Ilion High School - Class of 1885

Ilion Citizen - May 25, 1885

The Class of '85 May Day

Article 2

The Class of '85 May Day - contributed

Thursday last the class of '85 of the Ilion academy laid aside books and study and decided to enjoy the scenery and a May Day at East Creek. In the morning we found that our tall and stately Lily was missing from the class bouquet, and unforeseen circumstances prevented her joining us. Then was there "mounting in hot haste;" bicycles and horses were bestridden to pay her a visit; and there were tears and entreaties, prayers and supplications, until all obstacles were surmounted and all objections over-ruled and then a few of us led off by looking cross-eyed at the time table, and as a result were obliged to wait three-quarters of an hour for our train. At last I arrived, and two young ladies, whose names we will not mention, made a grand bolt for the smoking car; but they didn't get in; oh no! They acted as though they had forgotten something and wanted to go back after it; and the way they climbed into another car would have won the everlasting admiration of an athlete.

As a matter of course it began to rain and rained as though it meant to damped something too. It was a very glum looking party that disembarked at east Creek station; but just then the clouds began to break away; so we gathered up our baskets and picked our way across a crazy, creaking, raised walk toward the Beardsley grove. As we drew near, we saw a blue sweeping-cap loom up over a stone wall, and Mrs. Beardsley sailed toward us with an angelic smile upon her countenance. Immediately we all put on a look of injured innocence, and with visages as solemn as owls fell back and left our poetess and prophetess to face the batter. She began:

"Mei in or, verba lactic
Fel in corde, frame in factis!"

And from her mouth flowed streams of "bitter-sweet" so easily and naturally that we looked around to see who was turning the crank. She said that no picnic parties were allowed on the farm lands, because they poked the roof off the summer house with their parasols, barked the young trees, knocked off the growing fruit, fed their horses in the cornfield, tore down the fences, roasted the potatoes, and some other things which we fail to remember.

Then we spat upon our hands, gathered up our baskets, girded up our loins, "and got over from Dan even unto Beersheba," that piece or parcel of land owned by that good Samaritan, Mr. Rasbach; and we sat us down upon a huge flat rock nigh unto a roaring waterfall that is, all but one did, and he sat himself down into a can of salmon that stood near by. Shade of Bacchus, what appetites! There fell to our lot a piece of cake with a large red ant on it; but we were not fastidious. There was a great yearning, gnawing emptiness under our vest; so we brushed him in and ate cake and all. The rest of the day --- when not eating --- was spent in rambling over the rocks and admiring the magnificent scenery. The artist of the class brought back a life-size sketch of a worm, lying dormant upon a piece of bark, and carried the worm half a mile in her pocket to display its beauties to an admiring friend.

We wound up with a game of polo, during which our honorable president kicked the skin off the back of one man's hand, and caressed another's pet corn with a club. Two of the girls were goal tenders, and they did very well 000 except, whenever the ball came toward them they screamed and ran away. We reached the station an hour before ... bribe a boy to get us some water, but he was not to be corrupted. He said there was no water at the station, and hadn't been for a week; and we thought in our inmost soul that judging by the looks of this face there hadn't been for a month.

We finally found ourselves "homeward bound." Every one on the train was shocked at the way we carried on, and one old lady held up her hands in pious horror and exclaimed, "What a giddy crowd!" Our chief amusement was watching a train boy with a jaw full of tobacco and a cast iron cheek who attempted to scientifically mash our historian and who ogled and grinned in the most idiotic manner in spite of dagger-like looks and tart remarks from the thoroughly riled object of his adoration. We know she was riled, because when we tried to joke her about it, she hit us with a knit purse containing four pounds of pennies in one end. We reached home "in the stilly night" and our mother fell on our neck and kissed us and said we had tanned, and the sun had peeled our cunning nose.