's career, and said she really believed she would
like to go. I think she was most induced by the fact that Buffalo Bill is the
brother of Mrs. Irvine, the President of Wellesley College. Still she was
not sure whether it was proper to go. But she agreed with us that she
would go and take us if Mrs. Kendrick thought it was proper. So we went.
We all enjoyed it very much. I have always heard that Buffalo Bill was
worth seeing, and so it was, but, like the circus, I think I should not care to
see It more than once. I think Buffalo Bill's was better than the circus.
Ray told Miss Macurdy that all the best people in Chicago went to see
Buffalo Bill, but this did not do much to raise it in Miss Macurdy's estima-
tion, for her knowledge of Chicago people was limited, she said, to what
she had learned from a Boston friend of hers. This lady told her about
meeting a wealthy Chicago man, and the only sentence of his conversation
which she reported was this: ' Then up I gits and jumps on my horse."
But that was enough for Miss Macurdy. Since then she has looked on
Chicago people with abhorrence. Miss Macurdy amuses us so much some-
times- I used to read jokes about Boston people in the newspapers, and
thought them all very much exaggerated, of course. But Miss Macurdy
certainly goes far ahead of anything I ever read about Boston intellectuality.
The great event of this week was our Tree celebration. The Sophomore
May 1Z9 1895 - 4
class chose a tree aad put aa it their class crest in bronze, with appro-
priate ceremonies, and than when they are Seniors, they bury their class
records beneath ih?Ci: tret. »V e dressed up last night as darkies, and such a
sight as we were.' "W e wore the gayest striped underskirts we had. and the
oldest and brightest waists. Belle wore my dressing sack - that tight
flannel one. but as she is much thinner than X. there was room for two
sofa pillows- We also wore red and orange sashes. £ made use of that
big hat of Aunt AlUe's. trimmed with red and blue ribbons and yellow and
m
purple flowers of Ray's. We blacked our faces and hands in great style
and ran out through the corridors, spied only by our next-door neighbors-
The Freshmen came out to bother us- and also some Juniors- because we
are supposed to have our fun with no other classmen around. The Fresh-
men were waiting outside the gymnasium, where we were assembled, ready
to march to our tree. They grew quite Impatient waiting for us, for every
once in a while they clapped and told us to hurry up. At last we silently
departed out of the back door, leaving the Freshmen in front. But they
soon came after us, and in the midst of our program joined hands and ran
they
around us in a circle. But after this subsided - especially since Ray yelled
to them to make their circle into an eclipse. At the tree we all gathered
close around and tue President of our class \ "called the meetin' to order",
and said that the ' minutes of de last ten meetin's would be omitted This
May 19, 1891' - 5
raised a shout, because in our last class -meeting some cne remarked
thai all our minutes had to be read and approved before our Senior year -
and they have almost always been omitted, in fact I have only had to read
them once since X have been Secretary, So some one moved that v/e spend
a lew minutes reading back niinutes, and I read all the minutes for the
last ten meetings or so.
Then Ray made the Tree Oration, which I need not describe, as it is
printed on the programme, though when she gave it, she added several more
jokes-
Jessie Thain made a short "Chain Oration'' putting the chain which
held the bronze crest, around the tree. These orations were interspersed
with singing - Nancy McClelland always makes up some songs for us to
sing on every occasion - Then we went two by two, singing, to the gymna-
sium, where we were entertained by a ''minstrel show"- The colored
orchestra,- Ray and fifteen or twenty other girls dressed as colored men -
sat up on the platform, and enlivened the proceedings with occasional jokes
and conundrums- Then there were "living pictures"- The Heavenly Twins -
were the largest and the smallest girls in the class. "Two little girls in blue
were two of the tallest girls in the class, dressed in hideous shades of
blue which would not harmonise. A "prima donna" also made her appearance
rigged out in stunning finery - and sang Home, Sweet Home, ^n^with all the
May !9> 1895 « 6
affectation and languishing that could be put Into it, and the tune only
nee.r enough to be recognisable-
After this we got up from the floor- where we had sat during the
performance- and had sarsaparilla and peanuts - and conversation - of
course all in the dialect of the darkles-
When we came home, we stopped in at the rooms of some of our
friends - rather startling them by cur appearance. Some of our best
friends could not recognise us and were muck surprised this morning
when we spoke of having been up to see them.
There! I do run along so when I am writing to you. When I start
out I always plan to write several letters, but I begin yours first so as to
be sure to get it done, and then I write so long on it that I very, very
seldom get so far as writing another letter. Tt will net be long before X
won't have to write to you - will it? .Lovingly
Adelaide. jClaflhij