Ode to the Pepper Box
Students enjoying a picnic at the Pepper Box 1888–1890. Photo courtesy of Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections.
From October 10, 2016, through December 18, 2016, the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum will feature the exhibit The Recovered History of Prospect Hill, exploring forgotten campus sites Goodnow Park, Lake Nonotuck, and the Pepper Box. Learn more about the exhibit by visiting the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum’s website.
In it’s hey day, the Pepper Box was the inspiration for this poem, which appeared in the 1898 Llamarada yearbook:
To the Pepper Box
O YOU saucy little pepper box,
With eight big eyes
Which I surmise
Are like so many spies
To spoil tête-à-tête upon the rocks.
You’re a naughty little hypocrite.
Though you look so very staid,
You’re in truth a little jade
To deceive the little maid
Who at your feet doth sit.
For while they gaze, ‘twixt smiles and sighs,
On the merry laughing rills,
The gently sloping hills,
And the distant Holyoke mills,
They are watched by those eight wicked eyes.
Read more about the Pepper Box.
October 12, 2016
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