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."
[Illustration: CHAPTER XII
ALL SAINTS]