The Days of a Man 1871 



The 



Mitchell 

 sisters 



"Era" 



poetasters 



choice of a life mate than are found in a coeducational 

 institution. This of course is not the whole story, 

 but to my mind the advantages both to men and 

 women distinctly outweigh all incidental drawbacks. 



Fortunately for me and several others, there was 

 one cultured home where we were always welcome 

 that of three sisters by the name of Mitchell who 

 lived in a red farmhouse beyond Cascadilla Creek. 

 Our friendship with Miss Minnie, the youngest, now 

 Mrs. Barnes, was wholesome and helpful at a time 

 when social opportunities were scanty. 



The paucity of womankind in whom we had an 

 intellectual interest tended to turn our thoughts 

 perhaps unduly toward what I then described as 



Glimpses of the golden future, 

 Foretastes of the fair to-be, 



and tinged all our poetical effusions, whether serious 

 or not. Four of us in "The Strug" - Leavitt, 

 Anderson, Dudley, and I had some skill in the 

 making of verses, which we read at our weekly 

 meetings, and often printed in the Era: 



Poets of the better era, 



Poets of the Cornell Era, 



Knock the spots all off from Shakespere; 



so we stoutly asserted, before an incredulous world. 

 One of my efforts, entitled "To Minnie," was sung 

 by her to the blithe tune of "Cocachelunk," an air 

 then popular in college circles. The poem read as 

 follows : 



In the castles grim and stately, 

 In the halls where grandeur reigns, 



Stood of old the Mastersingers, 

 Chanting high, heroic strains 



C68 3 



