As for Athletics, tennis and baseball had arrived, but no football or track work. Several students had their own saddle horses and one or two could be hired. A happy memory is of a spring day, a ride through the fragrant sagebrush, a running race down Ontario’s long street,—a good time even if I did wear a long black habit and ride a sidesaddle.
On the first Mountain Day we went to Live Oak Cañon—perhaps thirty of us. We led the outdoor life that has always been so large a part of Pomona College attractiveness. I wonder if any one since my day, after a picnic in the Wash, enjoyed an afternoon of sledding. Four of us, naturally two boys and two girls, once topped off a “steak-feed” by sliding down the short, grassy slope of the knoll, south of the present Greek Theater, with a frying pan and an iron baker for our sleds.
The heating arrangements in the Hall were primitive, so that a minor object of every walk was to collect combustible material. I’m afraid that a good many corner lot stakes went up in our smoke. The little stoves were amusing. As I remember them, they seem about six inches square, by twelve long, but I suppose they really must have been at least ten by fifteen. One day I went in under the Hall in search of chips left from the building, but meeting there two cunning little black and white wood-pussies, I quickly and silently retreated, lest they should consider me a poacher on their preserves and protest.
The college library at that time occupied partially half a dozen shelves in an alcove. Miss Spalding, who had brought two hundred books with her out of the East as a nucleus for the library was in charge, and in the spring term inspired us to see how much we could earn for its benefit. Soon all sorts of enterprises were under way. Our dining table instituted a system of penny fines for tardiness or slang. I was book-keeper and still hold the record. Individuals offered their wares or talents for the fund. In the April number of the Student I find various advertisements: “We sadly look at our tattered garments, but suddenly our faces light up, for we remember that Miss Metkiff darns at 1 cent per square inch.” “R. S. Day Jr., famous tonsorial artist. Hair cut, fifteen cents; shave, ten cents. Bangs cut and curled, ten cents; long hair shampooed twenty-five cents; short hair, ten cents.” Attractive rates offered by the first Claremont barber, you must admit.
I, who owned one of the original kodaks, taking pictures about the size of a butter plate, made one very successful photograph. Rev. E. S. Williams, a visitor at the college, volunteered to give Bancroft’s History of the United States to the infant library in exchange for a picture of the Student Body. Our labors netted much fun, the history, and about thirty dollars.
Excitement grew as Commencement approached, for a class of eleven was ready for college and in September the actual work of college grade would begin. Although the closing exercises were made much of, and guests came from all over Southern California, we youngsters were never allowed to forget that we were merely “preps,” and, lest we should imagine ourselves of too much importance, no diplomas were allowed us. We were told by Mr. Norton that we were “nothing but kids.” To remedy this lack of evidence of our graduation, two of us picked out, finger by finger, on the only typewriter in town, diplomas modeled on an Amherst one, in which we granted ourselves the degree of “Haedi (kids) in Artibus.” These we distributed at our class supper, served in Mr. Brackett’s bar room. On this occasion our class prophet established her claim to be a seer for she said, speaking of David Barrows:
“What are you, priest, poet or philosopher?”
“I am in the P’s at any rate,—purveyor.”
“Of mental merchandise,” said his sister.
“Allow me,” said a merry voice at my elbow, “to introduce Mr. Barrows, H.A., B.A., M.A., D.D., LL.D., Ph.D., president of ... college, the leader of young shoots in the way they should go.”