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Going A-Baisy-Picking in Iunior Year

We might have slept ten minutes more, at least. That “might have been’’ was our
bitter thought as we stood under the arch at six o’clock one June morning awaiting the
wagon that was to take us to our daisy fields. Somehow, it was not one of those bright
sunny mornings, one reads of, for there was a mist in the air, a chilly dampness that
justified even such costumes as we wore. Gym suits, peculiarly suggestive of work and
dirt, were everywhere. Some, skilfully hidden under coats and sweaters, showed only by
a well-known expanse of neck, others by straggling ends of sailor collars yellowed by three
_ years’ use.

What pangs of envy tore us when Linda Lange cheerily described the good breakfast
she and her friends had been eating! She had not, however, been out of college too long
to know what our faces and exclamations meant, for in spite of our urging her (perhaps
rather half-heartedly), not to bother, she disappeared into Pembroke East and soon
returned with big handfuls of bread deliciously buttered. At the same time, the wagon
appeared and we piled in regardless of numbers.

Then Lucia slapped the horse lustily with the reins and off we went, clattering merrily
past Dalton, expecting every moment to be left on the roadside in a heap of splinters.
However, we turned the corner in safety and started down the Gulf road lickety-split,
until the wagon suddenly showed tendencies of going faster than the horse.
Needless to say, some of us suddenly preferred to walk, reaching the wet daisy field

all too soon. In picking, some of the girls used their bare hands, others wore gloves and

the more fortunate cut the stems politely with scissors, knives and even shears. Two
sickles were particularly popular. They gave rise to a system of twosing, otherwise called
“economy of labor,” in which one girl did the cutting, the other the carrying. As we picked

_ we stopped at times to compare, not the size of our bunches, but the amount of water in
our shoes. I remember stamping my feet just to hear the delightful squashy gurgle and
feel the water bubble over my feet. One girlafter literally wringing her hands, very gener-

ously lent her left glove to a suffering picker, who having made her right hand struggle

into it, went on picking as though she were the happiest of creatures.

Just as we were getting used to the clattering return of the wagon, with its appeal
for more and still more daisies, the news came that the Sophomores were amply supplied
and that we could go home. So wearily, but in a spirit of good fellowship, we climbed
that interminable Gulf road, wringing our skirts and lifting our feet slowly and with the
utmost precision. We reached the tennis court to see a bright daisy chain being carried
across the campus—a sight that was the reward of our labor. Lovisk FLEISCHMAN,

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