Penelopes Postscripts | Page 5

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