MAY 



May \ "\ 7 E have had a day of unprecedented 

 2 - V V and unforeseen excitements. 

 Yesterday was May Day not only the first 

 day of May according to the calendar, but a 

 real old-fashioned day of May revellings, such as 

 our village must have known three hundred years 

 ago. Jim and the Vicar are responsible for it, and, 

 as a consequence, they both wear a flat and care- 

 laden aspect this morning, which seems ominous of 

 expected catastrophe. For my part the catastrophes 

 which have already occurred seem sufficiently un- 

 pleasant to discourage further revelling. 



It must be about two months since that Jim and 

 I were paying a first visit to Mrs. Vicarius when 

 our new Vicar broached his bright idea to us. He 

 wanted to reinstitute old parish festivals, to have 

 Twelfth Night commemorations, May Day junket- 

 ings, beating the bounds, and half a dozen other 

 parochial gaieties. He came in hot with his 

 scheme and appealed to Jim, with whom he 

 had already established a kind of friendship. It 

 appears that Mr. Curtice chooses to call himself 

 a mediae valist, and he besought Jim as a brother 

 antiquary to support him. Jim is, of course, a 



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