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A MATHEMATICAL STORY

FACTS respecting an old arm-chair.
At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there.
Seems but little the worse for wear.
That ‘s remarkable when I say
It was old in President Holyoke’s day.
(One of his boys, perhaps you know,
Died, at one hundred, years ago.)
He took lodgings for rain or shine
Under green bed-clothes in ’69.

Know old Cambridge? Hope you do.–
Born there? Don’t say so! I was, too.
(Born in a house with a gambrel-roof,–
Standing still, if you must have proof.–
“Gambrel?–Gambrel?”–Let me beg
You’ll look at a horse’s hinder leg,–
First great angle above the hoof,–
That ‘s the gambrel; hence gambrel-roof.)
Nicest place that ever was seen,–
Colleges red and Common green,
Sidewalks brownish with trees between.
Sweetest spot beneath the skies
When the canker-worms don’t rise,–
When the dust, that sometimes flies
Into your mouth and ears and eyes,
In a quiet slumber lies,
Not in the shape of umbaked pies
Such as barefoot children prize.

A kind of harbor it seems to be,
Facing the flow of a boundless sea.
Rows of gray old Tutors stand
Ranged like rocks above the sand;
Rolling beneath them, soft and green,
Breaks the tide of bright sixteen,–
One wave, two waves, three waves, four,–
Sliding up the sparkling floor.

Then it ebbs to flow no more,
Wandering off from shore to shore
With its freight of golden ore!
Pleasant place for boys to play;–
Better keep your girls away;
Hearts get rolled as pebbles do
Which countless fingering waves pursue,
And every classic beach is strown
With heart-shaped pebbles of blood-red stone.

But this is neither here nor there;
I’m talking about an old arm-chair.
You ‘ve heard, no doubt, of PARSON TURELL?
Over at Medford he used to dwell;
Married one of the Mathers’ folk;
Got with his wife a chair of oak,–
Funny old chair with seat like wedge,
Sharp behind and broad front edge,–
One of the oddest of human things,
Turned all over with knobs and rings,–
But heavy, and wide, and deep, and grand,–
Fit for the worthies of the land,–
Chief Justice Sewall a cause to try in,
Or Cotton Mather to sit–and lie–in.
Parson Turell bequeathed the same
To a certain student,–SMITH by name;
These were the terms, as we are told:
“Saide Smith saide Chaire to have and holde;
When he doth graduate, then to passe
To ye oldest Youth in ye Senior Classe.
On payment of “–(naming a certain sum)–
“By him to whom ye Chaire shall come;
He to ye oldest Senior next,
And soe forever,”–(thus runs the text,)–
“But one Crown lesse then he gave to claime,
That being his Debte for use of same.”
Smith transferred it to one of the BROWNS,
And took his money,–five silver crowns.
Brown delivered it up to MOORE,
Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four.
Moore made over the chair to LEE,
Who gave him crowns of silver three.
Lee conveyed it unto DREW,
And now the payment, of course, was two.
Drew gave up the chair to DUNN,–
All he got, as you see, was one.
Dunn released the chair to HALL,
And got by the bargain no crown at all.
And now it passed to a second BROWN,
Who took it and likewise claimed a crown.
When Brown conveyed it unto WARE,
Having had one crown, to make it fair,
He paid him two crowns to take the chair;
And Ware, being honest, (as all Wares be,)
He paid one POTTER, who took it, three.
Four got ROBINSON; five got Dix;
JOHNSON primus demanded six;
And so the sum kept gathering still
Till after the battle of Bunker’s Hill.