Memories and Anecdotes | Page 5

well, but cheated me a
good deal." "Yes, sir, but you have no idea how much I've cheated
you."
Our one milliner, positively brilliant in her remarks, when a lady sent
back her bonnet twice on the ground that it was not becoming, said,
"Remember you have your face to contend with."
Our only and original gravedigger, manager in general of village
affairs.
After the death of a physician, his wife gave a stained-glass window to
the Episcopal Church of St. Luke, the beloved physician. She asked
Jason if he liked it. He said, "It don't strike me as a particular speaking
likeness of Dr. Tom."
To one of the new professors who ventured to make a few suggestions,
"Who be yaou anyway?"
He enjoyed buttonholing people he met in our "graveyard" and pointing
out where they "must shortly lie."

Our landlord--who that ever saw Horace Frary could forget him? If a
mother came to Hanover to see her boy on the 2.30 P.M. train, no meal
could be obtained. He would stand at the front door and explain,
"Dinner is over long ago." He cared personally for about thirty oil
lamps each day, trimmed the wicks with his fingers, and then wiped
them on his trousers. Also did the carving standing at the table and
cleaning the dull knife on the same right side--so the effect was
startling. One day when he had been ill for a short time his wife said:
"Dr. Dixi Crosby is coming this way now, I'll call him in." "Don't let
him in now," he begged, "why d---- it, I'm sick!"
I must not omit the strictly veracious witness who was sworn to testify
how many students were engaged in a noisy night frolic at Norwich.
"As fur as I know, there was betwixt six and seven."
"Webb Hall," who today would figure as a "down and out," made many
amusing statements. "By the way I look in these ragged clothes, you
might take me for a Democrat, but I'm a red hot Republican."
He was obsessed by the notion that he had some trouble with a judge in
Concord, New Hampshire. He said fiercely, "I will buy two guns, go to
Concord, kill Judge Stanton with one, and shoot myself with the other,
or else wait quietly till spring and see what will come of it." A possible
precursor of President Wilson's Mexican policy.
He was accused by a woman of milking a cow in her pasture; pleaded
guilty, but added, "I left a ten-cent piece on the fence."
An East Hanover man is remembered for his cheek in slyly picking
lettuce or parsley in the gardens of the professors and then selling them
at the back door to their wives.
And a farmer from Vermont who used to sell tempting vegetables from
his large farm. He was so friendly he cordially greeted the ladies who
bought from him with a kiss. Grandmother evaded this attention by
stating her age, and so was unmolested. The names of his family were
arranged in alphabetical order. "Hannah A., give Miss Kate another cup
of coffee; Noah B., pass the butter; Emma C., guess you better hand

round the riz biscuit."
Life then was a solemn business at Hanover. No dancing; no cards; no
theatricals; a yearly concert at commencement, and typhoid fever in the
fall. On the Lord's Day some children were not allowed to read the
Youth's Companion, or pluck a flower in the garden. But one old
working woman rebelled. "I ain't going to have my daughter Frances
brought up in no superstitious tragedy." She was far in advance of her
age.
I have always delighted in college songs from good voices, whether
sung when sitting on the old common fence (now gone) at the "sing
out" at the close of the year, or merrily trolling or tra-la-laing along the
streets. What a surprise when one glorious moonlight night which
showed up the magnificent elms then arching the street before our
house--the air was full of fragrance--I was suddenly aroused by several
voices adjuring me, a lady of beauty, to awake. I was
bewildered--ecstatic. This singing was for me. I listened intently and
heard the words of their song:
Sweet is the sound of lute and voice When borne across the water.
Then two other sweets I could not quite catch, and the last lines sung
with fervor:
But sweeter still is the charming voice Of Professor Sanborn's
daughter.
Two more stanzas and each with the refrain:
The prettiest girl on Hanover Plain is Professor Sanborn's daughter.
Then the last verse:
Hot is the sun whose golden rays Can reach from heaven to earth, And
hot a tin pan newly scoured Placed on the blazing hearth, And hot a
boy's ears boxed for doing That