Blanchard Amy Ella
The Four Corners Abroad

CHAPTER XI
SETTLING DOWN

The problem of getting opera tickets was solved the next day when Dr. Woods made his visit. "I have promised myself to stand in line every week," he said, "and if you will commit the buying of the tickets to my charge I promise to do my best for you. It is just as easy to buy four or five tickets as one. I shall probably not treat myself to anything more expensive than places in the Dritte Rang, but I can get yours anywhere you say, provided there is a chance of doing it."

"That relieves us of a great responsibility," said Miss Helen, "though it seems rather an imposition upon you."

"Not a bit of it. I should be very unhappy to know that any of you ladies were on your feet out there in the cold when there was a man around to do the standing for you."

"Spoken like a true American and a Virginia gentleman at that," said Miss Helen. "Nan proposed to be our opera ticket buyer, as she is the most interested, but her mother objected."

The doctor gave a quick glance at the slender dark-haired girl, almost too tall for her years. "As her medical man I sternly forbid it, too," he said. "It is not the thing for any delicately bred woman to do. Some of these sturdy Germans may be equal to it, but none of your race. No, Miss Helen, I insist upon your letting that duty fall upon me."

"Then please accept our united thanks. We do want Nan to have as much opera as is good for her, but we don't feel that we always shall want to pay for the highest priced seats, if we can get any at all at lower rates."

"I shall frequently make a rush for Stehplatz," declared the doctor, "for I am putting all my spare cash into my work and my amusements must be of the cheap kind. However, there couldn't be a better place to find such. One can listen to a first-class concert for the meagre price of fifteen or twenty cents, if you don't mind going to a concert hall where people sit around little tables and drink beer. It is always most quiet and orderly and you see a good class of persons at such places, for they want to hear the music and do not want the least noise."

"Every one in Munich drinks beer," remarked Nan. "Even the München kindel is often pictured with a glass of beer in one hand and a bunch of radishes in the other."

"Who is the München kindel?" asked the doctor.

"Have you been in the city twenty-four hours and have not made its acquaintance? Why, it is everywhere, on calendars, cards, liqueur glasses, all sorts of souvenirs, bonbon boxes, signs, and I have even seen the little monkish hood and cloak imitated in a covering for my lady's pet dog. Here," she picked up a guide-book from the table and handed it to him.

"Oh, that? Yes, I have seen the little fellow, but I didn't know what it meant except that it seemed a sign and seal of something Münchener. Do you know its origin?"

"I know something, though no one appears exactly to know why it happens to be a child. You probably know that Munich originally belonged to the monks who lived in a monastery on the Tegernsee. Their place was called München. There are a number of stories about how the little kindel happened to be used, but Aunt Helen says it was probably adopted as the seal of those way back monks. Some one told me that there is a legend which says our Lord came in the form of a little child in monkish dress to bless the town and the good work of the monks, and that ever since the München kindel has been honored. Others say that it is simply because as time has gone on different artists and sculptors have tried to improve on the original design and it has become what it is now. I like the legend best though perhaps the other is truer. I have become very fond of the little monk's smiling countenance. Sometimes he has a book in one hand and two fingers of the other are outstretched in benediction, but when he is very hilarious, he waves a stein of beer in one hand and a bunch of radishes in the other."

"Wise Nan," said the doctor. "Whenever I want archaic information about the city I shall come to you."

"Nan may be able to tell you all about those funny old things," broke in Jack, "but what I want to hear about, Dr. Paul, is home. Did you see Phil and Gordon? How was Aunt Sarah when you left? Is Mitty there? Are the cats looking all right? What was old Pete mule doing when you saw him last?"

Every one laughed and then every one turned eagerly to the doctor, for what did not Jack's questions bring before them? The old brown house, with the garden behind it wandering up-hill, Aunt Sarah bustling around, Phil with Trouble at his heels running across the field between his own home and the Corners', Old Pete standing by an angle of the fence, wagging his long ears as he looked up and down the road.

"Do tell us about everything," said Mrs. Corner drawing her chair a little nearer.

"Miss Sarah was very well and getting ready for her boys who hadn't come when I left," responded the doctor. "I saw a pair of black legs scudding across the garden and I fancy they must have been Mitty's. As for Pete, I am afraid I don't remember about him, and I did not see any of the cats. Yes, I did; a big gray Angora came out and blinked at me as I was saying good-bye to Miss Sarah."

"That must have been Lady Grey," remarked Jack.

"The Lewis's are all well. Miss Polly is to be married at Christmas, as I suppose you all know."

"Oh, dear, and we shan't be there," sighed Mary Lee. At that moment the glories of travel, the novelties of foreign lands were as nothing compared to the bond which linked them to old Virginia.

"And your own family?" said Mrs. Corner. "Your mother and father?"

"Mother is well and so is father, better than usual. A new doctor has settled in town, an enterprising young fellow with the acquirements of foreign study still clinging to him. Father said that if I meant to hold my own in the town I must study abroad, too, and if eventually I concluded to step aside and let Hastings have the field I would need some work over here wherever I might settle. He thinks he can keep up our end for six months and then I shall go back and make up my mind whether father shall retire in my behalf, or whether he will keep a few of his oldest patients and transfer the rest to Dr. Hastings."

"You are not going to desert us, Dr. Paul?" said Mrs. Corner.

"I am not sure. At all events we shall see when I get back. You all have deserted your old neighbors, why shouldn't I follow your example?"

"But not for always," said Nan eagerly. "We shall go back to stay some day, shan't we, mother?"

"Are you sure you will want to, Nan?"

"I am sure I would like to feel that I could come away sometimes, but there is no place like home. I want to live most of my life there, and I surely want to die just where I was born."

"It isn't a very big world, that little town of ours," said Dr. Paul smiling at her ardor.

"It is big enough. After we have seen the great outside world it will be the most delightful thing to go back and think about it all."

"And your music, your college career and all that?" said Miss Helen.

"Don't you think it will give as much pleasure there, the music, I mean, as anywhere? And I am sure our University has brains enough in it to keep my poor supply guessing. Nobody need rust out where our University is." Nan spoke proudly.

"Good for you, Nan!" cried the doctor. "You are loyal to the core. That is the way to talk. I am going to sit down this very night and write to father about what you have said. It will do him good to know how you feel. He thinks a lot of Miss Nancy Corner."

"Must you go?" said Mrs. Corner as he rose to take his leave.

"Yes, I must. I am not fairly in harness yet, but I have a lot to do."

"You will come in and see us often, I hope."

"Won't I? Mother is depending on it, I can tell you. The fact of you all being here made it easier for her to see me go. And Mrs. Corner, remember, I am yours to command. You must not fail to call upon me for anything in the wide world that I can do for you, just as you would on Tom Lewis or any of the boys at home. I want the privilege of being your right hand man, as I am the only one of your townsmen here."

"You are a dear boy," said Mrs. Corner laying her hand affectionately on his shoulder, "and I shall be delighted to take you at your word whenever occasion requires on condition that you write to your mother that I say she needn't worry over her son while Mary Corner is on hand to have an eye to him."

"I'll do it and it will be no end of comfort to her. She expects me to come home with forty slashes on my face and an insatiable thirst for beer."

"Are you going to wear a green or a blue cap or what color?" asked Jean.

"I'll wear my own American headgear, if you please."

"And you won't have those sword cuts all over your face?" said Jack.

"Not if my present stock of vanity holds out. I am afraid you would never be my sweetheart if I allowed myself to be hacked up in that style, Jack."

"Oh, but I shall never be your sweetheart," returned Jack calmly. "I am Carter's. I used to be Clarence's, but I most forget him, and he doesn't write to me, but Carter does."

"I see. Well, anyhow, I shall not submit to having my noble countenance marred. Now, I must go, Mrs. Corner. It is so good to see you all and such a temptation to stand and talk. I'll come soon again, if I may."

"As often as you please. I've neither music nor German to absorb me, for I intend to spare myself all I can, so when the others are busy you will find at least one at leisure," Mrs. Corner assured him and he went off leaving all with a feeling of nearness to home which his presence had given.

A new arrival at the pension that day filled the last of Fräulein Bauer's rooms, and decided who was to complete the house party. A pleasant American woman with her son and daughter took rooms opposite the Corners. The family now consisted of the six Corners with Jo Keyes, Mrs. Hoyt, son Maurice and daughter Juliet, a stout Russian lady and her son, "the Herr Professor," as the Fräulein called him, a jovial German, and a severe looking dame whose nationality no one seemed to know. Nan insisted that this last person was a Nihilist, while Jo declared she was an American refugee. Mary Lee thought she must be Italian, because she liked macaroni and asked for more olive oil on her salad. She did not seem to be very fluent with German, though no one had heard her speak any other language. She sat at the extreme end of the table, and bowed with great stateliness to the others whenever she came in or went out.

It was Miss Helen who at last discovered the lady's nationality, and announced with great glee that she knew.

"I am positive she is Russian or Polish or something like that," declared Nan. "I am sure she has a bomb concealed in her room and has designs upon the Prince Regent."

"I am convinced she is Italian," Mary Lee differed from her sister. "She has such black eyes and hair, and I saw her with a letter in her hand that had an Italian stamp on it, and it was addressed to Signorina something or other."

This seemed fairly good proof, but still Miss Helen shook her head.

"She might be Spanish," ventured Jo, "for, as you say, Mary Lee, she is very dark. If she were Russian why doesn't she talk to the other Russians at the table?"

"I hadn't thought of that," said Nan, "though maybe she doesn't want them to know she is Russian for fear they will find out her plots."

Miss Helen laughed aloud. "You are away off, Nan," she said.

"Perhaps she is a Greek." Jack thought up this.

"Or a-a-Austrian," Jean ventured.

"Then she'd speak better German," objected Nan.

"What do you say, Mary?" asked Miss Helen. "No one so far has guessed right. You must have a chance."

"She might be French, perhaps Canadian French."

"But the Italian letter," spoke up Mary Lee.

"I had one from Italy myself this morning addressed to Signora Corner," Mrs. Corner told her.

"Then that falls through," said Jo. "Give it up, Miss Helen."

"My dears, she's plain, dyed-in-the-wool, United States American, from Chelsea, Massachusetts."

"Oh, oh," came a chorus of laughing exclamations. "The very idea! How did you find it out?"

"I encountered her on my way down-stairs this morning, and she asked me if I knew where she could find a second-hand book-shop. I happened to know of one and I told her. We were going in the same direction and we walked together a little way."

"Is she any kind of an anything?" asked Jack.

"That is rather a vague question," said Miss Helen. "Couldn't you be a little more exact, Jack dear?"

"I mean is she a doctor or a teacher or anything like that? She looks like she might be something besides just a plain woman."

"She certainly is a plain enough woman," remarked Nan with a laugh.

"She didn't mention that she had a profession, though I think she is here for a special purpose, perhaps," Miss Helen told them.

"American," said Jo reminiscently; "that's the limit. It shows that one can never tell. Why, we might have discussed our most intimate affairs before her, and never have dreamed she could understand a word of what we said."

"Which goes to show that one must be very careful about one's speech when traveling abroad," said Mrs. Corner.

"What do you think of the new girl and boy?" Jo asked Nan that same day.

"They're rather nice, I think. The boy seems a jolly sort of somebody and the girl is very friendly. They are going to school and seem to have a number of friends here, which will make it pleasant for us. Mother likes Mrs. Hoyt. They know some of the same people at home and spent an hour reminiscing after dinner. I am glad on mother's account, and Aunt Helen's, too, that she is so nice."

The American part of the pension soon resolved itself into a very congenial party. Nan struck up a friendship with Juliet Hoyt, while Maurice dangled after Jo and Mary Lee. Maurice was a merry, gentlemanly lad with dancing brown eyes, and a frank mouth. He was always ready for fun, and as both Mary Lee and Jo were very fond of outdoor sports the three had long walks together and promised themselves later that they would skate and rodel and ski as often as they could.

It was not long before Maurice's schoolmates found out that Mrs. Hoyt's sitting-room was a very pleasant place, and that she herself was a sympathetic person into whose ears they could pour their woes or whom they could come to in hours of homesickness to be comforted, therefore there was scarcely a day passed but some one of Dr. Mann's schoolboys wandered into Pension Bauer for cheer.

Nan and Mary Lee had always been thrown a great deal with their boy cousins, and Jo was so full of life that she naturally attracted boys, so it must be confessed that Mrs. Hoyt was not the one chiefly sought. "But there is safety in numbers," she said to Mrs. Corner, "and I want my children to have good honest friendships among both boys and girls, so do please let your young people frolic with mine; it won't hurt them one bit. Moreover I think it is much the better plan to allow them to have their friends here where I can overlook them and take part in what goes on. It seems to me that the surest way of keeping the confidence of both my boy and girl is not to be too severely critical, and to make whatever place stands for home as happy as possible."

Mrs. Corner quite agreed with her, and though half a dozen boys vied with one another to see which could nearest match in socks and neckties the color of Jo's winter suit, the Sunday after she appeared in it, and though Maurice insisted upon sending daily notes to Mary Lee these were all very harmless matters. It was something to make even their elders laugh to see the six boys in green socks and neckties as near of a color as possible, and when Mrs. Corner read the little jokes which passed for notes she saw what very innocent nonsense it all was. So the young folks had the best of times and afforded much amusement to their families.

"Winter is at hand," said Nan one day as she came in from her lessons. "They are covering up our beautiful fountain that we all love so, and they are beginning to pack up the rosebushes and plants in the parks. I wish you would see how beautifully they do it. They have loads and loads of evergreen stuff that they put around the bushes, so when they are done up, instead of looking like scarecrows wrapped in straw they are nice, neat, well-shaped cubes and cylinders of green that don't offend the eye in the least. Of course they can't do the fountain that way, for it is too big, and it has to have an actual house of boards built over it. I am thankful for one thing, for though they cover up so much else they can't do anything to the Frauenkirche."

"I am glad of that myself," returned Miss Helen. "I love the way those two big towers dominate the city."

"It is such a nice orderly place," Nan went on. "If a pile of boards and building materials must be in the street, it is piled up as carefully as possible so as to take up the least room; it isn't pitched helter-skelter all over the place as it is so often at home."

"They certainly do things of that kind very carefully; I suppose because they take more time. We are always in such a rush at home."

"Another thing I like," Nan went on, "is the number of big landmarks there are. Somehow, although it is really quite a large city, it doesn't seem so. There is plenty of space, and buildings are set so you can see them easily. They aren't crowded in little narrow streets so they make no show at all. When I see the big fountain I know I am nearly home. The Neue Rathaus is another landmark, the Isarthor is another, the Odeonsplatz still another, while if you catch sight of the Frauenkirche no matter where you are you can tell in exactly what direction you ought to go."

"I am glad you are so contented, my dear," said Miss Helen, "as long as you are to be here for the winter. I think the others are, too."

"Yes, I am sure they are. Jack was delighted because she happened to be with you when the figures came out on the clock in the tower of the Neue Rathaus."

"Yes, we happened to be just in time."

"It certainly is a fine building. Indeed, it seems to me that Munich has nothing but fine buildings wherever you go; fine gateways and arches and parks. I like those old painted houses, too. In fact I think Munich is delightful beyond words, and if Italy surpasses it I shall not be able to stay in my skin."

"It doesn't exactly surpass it. Each has its own attraction. To me there is no place quite like Italy; it has an indescribable charm. I am afraid we shall not find the sunshine here that we should get there."

"I am sure it has been lovely for a whole month, scarcely a rainy day. Think how beautiful and sunny it was that day we went to the Starnberger See."

"Yes, but I am told in winter the sun shines seldom. You see Munich is on a plain where the mists gather and remain. While the sun may be shining brightly on the mountains above, here it will be dull and gray for weeks at a time. You remember that even at the Isarthal it was clear and bright, yet we found Munich wrapped in mist when we came back. It is said to be healthful nevertheless."

"I don't like the not seeing the sun, but maybe we won't miss it so very much so long as it doesn't rain much. There is one thing that is very funny to me, Aunt Helen, and that is to see how the women work. It looks ridiculous to see a woman in an absurd Tyrolese hat with a feather sticking up straight behind, turning the tram switches, and to see them carrying heavy loads of wood on their backs or pushing a big cart through the streets is something I cannot get used to. Look at our little Anna here at the pension, she goes down into the bowels of the earth somewhere and brings up coal, great buckets of it, over two long flights. Imagine expecting a servant to do that at home."

"The German point of view is quite different from ours in more than one direction, you will find."

"I have noticed that. The other day when we all went out to the Isarthal with Fräulein Bauer and her brother, although he was as polite as a dancing-master in most ways, he never offered to help her or any one up those hundreds of steps one must climb to get to the station at Höllriegelsgreuth-Grünwald."

Miss Helen laughed. "How did you ever remember that long name, Nan?"

"Oh, I made a point of it because it was so nice and long. As I was saying Herr Bauer seemed quite a pig by the side of Dr. Paul who is always so lovely and courteous to every one. Fräulein Bauer was quite overcome when he rushed back to help her. I don't believe a man ever did such a thing before for her."

"As we were just saying their standards are very different from ours, although you will not find so great differences in the upper classes. Generally speaking, a woman must be a good hausfrau and make the men comfortable to reach the proper ideal; failing this she is a worthless creature in the estimation of most of the men."

"Give me my own, my native land," sang Nan, "and above all, give me the blessed men from our own part of the country. There are none like them in the whole wide world."