Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/381

 tion of the human race has “fine pantings” to dispose of cheap for cash, was strictly of Harvard origin. About the year 1850 two diminutive Dutchmen, the brothers De Yong, were wont to haunt the rooms of the undergraduates, offering pipes, mantel ornaments, and knick-knacks in exchange for cast-off raiment—the primitive simplicity of such barter apparently marking the inception of this branch of human endeavor in Cambridge. As Italian was then a popular study, Arthur Dexter of ’51 applied to the smaller of the brethren the adjective poco (little) and the casual nickname has stuck ever since.

While on the subject of nomenclature, let us return for a moment to the other generic title of “goody.” This shortening of “good-wife” is of course sound old English for any ancient dame of humble station. Doubtless all female servants of the College were thus addressed in olden times, as witness the invocation to Goody Morse already quoted. But as the daily tasks fell more and more into masculine hands, the term narrowed down to the chambermaids, the last group of the fair sex remaining. With this specialized connotation it has descended to the present. Like the use of the word “Yard” (for