Part 10
By the way, right here in Worms, in the part of the city that looks about as it did in Luther’s time, we were wandering down a narrow street when we were stopped by familiar music, the popular two-step, “Whistling Rufus.” The German bands play a great deal of American music, mostly Sousa’s marches or our “ragtime,” and it always gets an encore. At Heidelberg the military band played “Hiawatha.” For two years it has been almost against the law in the United States to play “Hiawatha.” But the Germans liked it. I don’t think the German bands play ragtime properly. They go at it seriously, as they do the selections from Wagner and such like which make up most of the program. They add a good deal of noise and they do not get the “swing” that is given by American musicians.
I have discovered in Germany that Wagner and his kind of composers wrote a lot of good music that never gets across the water, the kind that has tune to it,—not so much tune as Sousa’s pieces, but a good deal more than is ever rendered in the United States. And I suppose the German bands understand Wagnerian music better than the American bands, just as Sousa can direct a better two-step or march than a German conductor. A German municipal band or military band, such as plays every night in one of the public parks in every city, is as good a band as Sousa or Innes ever took on the road. I am not a musical critic, I am thankful to say. I like music whether it is good, bad, or indifferent. I like grand opera some and light opera a great deal. I enjoy a fine band or a poor one, a selection from Chopin or a street piano. I will follow a band, a drum corps or a bagpipe all over town. I am even fond of the “Blue Bells of Scotland.” Probably my recommendations will not be accepted by all the musical experts at home after these admissions, but I can’t keep from saying that German band music is the best in this world to which I have been introduced.
I have written of the growing use of the English-American language on the continent of Europe. Here at Worms we are stopping at a very Dutch hotel. When the waiter came for the first time I went to work in German. The construction of a supper bill of fare in German is not easy for me, but I tackled the job bravely. I know enough German to order meat and potatoes, but my pronunciation is ragged on the edges and my verbs are not hitched right and the genders of the nouns are only likely to be right one guess in three. After I had floundered along for about three minutes the waiter gravely and politely interrupted: “Won’t you please give me the order in English?” RICH OLD FRANKFORT.
FRANKFORT, GERMANY, July 24, 1905.
This is one of the old and wealthy cities of Germany, with 300,000 people and a fine country around about. It is the place the Rothschilds came from. A few years ago when the Populists were pretty much the whole thing in Kansas and to be against them was to be in the pay of the Rothschilds and the Great Red Dragon, I was on the Rothschilds’ side, and never having received any compensation I thought I would call and see what was the matter. It was no trouble to find the Rothschild house, for it is described in every guidebook and is marked by an inscription on the front. The morning after we reached the city we went to formally make a call, and found the place to be an old and unpretentious building. I rang the bell and asked the little girl who came to the door if Mr. Rothschild was at home. She ran away and I went on in and part way up the stairs, when a man appeared and said “fifty pfennig.” I told him I was an old friend and merely wished to pay my respects—pay nothing else, not even fifty pfennig. I talked English and he talked German, but I had no difficulty in understanding that it would cost me 12½ cents American money to go through the house. This I declined to do, and unless the gentleman who wanted the fifty pfennig tells Mr. Rothschild I don’t suppose he will ever know I came. In fact, I was afterward told that none of the present members of the Rothschild family live in Frankfort, but have their homes in Vienna, Paris, and London, where they dictate the financial policy of the world. Only a little over a hundred years ago the law of Frankfort was that every night at sundown and on Sundays and feast days all Jews must stay in their own part of town, and the gates inclosing their section were locked until the following day. As an illustration of how rapidly the wheel of fortune turns I was told that now, although comprising but one-tenth of the population, the Jews handle three-fourths of the business, own over half the real estate, and hold most of the high and responsible positions in Frankfort, where their great grandfathers had no more show than a rabbit.
Goethe, the great German poet, was born in Frankfort, and we visited the house of his birth and boyhood. His father was a lawyer, but the poet could not help that. Young Goethe was a bright lad, and took to writing poetry as readily as he did to going with the girls; and he kept at both occupations all his life. A petty German prince took him under his patronage and Goethe never had to work for a living, so he went on writing poetry and having a good time until he died at the age of 83 years. The Germans love Goethe as the Americans do Longfellow, for he was a poet who loved his country, his countrymen and his country-women, and his works are full of sweet and patriotic sentiment as well as being beautiful in construction. Goethe and his friend Schiller and the literary crowd which followed their lead, made the German language classical and correct, and occupy the same place in German literature that Shakespeare does in English. The “Goethe house” here is under the charge of a historical society, and has been put in the same shape that it was when Goethe was a boy. It is an interesting place, for it is not only full of mementoes of the poet but of the time in which he lived.
The most interesting public buildings I have seen in Germany are here, the “Roemer,” a name applied to a group of twelve old and picturesque houses. In one of these the electors of the German empire (certain hereditary princes) would assemble to elect an emperor whenever there was a vacancy. After the election they would have a banquet and the fountain in the public square would run with red and white wine while the people cheered and drank the health of the new man. This was calculated to make the emperor very popular at least that night, but I wonder if the people were so enthusiastic when the headache came the next morning. These old buildings are well preserved. In fact, Frankfort is a city which takes good care of itself and is like a prosperous man. The most beautiful public garden I have seen is here, the Palm Garden, and a fine military band gives concerts afternoon and evening. Frankfort is not only well off, but old enough to enjoy the fact, and everywhere the city is made to look as handsome and be as comfortable as possible. The best and cheapest eating in Europe is in Frankfort, and that fact has made a deep and lasting impression on my heart.
It is doubtless repeating what has been said before, but I cannot help wonder at the industry of the German farmers. Of course they were raised right on the place, and their fathers and forefathers were farmers. They probably don’t know anything else, and never expect to sell out and move to town. In this fertile Rhine country, where there seems to be a model climate, they irrigate the land as if it were arid and they fertilize and drain and cultivate with the hoe and rake. I never believed the story, but it is true. The wealth of a German farmer can be gauged by the size of the manure-pile in his front yard. No doubt when a German farmer brags on what he has done he does not refer to the purchase of a quarter-section of pasture land in the next township, but points with pride to the large and luxuriant heap of fertilizing substance which he can call his own. Instead of farming more land, he tries to get more out of what he has than he did, and his attempt is a success. He does not have a herd of cattle, but he has one or a half-dozen cows which live in the other end of the house, and are curried, fed and looked after as carefully as members of the family, perhaps more so. The cattle are good-looking, smooth and polished, evidently well bred, and certainly well taken care of. They are much better in appearance than the average of American cattle, but the care bestowed upon them easily accounts for the fact.
Frankfort is geographically in Hesse, the old state from which George III. hired soldiers to fight the Americans. In the good old times a little over a hundred years ago, a German prince who was hard up for cash would rent out his soldiers to fight and be shot at. The pay went to the prince, not to the soldier. It is hard to believe that such things occurred only a comparatively short time ago, and yet they did. The Hessians did not understand American tactics and were not much of a success in our Revolution, but they were always good fighters in German wars, and the little state was a powerful one. Frankfort was a “free city,” and not under the active rule of the Hessian princes. For 500 years it kept its independence of any local prince, but in 1866 it was annexed to Prussia. The time for the independent cities of Europe was ended.
Besides Rothschild and Goethe, Frankfort is noted for the Frankfurter sausages. I was pleased to find that this was no legend. In Bologna, Italy, I was surprised to find no bologna, but Frankfort stood the test. There is also a house where it is said Luther preached a sermon while on his way to Worms. It is a tobacco-shop now.
In every German city there is an old bridge with a history. The old bridge at Frankfort across the Main river, which is a good big river and lined with freight boats, is mentioned in a document of 1222. It is constructed of red sandstone, and looks as if it would easily stand 700 years more. A bridge like that is really worth more than an art gallery. The legend connected with the bridge is not so bad. It seems that the architect who drew the plans and supervised the construction had made a mistake in his calculations. He came to realize that the span would not hold weight, and he could see the ruin of the bridge and his own reputation mighty close at hand. Of course he was in a terrible state of mind, and when he was at his worst the Devil dropped in to see him. The Devil offered to show him how the defect could be remedied, the bridge built and his reputation saved, if he would sign a contract that the first who crossed the bridge should become the Devil’s property. The poor architect at first nobly refused, as most men do when tempted, and then fell, as men occasionally do. He signed the contract, the Devil pointed out the correction in the plan, and the great bridge was successfully finished. Then the architect had remorse (they always do afterward), and nearly went wild with thinking of what he had done. But the day the bridge was formally finished and turned over, before the mayor and city council could get into their carriages after the dedicating speeches, a rooster broke loose from a chicken-house, ran down the road, across the bridge and went to the Devil. Of course the Devil kicked, but the architect stood on the letter of the contract, and they all lived happy forever afterward. This legend is undoubtedly true, for on the middle of the bridge is an iron cross with a figure of Christ and on top of the cross is a bronze rooster.
DOWN THE RHINE.
COLOGNE, GERMANY, July 29, 1905.
The words “Down the Rhine” have a strong significance to everyone who has read history, poetry, or romance. From the time when Cæsar crossed the Rhine to punish the warlike tribes for invading Gaul, down to the Franco-German war of 1870, every European war has been fought more or less in the valley of the Rhine. And for 2,000 years whenever the nations of Europe were not marching their armies to the Rhine, the petty princes, potentates and powers of the valley were fighting one another. The Rhine is the dividing line in Europe. Those who have read these letters to The News will appreciate the fact that instead of going to the large cities of Munich, Berlin and Hanover, we began with the Rhine as it flowed out of Lake Constance and plunged over the falls at Neuhausen, and have followed it through the Black Forest and Germany on its way “down north” to the sea, and will finally watch it mingle its blue into the great salt water at Rotterdam and The Hague.
The last two days we have traveled by boat from Biebrich to Cologne, that part of the river which is called the scenic or “the castled Rhine,” the part of which poets have sung and around which history and fiction have woven stories and legends in every language. But the Rhine is not only useful for the poet and the historian; it is also a plain business proposition. I am told and I believe that the Rhine carries more traffic than any other river in the world. It flows through a rich agricultural country, is lined with important cities, and especially with manufacturing places. Freight rates on the water are cheap. Products of the farm or vineyard, the shop or mill, placed on the boats, are carried with only one transfer to all the great markets of the world.
And now imagine the beautiful Rhine gliding among high hills, with every few miles a handsome castle or the picturesque ruins of one, with a busy railroad running on each bank, passenger and freight trains as frequent as suburban trains near Chicago, and two endless processions of steamboats, tugs and barges, one going up and one going down. That is the Rhine of to-day. The hills and castles reminiscent of the past, the black smoke of the furnaces and the shrill whistle of the engine the reminders of the present. You have to shut your eyes to see either the historic or the beautiful and keep them from “telescoping” into the practical present. And I will admit that the boats and the boatmen, the passengers and the freight interested me more than the dead-walls and the ivy-covered towers. If you think it over you will realize how castles and ruins pall upon your taste. When we began the trip we would rush from one side of the boat to the other to see a castle and hardly went below for lunch for fear we might miss a lofty summit or a breasted fortress. At the close of the trip a broken-down abbey or a roofless castle had no charms that would compare with a comfortable seat and a cigar. I remember well one of the last and largest castles we passed, one I had read of and looked forward to seeing. A friend enthusiastically exclaimed: “There is the Drachenfels on the other side!” And my coarse nature revolted, and I murmured that if the Drachenfels wanted me to see it, the Drachenfels would have to come around to my side of the boat. My neck was tired.
Really a homeopathic dose of Rhine castles would be very interesting. A thousand years ago some baron would build a big stone fortress high up on a hill overlooking the Rhine, and up to the discovery of gunpowder it was practically impregnable. The baron and his followers, according to the rules of the game, would divide their time between rescuing lovely maidens from giants and robbing the merchants and traders who passed by. I never heard of a knight or baron who worked for a living. History is filled with tales of deeds the old knights did for religion or for some fair lady, but it is silent or passes over lightly the fact that they made their money by robbery and murder, disguised under the name of expeditions, crusades, knight-errantry, and war. But when the inventive genius of man made a gun that would shoot through armor and discovered that gunpowder could knock down forts, the days of chivalry and highway robbery on the Rhine were over. The merchants and artisans no longer had to hire armies to protect their property and their families, and the rule of force was followed by the rule of shrewdness, a change which may not have brought perfection, but has resulted in a show of decency, fairness and honesty.
A few old castles transported from the Rhine to Cow creek or the Kaw would be helpful to the landscape of Kansas. But there would be no use of stringing them out for a hundred miles. A castle a thousand years old is interesting, always provided your imagination is good. The best way to enjoy castles is to believe everything the books and guides tell you. I am getting fascinated with the legends, although I think I can unfasten. Now here is a choice legend of the castles of the Two Brothers, which stand on neighboring hills and which I saw early:
THE TWO BROTHERS.
Once upon a time there were two brothers, both as valiant and noble knights as ever wore armor or robbed a traveler. Unfortunately they fell in love with the same girl, and as she couldn’t accept both and had to say she would “always be a sister” to the other, the tension in the family circle got very tight. Finally the elder brother saw that the maiden loved the younger best, so he put his broken heart in his pocket, gave the pair his blessing and lit out for the crusades. In those days whenever a man lost out in love or was in danger of being hung for crime, he went to the crusades. The younger brother was very happy for a while, but he happened to visit another country and there he fell in love with another girl, just as much and as eternally in love with her as with the first one. The second girl was wise or else she had been warned of the young man’s record, for she announced the engagement and the marriage followed soon. Girl No. 1 went to a convent with an aching heart, everybody settled down, and even the neighbors quit talking. Just at that time the elder brother returned from the crusades, and when he heard what had happened he thought it was awful. He went to his brother’s castle and challenged him to fight a duel. The younger brother was worked up over the interference of the family in his private affairs and was anxious to fight. The two knights met in a plum-patch back of the convent and prepared to settle which was right. Just as they drew their swords the original girl, who had been informed of what was going on by some busybody, rushed out of the gate, threw herself between the brothers and begged them not to fight for her sake. She made such a good talk that they shook hands and took a drink together as a sign that it was all over. The elder brother offered to marry the girl in the convent, but she refused. The wife of the younger brother ran off with another chivalrous knight and the two brothers were left alone in the world. They built the two castles side by side, and spent all their days together hunting deer and wealthy travelers, and died without ever flirting with another woman (so the legend says). The ruins of the two castles side by side are evidence of the truth of the story.
“Fair Bingen on the Rhine” was somewhat of a disappointment. Thousands and tens of thousands of American girls and boys have stood up in front of the school on Friday afternoons, scared stiff with the awful prospect of forgetting the next word, and told their school-mates:
“A soldier of the legion lay dying in Algiers, There was lack of woman’s nursing, There was dearth of woman’s tears.”
And when the same moon shone there that shone on fair Bingen on the Rhine, those countless American youths have breathed a sigh for the soldier and several sighs over getting through. Bingen is a good sort of manufacturing town, and the fact that the poet selected the name because of its rhythm and not because it fitted the situation accounts for the success of the poem. After some reflection on the subject among the storied regions of Europe I have come to the conclusion that it is the romancer and the singer who make a country great and interesting, and not any special merit of the place itself. If Cow creek had a few legend-writers in a few years it would rank with the Rhine, the Black Forest, and even the fields of old England. How would this do for a Cow creek legend, _a la_ Europe?
LEGEND OF COW CREEK.
Once upon a time there lived on the creek a wealthy old farmer who had a beautiful daughter. The fame of her beauty spread all the way to Sterling and down to Pretty Prairie, and many young men aspired to the honor of her hand in marriage. Among those who loved her was a neighbor boy who had nothing to his credit but a good name and a rare ability to make speeches before the literary society which met every other Friday night at the school-house. As the good name was no good on a check, he knew the old farmer would not listen to his suit but would likely kick him into the middle of next week if he asked him for his daughter. So all the poor young man could do was to see her home occasionally after church and talk about the soulfulness of love and the communion of congenial souls. The young lady really preferred the aforesaid young man, but as she did not want to undertake the job of making a living for two or more, and she knew her father would never consent to taking him to board, she could only sigh and pine and sit in the shade of a cottonwood tree and dream of love. At last the father told his beautiful daughter that he had selected a husband for her, a man from Nickerson, a man who owned two sections of land and a lot of oil stock, but who could not tell the difference between true love and a pain in his side. That night the two young people met down by the creek bank and she told him of the fate in store for her unless he got a move on himself. Their plan was formed. That night the lover braced himself with a good “bracer” and met the maiden behind the barn. Away they went toward the county seat with high hopes and enough cash to purchase a marriage license. Suddenly they heard the gentle murmur of the father, who had discovered the elopers and was telling the people for miles around what he would do to the son of a gun who was running off with his daughter. It was a race for love and for life, but the old man was getting the best of it and the lovers could hear him as he was overtaking them. They came to the creek, which was on its annual flood, and then they gave themselves up for lost. But the young man happened to look around and saw an old cow. An idea came into his head. He drove the cow into the creek and each of them grabbed her tail. She swam straight to the other side while the old man stood on the bank cursing a blue streak. Away they went to town and were married by the probate judge before the flood went down and the old man could get across.
There was nothing for the father to do but to give them his blessing and eighty acres of sand-hill land, on which they lived happily ever afterward. The stream which thus saved the lives and loves of those two young people has been called Cow creek ever since.
If the people of Kansas will take a few stories like the above, have them trimmed up and embellished, tell them to visitors and charge admission to see the relics, they will have as good a collection of legends as ever grew on the Rhine.
COLOGNE WATER AND OTHERS.
COLOGNE, GERMANY, July 29, 1905.