Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/234

 over the beautiful and extended stretch of varied scenery, I saw an artist sitting under a tree making a sketch. I said to her:

“Konnen sie mir zeigen das weg zum Schloss?”

“Oh, can't you talk English?” she replied.

I had to acknowledge that I could, and she pointed out the path.

A curious sight to an American in Germany at that time were the two little houses side by side at the railroad stations marked “Herren” and “Frauen.” When the cars stopped and the doors were unlocked the men and women, who have been shut in without accommodations, rushed in hurried lines to these places.

Another curious sight was to see a woman and a cow strapped together plowing a field. It is not, however, nearly so barbaric a performance as the mere telling would indicate, since the cow supplies the motive force and the woman is there to direct it.

At Basle I had a fright. The train stopped among a number of others, and leaving Mrs. Pennypacker, I got off and went for a few minutes to a “Restaurations Keller.” When I returned, depending on location, the train had been shifted, and I could not find the car. She could talk neither French nor German and had no money. However, the deliberateness of the railroad service stood me in good stead. I had plenty of time to hunt, was finally successful and had learned a lesson.

The Alps, glistening in the sunlight for fifty miles, to us who had never before seen snow in the summer time, were wonderful. We had an uncomfortable hotel at Geneva. I could find no one in the town who could tell me where Michael Servetus was burned, the most interesting event to me in connnection with it, or who had ever even heard of Servetus, but I watched the Rhine and thought of Cæsar. We went fifty miles by stage to Chamounix at the foot of Mont Blanc. The crush of the glaciers in their slow march 220