Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/172

 on June 19, “to be home in a few days for we have nothing to eat and the president says he believes College will break up; one day we do not know we shall have any victuals the next.” At Harvard there seems to be no record that this catastrophe actually occurred; but at Yale, on several occasions during the Revolution, the students enjoyed a vacation not on the calendar, since it was found impossible to feed them anything at all.

A curious secondary complication was also produced by the war. If there was little to eat, there was even less to eat it with. When the Commons hall was occupied by the militia during the Siege of Boston, the plates, spoons, and mugs went the way of all the other pewter in the neighborhood, and disappeared as if by magic into the Continental bullet-moulds. It was well-nigh impossible to replace them. Young Bourne writes: “I am very sorry that Hall disappointed me about the spoons, must have a set somewhere if I can.” The cutlery too had vanished so completely that at the end of a badly scrawled letter he adds apologetically, “no penknife to make a pen.” As for the pots and pans, the second “Account of Damages” suffered by the College from the American Army includes the item: “Kitchen Utensils Carried away £37.6.0.’’