Blanchard Amy Ella
The Four Corners Abroad

CHAPTER IX
WORK

"Get up, lazybones, get up. Don't you know you are to see the whole of Oxford to-day and go to Stratford to-morrow?" cried Nan, shaking Jo from her slumbers.

"Hm, hm," answered Jo sleepily turning over.

Nan gave her another shake. "Don't you know that the toast is getting colder, the black tea is getting blacker, the eggs getting harder and the slabs of bacon getting slabbier and flabbier? I am going to breakfast."

"Dear me, Nan, is it as late as that?" said Jo sitting up suddenly.

"Yes, and there is honey instead of the marmalade you don't like," replied Nan over her shoulder. "Mother got some yesterday."

Jo, thoroughly aroused, sprang from her bed to rush through her toilet and join the others down-stairs.

"We thought maybe you didn't care to see Oxford," said Miss Helen smiling as Jo came in hurriedly.

"Well, no," drawled Jo. "I've seen Harvard, you know, and what are colleges anyhow? I never expect to take a degree and why should I be interested in Oxford? Of course I will go with you all if you insist, but if it were Earl's Court, for example, where there is a maze, a water toboggan and such things, I might be more enthusiastic." It was like Jo to turn off things in this way, and every one laughed.

"You know," said Miss Helen, "that Hawthorne called High Street the noblest old street in England, so that is one of the things we must be sure to see."

"And Addison's walk," put in Nan.

"To be sure, and you girls will find the Bodleian Library very fascinating. As for the colleges themselves, with their chapels and quadrangles, if you do not think them beautiful as well as interesting I am much mistaken."

"Again we sigh for that entire summer which cannot be ours," said Nan.

"Yet – " Miss Helen began.

"Oh, I know what you are going to say," interrupted Nan, "and we know all about that possible future. When do we start out?"

"As soon as I can gather the brood together. Don't dawdle, any of you, if you love me."

Her appeal was not without effect, for the whole party appeared in a very short time, and they set forth to go from college to college, to walk up High Street, to turn into Addison's walk and to return at night tired out.

"We fairly skipped through," remarked Mary Lee. "I have a confused jumble of colleges in my brain, and can't for the life of me tell Brasenose from Oriel or Lincoln from Queen's."

"Study your post-cards, my dear," said Nan, "and they will tell you."

"Not everything."

"What they don't tell Baedeker does, so I wouldn't bother my dear little brain with trying to remember so exactly. As for myself, Oxford represents a mass of beautiful ivy-clad buildings, more or less resembling each other, lovely gardens, chapels and cloisters, a cathedral, a library and one long fine street. That is all the impression my mind has received. After a while I shall try to separate the conglomeration by looking over my post-cards, but just now I am capable of seeing it only as a whole, an impressionistic picture, as it were."

"Shall we have another day of it, Miss Helen?" asked Jo.

"I think another morning, so we can take the train for Warwick in the afternoon. It is not so very far and we need not start very early."

"Then, ho for Stratford-on-Avon, where we shall become Shakespeare mad, and for Warwick where Jack can see her white peacocks," cried Jo.

Yet the glories of Warwick Castle were less attractive to the twins than the little tea-garden on Mill Street, which, indeed, pleased them all.

"I never saw such a dear little place," said Jack with satisfaction.

"That cunning cottage with vines all over it," said Jean.

"And that lovely tangled garden down to the very water's edge," Nan put in.

"And the ducks, look at the ducks!" cried Mary Lee.

"Is this little stream really the Avon?" asked Jo. "What a fine view of the castle from here."

"It is the loveliest place to rest in," said Mrs. Corner sinking into a seat by one of the little tables.

"Are we going to have plum-cake?" whispered Jean.

"Pig!" exclaimed Jack scornfully.

"How did you happen upon such a charming spot, Helen?" asked Mrs. Corner.

"I have been here before, and it was one of my pleasantest memories of Warwick. Mother and I came more than once when we were here."

Nan's thoughts flew back to her stately grandmother, whom she had known but such a short time, and she fancied her sitting at one of the tables sipping her tea and looking up at the great castle walls. The girl turned to her Aunt Helen. "I am glad you told us that," she said in a low voice and Miss Helen gave her an appreciative smile, for she understood what was in her niece's thoughts.

"There comes a boat full of young folks," cried Jo. "Isn't that interesting? It is just like an illustrated story, isn't it? They are going to stop here for tea. Aren't the men fine looking, and the girls are exactly like those you hear about. I can't say that they have the style of the Americans, but they have lovely complexions."

"Come, let's feed the ducks," suggested Jack when the others were still sipping their tea. "It will be such fun, Jean, and I am sure they are expecting it."

Jean was not quite sure that she was willing to sacrifice any of her plum-cake to the ducks but concluded she would give them some bread. "No doubt they will like it just as well," she told Jack.

They lingered so long in the charming little garden that the melodious cathedral chimes were ringing for six o'clock when they reached the hotel, enthusiastic in their praises of the castle and of the little tea garden on Mill Street.

Stratford-on-Avon, with a walk across the pleasant country to Anne Hathaway's cottage took them an hour when it had to be decided whether the Lakes or Devonshire should be included in the next move. Finally, Miss Helen proposed that she and the three eldest girls should take a flying trip to the Lakes, leaving Mrs. Corner and the twins at Warwick, a place where they were delighted to stay, with a promise of the tea-garden every afternoon and a sight of the peacocks on the wall of Warwick Castle between whiles. Mary Lee declared she much preferred Grasmere to Cambridge, and so Nan had her wish, for she beheld Dove Cottage, Helm Crag and all the rest of the places made familiar to her by her last year's study of Wordsworth. The limits of the trip were reached at the Lakes, and then they turned their faces southward to catch a glimpse of the Sussex downs on their way to Newhaven.

Once more in Paris to gather up trunks and to make ready for a long stay in Munich with a glimpse of Switzerland on the way. There had been a meeting with Miss Barnes and her party of schoolgirls and great doings for two or three days before the Corners should separate from the others. Jo, to her great joy, had received permission to stay behind. Daniella had bidden them all a reluctant farewell. The summer had been a sort of fairy-tale to the little mountain girl, and if she had not received altogether correct impressions, and had often been bewildered, yet she had made great progress and could scarcely be recognized as the same girl who had so fearfully entered Miss Barnes's school the year before. Now she did not dread going back, for the same company with whom she had been traveling all summer would be hers for another year. Yet she bade a wistful farewell to her first friends, the Corners, whispering, "I wish you were coming, too," as she took her place in the train which should bear them all to Cherbourg.

So while these traveled west, the Corner party journeyed east, and at last they reached the clean, pretty city where they would settle down for days of study. The two younger girls were to be day-boarders in a small school, while the three elder ones were to give most of their time to particular studies. All would have lessons in German while Nan wanted to make a special point of music.

"You're going to stay with us, mother, aren't you?" said Jean wistfully. "You're not going to leave us here all alone like we were last year?"

Mrs. Corner smiled at the aggrieved tone. "I shall stay here till after Christmas anyhow," she promised, "and then if I must go away for the coldest months we shall all be together in Italy by the first of April."

Jean sighed. After so much freedom it was hard to adjust one's self to school routine, and as yet she had not settled down to the new conditions. "Shall we have to wear funny hats and do our hair in braids up over the tops of our heads or around our ears like the German girls do?" asked the little girl whose looks were something of a matter of pride to her.

"I think you will do as you have always done in that direction," her mother told her. "You are not a German girl, you know."

"But Fräulein is very particular," spoke up Jack. "To-day one of the German girls came with her hair done like ours, and Fräulein marched her out of the room and slicked up her hair and braided it so tight her eyes almost popped out of her head. She came back looking so scared."

"And, oh, dear," groaned Jean, "we have to walk along so soberly when we go out for exercise. We don't dare turn our heads, and the girls look so creer in those funny little flat hats, as if they had crackers on their heads. I feel like a craker, or something, myself."

"Do you mean a cracker or a Quaker?" asked Jack mischievously.

"I mean a craker that you spell with a cu," replied Jean with dignity.

"Look here," said Nan laughing, "you youngsters mustn't begin to whine the minute we get here. Goodness! do you suppose there are not thousands of girls who would give their eyes to be in this beautiful place and have the chances you have? We have been junketing around for so long that we don't want to do anything else. Every mother's daughter of us has got to work; that is what we came to Munich for, and between times we shall have more to see than you would get in any other dozen cities rolled into one."

"It's all very well for you to talk," said Jack. "You are going to operas and grown-up things like that, and we can't."

"But you can do other things, and the operas and concerts are a part of my musical education; they would bore you to death. There are ever so many things for you to do."

"Tell me," said Jack, getting into her eldest sister's lap. Nan always made things pleasant for her.

"Well there is the Englischer Garden, a beautiful park that isn't walled in like some of those in England. There is a playground for children there and fine walks and drives. Then just now the October Fest is going on; it is something like our county fair at home."

"Are there merry-go-rounds and side-shows?"

"Yes, ever so many."

"Good!" Jack brought her hands smartly together.

"And then there are the museums full of all sorts of interesting things that you will like to see. On Saturdays we can make lovely excursions to Starnberger See or the Isarthal, and on some other days there is music played by military bands in different places. I believe it is every day at the Guardhouse on the Marienplatz, and every other day at the Feldhernhalle on the Odeonsplatz, but we can find out exactly. Those are amusements of the present; in winter there will be other things."

"What?"

"Well, there will be lots of skating."

"I can't skate very well."

"It will be a fine chance to learn here. About Christmas time there is always a fairy play for children, and at other times there is the marionette theatre that you and Jean will adore. Then, too, we shall probably go to the mountains for the holidays where you can see all sorts of funny doings."

"What kind?"

"Oh, ski-ing, and rodeling and all that."

"They're funny words, and I haven't the least idea what they mean."

"Ski is spelled with a k, but it is pronounced as if it were she, and rodeling means simply tobogganing on a small sled. Skis are great long things something like snow-shoes. I am crazy to learn to ski, for it must be something like flying. Then there will be the carnival that begins in January, though I don't suppose we shall see much of that. Besides, Jack," she went on, "the Munich streets are lovely. There are so many pretty squares and parks and fountains, not to mention the shops, so I don't think we could get very lonely or bored. After all I have told you I am sure you will think it is a nice place to be in, and that we shall have a good time here."

"I know I shall when you are around, you dear old Nan," said Jack, rubbing her cheek against her sister's.

"Even Aunt Helen is going to study," Nan said. "She knows French mighty well but her German isn't up to the scratch, she thinks, and she says while studying is in the air she will take advantage of it."

"We aren't going to stay in this hotel, are we?"

"No, we are going to a pension Aunt Helen knows of. There isn't room for us there now, but next week there will be, and we shall probably stay there till we go to Italy. Aunt Helen says it is nice and homelike, and we can be left there in perfect safety if mother and she have to go away."

"Will there be any other little girls?"

"I don't know. Very likely there will be. Now I must go and practice that dreadful Bach thing that I am getting ready for to-morrow." She gave Jack a hug and went off.

"Nan's such a nice old comfort," said Jack to her mother. "She always smooths out the wrinkles for me. I hope she won't get married before I do."

"I don't think I would begin to worry about that just yet," said Mrs. Corner smiling.

"Oh, I'm not worrying; I'm just taking time by the oar-lock."

Mrs. Corner laughed outright while Jack wondered why.

"Mayn't we go out into that pretty square where the big fountain is?" she asked.

"I don't like you to go alone."

"But it is so near. You can look out of the window and see it, and I am asking permission," said Jack as if the mere matter of asking were all sufficient.

"But you know over here in Europe little girls don't run about as freely as they do at home. Get one of your older sisters to go with you."

"Nan can't; she has to practice and Mary Lee has gone somewhere with Jo, and Aunt Helen went to see about lessons or books or something."

"Then I will go with you and sit by the fountain while you amuse yourselves."

This arrangement pleased the twins mightily. The big Wittelsbacher fountain in the Maximilianplatz was a thing to be admired and they were never tired of watching, what Jack called, its big splash of water. "I feel so satisfied when I look at it," she told her mother. "I never saw a fountain with so much water all going at once."

"I wish we could have brought over our dear little doggie," said Jean as she watched numberless little dachshunds trotting by.

"We couldn't very well do it," Mrs. Corner told her, "for we should have had to carry him around everywhere, and there is a law in some countries which makes it very hard for travelers to bring in their dogs. He is much better off where he is."

"I am afraid he will forget me," said Jack, whose dog the little creature really was.

"I don't doubt but that he will be quite ready to make friends again," her mother told her.

"I never saw such a crauntity of dogs as there are in Munich," said Jean. "I think everybody must own a dog, and there are more dachshunds than any other kind."

"I like them best," Jack declared. "With their little short legs and long bodies they look so funny, and they have such serious faces as if they had something to do and it was very important that they should get it done."

"There come Aunt Helen and the girls," cried Jean.

Miss Helen with Mary Lee on one side and Jo on the other mounted the little incline which led past the bench where the three were sitting. "Why," cried Miss Helen, "what are you doing here?"

"Mother came over with us to sit by the fountain. Isn't it a beauty, Aunt Helen? We like it so much."

"I like it, too, and we are so pleasantly near it. Indeed, I think this is a very convenient part of the city, for we are within walking distance of almost everything. Where is Nan?"

"She said she had to get that music into her fingers before to-morrow, so she is the only one who didn't come out-of-doors."

Miss Helen sank down on the bench by the side of Mrs. Corner. "I am tired," she said, "and in this thoroughly democratic place where one can do exactly as she pleases, I don't mind sitting openly in a square where the public passes by. That is one of the things I like about Munich. Nobody seems to mind wandering about deliberately. Men and women take time to stare into the shop-windows, and no one pays the least attention to them. You can wear your old clothes and not feel that you are dressed worse than half your neighbors. People here seem to live for something more than to change the fashion of their sleeves and to rush for ferry-boats and trains. They take time to enjoy themselves, as few do at home. I wonder if it is too late for a cup of tea. I feel the need of one."

Mrs. Corner consulted her watch. "It is just a little after five."

"Then, Jack," said Miss Helen, "go tell Nan she has practiced long enough and I want her to come with you to join us at the Conditorei on the Promenadeplatz. We will go there and you can meet us; it is only a little way from here."

Jack scampered off to obey, for this would be a new entertainment and Nan must not miss it.

"What is a Conditorei?" asked Jean.

"It means a confectioner's as near as I can make out, though this one seems to be a tea-room as well. It is a very pleasant place to go. You can choose your cakes at the counter and take them to the table with you, or else you can order them brought. I generally like to pick out what I would like best."

"That is what I should like," said Jean with much satisfaction, "for then you get them sooner. I am very glad you came along, Aunt Helen, for we mightn't have gone to the tea place if you hadn't."

Jack and Nan soon appeared, and the girls found it a very agreeable thing to sit in the pleasant little place watching the persons who came and went. There were many Americans among them, and the Germans were noticeable from taking their pet dogs with them here, as to other shops.

"You always see a collection of the dear things outside the big department stores," said Mary Lee. "I've counted a dozen sometimes, and even outside the churches you see them sometimes waiting for their masters. I like the way they are made to belong to the family and taken out as a matter of course; only sometimes they get so tired and look so bored and unhappy, though no doubt they would rather go than be left at home."

"I like those magnificent horses," said Nan. "I never believed there were horses with such noble arched necks, except in pictures or in statuary. They are the biggest things I ever saw, such great massive splendid specimens."

"They come from the north of Germany," Miss Helen told her. "They are used for draught horses, and you always see them harnessed to the big wagons. The oxen here are very large, too, and you will often see them hauling a load of bricks or stones through the streets."

"I have noticed a rather curious thing," remarked Mrs. Corner. "Sometimes you will see a wagon with a horse harnessed to one side the pole and not in shafts; it has a most curious effect, a very one-sided look."

"I saw something funnier than that," said Jack: "a man and a dog pulling a cart piled up with all sorts of stuff, old chairs and bits of stovepipe and things like that. The dog was pulling just as hard as the man and when the man stopped the dog lay down and seemed so pleased to think he had been helping. I liked that dog earning his living. I hope he gets well paid for it in nice food with plenty of bones to gnaw."

Here Jean heaved a long sigh having eaten the last morsel of her cake. "It was so good," she said. "May I have another piece, mother?"

"My dear child, I think one slice of that rich Prinz-Regenten cake is quite enough for one afternoon. Another time, but not now," and Jean mournfully accepted the decree.

"Speaking of Prinz-Regenten," said Miss Helen, "I am sorry we had to miss the Wagner Festival at the Prinz-Regenten Theatre, but we had to give that up or the trip to England."

"I really don't think we have been unwise in taking England instead," said Mrs. Corner, "for we shall be here long enough to enjoy all the opera necessary. The prices at the Festival are so very high, five dollars for a single performance, and I am told it is chiefly tourists who patronize the opera then. Sensible people wait till they can hear the same singers later on at a lower price."

"Nan is wild to hear Herr Knote," said Jo. "She already has ten post-card pictures of him and is always on the lookout for more."

"Of course," returned Nan. "He is the greatest German tenor, and why shouldn't I want to hear him; besides he isn't like some of the others, for everybody in Munich respects him and that speaks well, for he lives here."

"How do you know so much?" asked her mother.

"My music teacher told me."

"So that is what you talk about."

"It is one of the things. I am supposed to get history of music as well as the theory and practice, and he belongs to the history, I am sure."

"Without doubt," her aunt assured her, rising to go. "Well, Nan, I hope you will not be disappointed when you hear him."

"I know I shall not be," said Nan with conviction. "Frau Burg-Schmidt says his voice is simply great."

They wandered out into the street and across the fine Maximilianplatz to their hotel, feeling that they had chosen well in settling in Munich for six months.