"It is all true," said Salemina. "It might have been said more briefly, but it is quite true."
"Now, my dear, I am only a painter with an occasional excursion into educational fields, but you ought to be gathering stories of knowledge to lay at the feet of the masculine members of your School Board."
"I ought, indeed!" sighed Salemina.
"Then let us begin!" I urged. "I want to be good to-day and you must be good with me. I never can be good alone and neither can you, and you know it. We will give up the lovely drive in the diligence; the luncheon at the French restaurant and those heavenly little Swiss cakes" (here Salemina was almost unmanned); "the concert on the great organ and all the other frivolous things we had intended; and we will make an educational pilgrimage to Yverdon. You may not remember, my dear,"--this was said severely because I saw that she meditated rebellion and was going to refuse any programme which didn't include the Swiss cakes,--"you may not remember that Jean Henri Pestalozzi lived and taught in Yverdon.
Your soul is so steeped in illusions; so submerged in the Lethean waters of the past; so emasculated by thrilling legends, paltry titles, and ruined castles, that you forget that Pestalozzi was the father of popular education and the sometime teacher of Froebel, our patron saint. When you return to your adored Boston, your faithful constituents in that and other suburbs of Salem, Massachusetts, will not ask you if you have seen the Castle of Chillon and the terrace of Corinne, but whether you went to Yverdon."
Salemina gave one last fond look at the lake and picked up her Baedeker. She searched languidly in the Y's and presently read in a monotonous, guide-book voice. "Um--um--um--yes, here it is, 'Yverdon is sixty-one miles from Geneva, three hours forty minutes, on the way to Neuchatel and Bale.' (Neuchatel is the cheese place;
I'd rather go there and we could take a bag of those Swiss cakes.)
'It is on the southern bank of Lake Neuchatel at the influx of the Orbe or Thiele. It occupies the site of the Roman town of Ebrodunum. The castle dates from the twelfth century and was occupied by Pestalozzi as a college.'"
This was at eight, and at nine, leaving Francesca in bed, we were in the station at Geneva. Finding that we had time to spare, we went across the street and bargained for an in-transit luncheon with one of those dull native shopkeepers who has no idea of American-French.
Your American-French, by the way, succeeds well enough so long as you practise, in the seclusion of your apartment, certain assorted sentences which the phrase-book tells you are likely to be needed.
But so far as my experience goes, it is always the unexpected that happens, and one is eternally falling into difficulties never encountered by any previous traveller.
For instance, after purchasing a cold chicken, some French bread, and a bit of cheese, we added two bottles of lemonade. We managed to ask for a glass, from which to drink it, but the man named two francs as the price. This was more than Salemina could bear. Her spirit was never dismayed at any extravagance, but it reared its crested head in the presence of extortion. She waxed wroth. The man stood his ground. After much crimination and recrimination I threw myself into the breach.
"Salemina," said I, "I wish to remark, first: That we have three minutes to catch the train. Second: That, occupying the position we do in America,--you the member of a School Board and I the Honorary President of a Froebel Society,--we cannot be seen drinking lemonade from a bottle, in a public railway carriage; it would be too convivial. Third: You do not understand this gentleman. You have studied the language longer than I, but I have studied it more lately than you, and I am fresher, much fresher than you." (Here Salemina bridled obviously.) "The man is not saying that two francs is the price of the glass. He says that we can pay him two francs now, and if we will return the glass to-night when we come home he will give us back one franc fifty centimes. That is fifty centimes for the rent of the glass, as I understand it."
Salemina's right hand, with the glass in it, dropped nervelessly at her side. "If he uttered one single syllable of all that rigmarole, then Ollendorf is a myth, that's all I have to say."
"The gift of tongues is not vouchsafed to all," I responded with dignity. "I happen to possess a talent for languages, and I apprehend when I do not comprehend."
Salemina was crushed by the weight of my self-respect, and we took the tumbler, and the train.
It was a cloudless day and a beautiful journey, along the side of the sapphire lake for miles, and always in full view of the glorious mountains. We arrived at Yverdon about noon, and had eaten our luncheon on the train, so that we should have a long, unbroken afternoon. We left our books and heavy wraps in the station with the porter, with whom we had another slight misunderstanding as to general intentions and terms; then we started, Salemina carrying the lemonade glass in her hand, with her guide-book, her red parasol, and her Astrakhan cape. The tumbler was a good deal of trouble, but her heart was set on returning it safely to the Geneva pirate; not so much to reclaim the one franc fifty centimes as to decide conclusively whether he had ever proposed such restitution. I knew her mental processes, so I refused to carry any of her properties; besides, the pirate had used a good many irregular verbs in his conversation, and upon due reflection I was a trifle nervous about the true nature of the bargain.
