On the Day the Session Breaks, Composition of
James J. Pettigrew
for the Philanthropic Society, [1847]
1
Pettigrew, James Johnston, 1828-1863
Page 1
Decidedly one of the most important scenes, enacted at College, is
to be witnessed on the day the session breaks. The whole week till Thursday
evening is occupied with
in in exeminations. At twelve o'clock all are free, and if it
were not beneath the dignity of Collegians, such a shout of joy would arise as
would make the Campus ring and shake the old
South
[Building] to its very foundations As it is however, nought is heard but
the hum of a hundred voices, engaged in preparing for departure, students
handing over cash to servants, porter shouldering trunks, horses snorting,
wheell a rouns ratling, carryalls [rumling], an all kinds of vehicles from the open wagon and prancing
saddle-hire to the four horse coach of Buffaloe, flying through the Campus and
recieving their loads of students and trunks. In fact a crowd of
Chapel
Hill students have about as much baggage as a pack of ladies; Leather
trunks and hairtrunks, clothes bags and saddlebags, boxes, bundles and all the
thousand conveniencies that have been made for storing away a man's worldly
possessions.
It is somewhat wonderful to the uninitiated, how extremely eager
all are [to] leave this spot, sacred to the,
muses
and
Apollo
.
Here our
habits
time is our own; we are masters of our
actions, without any one to say go hither or thither. Every thing is done by
clock-work; Two days of the week belong to us and we in consideration of all
this only to get some ten or twelve lessons, which, assuredly, is not a hard
task upon the majority of College, who suffer the time to slip by, without
knowing what authors they are perusing. We have no thought for the morrow, our
purses are supplied by other hands, and all
that the greater part of us have to do, is to sit by a blazing
fire, with a pipe dangling in our mouths and listen to anecdotes, keen
remarks,
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witty sayings &c; which are so
congenial to the atmosphere of
C. Hill.
But notwithstanding all this, the whole of College, even the insignificant
Freshman, manifests the
most
utmost eagerness to be gone. I know of no reason, to
which this is attributate unless it be the passion for novelty, which so
universally distinguishes youth. Suffice it to say, however, that such is the
case and not one stays who can get away, and the twelve o'clock bell has no
sooner sent forth its last peal, than every soul is for jumping into his
conveyance and leaving post-haste. Last vacation, I remember well was a dreary
time. The snow lay one or two inches deep, just sufficient to makes us feel all
its bad effects with non of it's good. Here was a carryall with four freshmen,
dear, innocent, unsuspecting, unsophistocated, little creatures, in glorious
ignorance, whether they were disapproved or not, and congratulating one another
upon escaping a star in the catalogue. One of the little darling was in a state
of forgetfulness, and the other three fast approaching that desired condition.
All going home, where they ought to have been long ago,
and . At the [corner] of the
South
[Building], was a carriag, composed of a mixture, full of fu
ll
n, all ready to make
a jovial trip. No oppressive cares weighed down their breasts; no
fluttering heart
beatings struck against their ribs,
like the old bell clapper against the side of the bell, when rudely swiv[l]ed
from one side to the other by some midnight prowler. Free, lighthearted,
independent of the faculty. Suppose we take a peep inside the buildings; here
is one man packing up with all of his might, bothered to death by a crowd of
friends standing round determined to get a shake of the hand before he
leaves
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In another room are three or four standing round a table, hats on
and pantaloons inside boots, ready to start, but before the go, taking a
farewell glass. The passage is full of trunks and negroes, willing to seize
anything unappropriated. Put your head out in the Campus again; see a poor
fellow while making his way to his conveyance, stopped at every step by some
darkey with Mister B, "I come for that little you owe me". "Well
how much?" "forty-five cents, sir."—"Mr B.—I
believe you owe me a quarter." "For you old senior" "for a
chicken supper sir." And so on, till at last, when he does reach the
carriag, it is with a diminished purse. Yonder is one man with his head out the
East Building window, roaring out for
Chester
, "Chester-r-r-r,! oh!
Chester;
Chesterfield
!
" how long before my concern will be
ready," "The boy says, sir, the salubrity of the atmosphere is very
congressional to the consolidated feelings of his concomitancy and that he will
be there presently." All is uproar, and confusion nothing in its right
place and every thing wrong A confused mass of Faculty students, hackdrivers,
college servants,
village negroes, etc. But in
the midst of all these there is one who looks on with a downcast heart; he
hardly dares to raise his eyes for fear of seeing some old acquaintance taking
his leave for six weeks, I mean the vacation, he who looks forward to a dreary
month and a half, separated from all his associates, cut off from all his fun.
Watch his slow and melancholy step; notice his dejected air, as he
follows strolls from building to
building, and from vehicle to vehicle: see with what a doleful appearance he
shakes the hand [of] every parting associate, and amidst the remembrance of the
joy you felt at your departure, bestow one thought upon
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the poor disconsolate being, who is condemned to [lose] the sight of
your joyous face, and to be thrown upon his own resources for amusement, during
the long, alas ye know not how long, time of a vacation. In every country,
every rank, every condition of life, and even in every crowd we see exhibited
the most
2
opposite feelings and situations, No two men are in the same situation; here,
3 also,
we have the accustomed variety: A smiling face on the one hand; a most doleful
one on the other. Here is joy; there is sorrow; here is anxiety; there,
light-heartedness. And such is life; we must part with every thing that is dear
to us: friends become
faithless
treacher; lovers
treacherous; prosperity is lost; As
Dr
Johnson has justly remarked we all struggle to live to a grey old age,
for no purpose, indeed, but to
see our
hopes have the pleasure of surviving all our friends and seeing
th ourselves standing like
a blasted pines,
amids in the forest, remnants of a
former age.
4 But a
truce to moralizing. Such separation must happen and we must bear them in the
bst manner possible. Let those, who despond, console themselves with the
reflection, that we shall, most of us, meet again on this same spot, to press
our
hands in recognition of old friendship, to
pass the sparkling bowl around the jovial circle and pledge each other success
in all the heartfelt sincerity of
an en
warmhearted and enthusiastic student.