The Story of Wellesley [86]
rate of one cent for two, darned stockings for five cents a hole, shampooed, mended, raked leaves. Members of the class of 1916 sold lead pencils and jelly, scrubbed floors, baked angel cake, counted knot holes in the roof of a summer camp. Besides "Beau Brummel", 1915 gave dancing lessons and sold vacuum cleaners. One student who was living in College Hall at the time of the fire is said to have made ten dollars by charging ten cents for every time that she told of her escape from the building. The class of 1918, entering as freshmen in September, after the fire, raised $5,540.60 for the fund when they had been organized only a few weeks.
The methods of the alumnae were no less varied and amusing. The Southern California Club started a College Hall Fund, and notices were sent out all over the country requesting every alumna to give a dollar for every year that she had lived in College Hall. Seven hundred and fifty dollars came in. There were thes dansants, musicales, concerts, of which the Sousa concert in Boston was the most important, operettas, masques, garden parties, costume parties, salad demonstrations, candy sales, bridge parties; a moving-picture film of Wellesley went the rounds of many clubs, from city to city, through New England and the Middle West. An alumna of the class of 1896 "took in" $949.20 for subscriptions to magazines, with a profit of $175.75 for the fund. She comments on Wellesley taste in magazines by revealing the fact that the Atlantic Monthly "received by far the largest number of subscriptions." One girl in Colorado baked bread, "but forsook it to give dancing lessons, as paying even better!" In New York, Chicago, and other cities, the tickets for theatrical performances were bought up and sold again at advanced prices. A book of Wellesley recipes was compiled and sold. An alumna of '92 made a charming etching of College Hall and sold it on a post card; another, also of '92, wrote and sold a poem of lament on the loss of the dear old building. The Cincinnati Wellesley Club held a Wellesley market for three Saturdays in May, 1914, and netted somewhat over seventy-five dollars a day for the three days. One Wellesley club charged ten cents for the privilege of shaking hands with its "fire-heroine."
On Easter Monday, 1914, when the college had just come back to work, after the fire, the "Freeman Fowls" arranged an egg hunt, with egg-shaped tickets at ten cents, for the fund. The students from Freeman Cottage, dressed as roosters, very scarlet as to topknot and wattles, very feather dustery as to tail, waylaid the unwary on campus paths and lured them to buy these tickets and to hunt for the hundreds of brightly colored eggs which these commercially canny fowls had hidden on the Art Building Hill. After the hunt was successfully over, the hunters came down to the front of the new, very new, administration building, already called the Wellesley Hencoop, where they were greeted by the ghosts and wraiths and other astral presentments of the vanished statues of College Hall, and where the roosters burst into an antiphonal chant:
"Come see the Wellesley Chicken-coop, the Chicken-coop, the Chicken-coop. Come see the Wellesley Chicken-coop, (It isn't far from Chapel!) Come get your tickets for a roost, and give Your chicken-hearts a boost, Come see our Wellesley Chicken-roost, (It isn't far from Chapel!)
"Just see our brand new Collegette, it's College yet, it's College yet, With sixty-six new rooms to let, (They're practicing in Billings). The Collegette is very tall, It isn't far from Music Hall, Our neighbors can't be heard at all (They learn to sing at Billings).
"Oh, statues dear from College Hall, from College Hall, from College Hall, Don't hesitate to come and call On Hen-House day at Wellesley. Niobe sad, and Harriet, and Polly Hym and Dian's pet On Hen-House day,--on Hen-House day, O! Hen-House day at Wellesley. Come walk right through the big front door, Each hour we love
The methods of the alumnae were no less varied and amusing. The Southern California Club started a College Hall Fund, and notices were sent out all over the country requesting every alumna to give a dollar for every year that she had lived in College Hall. Seven hundred and fifty dollars came in. There were thes dansants, musicales, concerts, of which the Sousa concert in Boston was the most important, operettas, masques, garden parties, costume parties, salad demonstrations, candy sales, bridge parties; a moving-picture film of Wellesley went the rounds of many clubs, from city to city, through New England and the Middle West. An alumna of the class of 1896 "took in" $949.20 for subscriptions to magazines, with a profit of $175.75 for the fund. She comments on Wellesley taste in magazines by revealing the fact that the Atlantic Monthly "received by far the largest number of subscriptions." One girl in Colorado baked bread, "but forsook it to give dancing lessons, as paying even better!" In New York, Chicago, and other cities, the tickets for theatrical performances were bought up and sold again at advanced prices. A book of Wellesley recipes was compiled and sold. An alumna of '92 made a charming etching of College Hall and sold it on a post card; another, also of '92, wrote and sold a poem of lament on the loss of the dear old building. The Cincinnati Wellesley Club held a Wellesley market for three Saturdays in May, 1914, and netted somewhat over seventy-five dollars a day for the three days. One Wellesley club charged ten cents for the privilege of shaking hands with its "fire-heroine."
On Easter Monday, 1914, when the college had just come back to work, after the fire, the "Freeman Fowls" arranged an egg hunt, with egg-shaped tickets at ten cents, for the fund. The students from Freeman Cottage, dressed as roosters, very scarlet as to topknot and wattles, very feather dustery as to tail, waylaid the unwary on campus paths and lured them to buy these tickets and to hunt for the hundreds of brightly colored eggs which these commercially canny fowls had hidden on the Art Building Hill. After the hunt was successfully over, the hunters came down to the front of the new, very new, administration building, already called the Wellesley Hencoop, where they were greeted by the ghosts and wraiths and other astral presentments of the vanished statues of College Hall, and where the roosters burst into an antiphonal chant:
"Come see the Wellesley Chicken-coop, the Chicken-coop, the Chicken-coop. Come see the Wellesley Chicken-coop, (It isn't far from Chapel!) Come get your tickets for a roost, and give Your chicken-hearts a boost, Come see our Wellesley Chicken-roost, (It isn't far from Chapel!)
"Just see our brand new Collegette, it's College yet, it's College yet, With sixty-six new rooms to let, (They're practicing in Billings). The Collegette is very tall, It isn't far from Music Hall, Our neighbors can't be heard at all (They learn to sing at Billings).
"Oh, statues dear from College Hall, from College Hall, from College Hall, Don't hesitate to come and call On Hen-House day at Wellesley. Niobe sad, and Harriet, and Polly Hym and Dian's pet On Hen-House day,--on Hen-House day, O! Hen-House day at Wellesley. Come walk right through the big front door, Each hour we love