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What a train of pleasing reflections are awakened in the breast of a Freshman by
the mention of that simple word? How many sweet recollections crowd upon his
memory! The very sound infuses new life into his frame & causes the blood to
rush with ten-fold rapidity through his veins. It recals to his mind those happy
days, when last he visited the home of his childhood & spent so many
pleasant hours of pure & unalloyed felicity, in the sweet society of those
whom he loves. It reminds him of the visits he made to his friends &
relations—to his Uncles Aunts & Cousins & of the "good old times"
he had with the latter, in hunting, fishing, frolicing & the thousand other
ways in which Freshmen 1 find
enjoyment. All this is very pleagoblers &
the innumerable duck & chickens that were sacrificed; at the thoughts of all
which, even at this time, his mouth waters.
But my joyous Freshman is not yet condemned to look "gone glimering"
2 never to return. No. Another & a
winter, vacation is before him & his heart e'en now 3 beats high with joyous expectations. He looks
forward with fond anticipations to the time, when lake & river shall be
bound in icy fetters and"terra firma"
. He longs to throw off the shackels, with which
severe & rigorous pedagogues have so long restrained him & rush with
free & rapid strides over the smooth & polished surface of the frozen
element. The boisterous shouts of his companions & that strange,
inexpressible noise, which always accompanies the skater, in his evolutions, are
sounds which strike more agreeably on the tympanum of his ear than the most
enchanting music. Skating is at once his pride & his pleasure—when he is
engaged in it, all pursuits are swallowed up in the delightful employment. Could
you but see him, as, with chest advanced & head aloft, he glides in graceful
parabolas, upon the bosom of the deep, you would be struck with his gallant
appearance & the air of internal pride & self-admiration that plays upon
his features.
But enough of skating. The 4 approaching
vacation has other amusements in store for him, besides this. Already in
anticipation, he sees his mother earth, clothed in dazzling white, by Winter's
stern & blighting hand & himself, armed to the teeth in wool, start
forth in search of hares. Methinks I see him too, as, attended by his canine
brethren, he scours every old sage-field & beats every thicket, until some
terrified hare is driven from its covert & compelled to trust its safety to
its heels. Soon as the startled animal is seen, the yelling pack flies off in
swift pursuit
"While mongrel, puppy, whelp & hound
And curs of low
degree, 5 conspire to raise the this the carnivorous Freshman, or whether
his body was torn asunder by dogs, I cannot tell. All I can impart, is, that on
the evening of this eventful day, something resembling the skin of the deceased,
stretched 8 upon a forked stick, was
seen in the hands of the Freshman. Be content therefore, with the solemn
certainty that poor old "cottontail"
has gone the way of all flesh &
that every thing will be revealed on the last great day.
But time fails me, or I would go on to enumerate more of the vacation-pleasures
of our Freshman,—how he will enjoy himself melts &
tails.
1. Freshmen on top of Freshman.
2. "gone glimering"
: gone glimmering, gone by, lost to view; cf.
Ancient of days! august Athena ! where,/Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul?/ Gone, glimmering through the dream of things that were.
3. "heart e'en now"
on top of several unrecovered characters.
4. the with a lower case
t. He then changed the dash to a period and t to T.
5.
"And in that town a dog was found,/As many dogs there be,/Both mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound,/And curs of low degree."
6. he on top of his.
7. tear on top of unrecovered characters.
8. t in stretched.
9. "melts"
: the spleens of such animals as cows and hogs.