The Four Corners Abroad

"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."