Abroad with the Jimmies

by Lilian Bell

I noticed something suspicious in Jimmie's childlike innocence and elaborate amiability during our drive. If Jimmie is business-like and somewhat indifferent, he is behaving himself. If he is officiously attentive to our comfort, and his countenance is frank and open, look out for him. I hate practical jokes, and on that Sunday I almost hated Jimmie.

We drove first into a great yard surrounded by high trees. The horses were immediately taken from our carriage, as if our stay was to be a long one. Then we made our way through the gates into what appeared to be a lovely garden or park with gravelled walks, flowering shrubs, and large shade trees. There were any number of pleasure seekers there besides ourselves. Father, mother, and six or seven children in one party, with the air of cheerfulness and light-heartedness—an air of those who have no burdens to carry, and no bills to pay, which characterises the Continental middle class on its Sunday outing. It was impossible to escape them, for their cheerful interest in our clothes, their friendly smiling countenances robbed their attendance of all impertinence. Thus, somewhat of their company, although not strictly belonging to it, we went to the Steinerne Theatre, hewn in the rock, where pastorals and operas were at one time performed under the direction of the prince-bishops.

Then, in front of the Mechanical Theatre, there is a flight of great stone steps and balustrades of granite upon which, in company with our German friends, we hung and climbed and stood, while the most ingenious little play was performed by tiny puppets that I ever had the good fortune to behold. Over and over again the midgets went through every performance of mechanicism with such precision and accuracy that it took me back to the first mechanical toy I ever possessed. This little mechanical theatre is really a wonder.

I have never been sure how seriously to blame Jimmie for what followed. At any rate, he knew something of the trick, and I have a distant recollection of the gleam in his eyes when he led his unsuspecting party along the gravel walk to the side of a certain granite building, whose function I have forgotten. I remember standing there and looking up the stone steps at our German friends, when suddenly out from behind the stones of this building, from the cornice, from above and from beneath, shot jets of water, drenching me and all others who were back of me, and sending us forward in a mad rush to gain the top of those stone steps, and so to safety. A stout German frau, weighing something between three and four hundred pounds, trod on the train of my gown, and the gathers gave way at the belt with that horrid ripping noise which every woman has heard at some time of her life. It generally means a man. It makes no difference, however; man or woman, the result is the same. As I could not shake her off, and we were both bound for the same place, she continued walking up my back, and in this manner we gained the top of the steps and the gravelled walk, only to find that thin streams of water from subterranean fountains were shooting up through the gravel, making it useless to try to escape. It was all over in a minute, but in the meantime we were drenched within and without and in such a fury that I for one am not recovered from it. It seems that this is one of the practical jokes of which the German mind is capable. Practical jokes seem to me worse than, and on the order of, calamities. Unfortunately Mrs. Jimmie was the wettest of any of us. She had on better clothes than Bee or I, and she refused to run, and she got soaking wet. I really pity Jimmie as I look back on it.

The visit to the salt mine we had planned for the next day. It was necessarily put off. Two of us were not on speaking terms with Jimmie,—Bee and I,—while Mrs. Jimmie, from driving back to the hotel in her wet clothes, had a slight attack of her strange trouble, croup. Poor dear Mrs. Jimmie! However, Jimmie's repentance was so deep and sincere, he was so thoroughly scared by the extent of the calamity, so deeply sorry for our ruined clothes, apart from his anxiety over his wife, that we finally forgave him and took him into our favour again, to escape his remorseful attentions to us. So one day late, but on a better day, we took a fine large carriage, having previously tested the springs, and started for the salt mines. A description of that drive is almost impossible. To be sure, it was hot, dusty, and long. Before we got to the first wayside inn we were ravenous, and Jimmie's thirst could be indicated only by capital letters. But winding in and out among farmhouses with flower gardens of hollyhocks, poppies, and roses; passing now a wayside shrine with the crucifixion exploited in heroic size; houses and barns and stables all under one roof; and now curiously painted doors peculiar to Bavarian houses; the country inns with their wooden benches and deal tables spread under the shade of the trees; parties of pedestrians, members of Alpine clubs, taking their vacations by tramping through this wonderful district; the sloping hills over and around which the road winds; the blues and greens and shadows of the more distant mountains, all combine to make this road from Salzburg to the salt mines one of the most interesting to be found in all Germany.

Never did small cheese sandwiches and little German sausages taste so delicious as at our first stop on our way to the salt mines. Jimmie said never was anything to drink so long in coming. Near us sat eight members of a Mannerchor, whose first act was to unsling a long curved horn capable of holding a gallon. This was filled with beer, and formed a loving-cup. Afterward, at the request of the landlord, and evidently to their great gratification, these men regaled us with songs, all sung with exceeding great earnestness, little regard to tune, and great carelessness as to pitch; but, if one may judge from their smiling and streaming countenances, the music had proved perfectly satisfactory to the singers themselves. Another drive, and soon we were at the mouth of the salt mine. We had learned previously that the better way would be to go as a private party and pay a small fee, as otherwise we would find ourselves in as great a crowd as on a free day at a museum. If I remember rightly, four o'clock marks the free hour. It had commenced to rain a little,—a fine, thin mountain shower,—but the carriage was closed up, the horses led away to be rested, and we three women pushed our way through the crowd of summer tourists waiting for the free hour to strike in the courtyard, and found ourselves in a room in which women were being arrayed in the salt mine costume. This costume is so absurd that it requires a specific description.

Two or three motherly-looking German attendants gave us instructions. Our costumes consisted of white duck trousers, clean, but still damp from recent washing, a thick leather apron, a short duck blouse, something like those worn by bakers, and a cap. The trousers, being all the same size and same length, came to Bee's ankles, were knickerbockers for me and tights for Mrs. Jimmie.

European travel hardens one to many of the hitherto essential delicacies of refinement, which, however, the American instantly resumes upon landing upon the New York pier; it being, I think, simply the instinct of "when in Rome do as the Romans do," which compels us to pretend that we do not object to things which, nevertheless, are never-ending shocks. I have seldom undergone anything more difficult than the walk in broad daylight, across that courtyard to the mouth of the salt mine. We were borne up by the fact that perhaps one hundred other women were similarly attired, and that both men and women looked upon it as a huge joke and nothing more. One rather incomprehensible thing struck us as we left the attiring-room. This was the use of the leather apron. The attendant switched it around in the back and tied it firmly in place, and when we demanded to know the reason, she said, in German, "It is for the swift descent."

Jimmie was similarly arrayed when he met us at the door, but he seemed to know no more about it than we did. At the mouth of the salt mine we were met by our conductor, who took us along a dark passage, where all the lights furnished were those from the covered candles fastened to our belts, something on the order of the miner's lamp.

Further and further into the blackness we went, our shoes grinding into the coarse salt mixed with dirt, and the dampness smelling like the spray from the sea. Presently we came to the mouth of something that evidently led down somewhere. Blindly following our guide who sat astride of a pole, Jimmie planted himself beside him, astride of the guide's back; Mrs. Jimmie, after having absolutely refused, was finally persuaded to place herself behind Jimmie, then came Bee, and last of all myself.