Part 12 (1/2)

Before I came to Berlin I heard so much about Unter den Linden, that magnificent street of the city, that I could scarcely wait to get to it. I pictured it lined on both sides with magnificent linden-trees, gigantic, imposing, impressive. I had had no intimate acquaintance with linden-trees--and I wouldn't know one now if I should see it--but I had an idea from the name--linden, linden--that it was grand and waving; not so grand as an oak nor so waving as a willow, but a cross between the two. I knew that I should see these great monarchs making a giant arch over this broad avenue and mingling their tossing branches overhead.

What I found when I arrived was a broad, handsome street. But those lindens! They are consumptive, stunted little saplings without sufficient energy to grow into real trees. They are set so far apart that you have time to forget one before you come to another, and as to their appearance--we have some just like them in Chicago where there is a leak in the gas-pipes near their roots.

On the day before Christmas we felt very low in our minds. We had the doleful prospect ahead of us of eating Christmas dinner alone in a strange country, and in a hotel at that, so we started out shopping.

Not that we needed a thing, but it is our rule, ”When you have the blues, go shopping.” It always cures you to spend money.

Berlin shop-windows are much more fascinating even than those of Paris, because in Berlin there are so many more things that you can afford to buy that Paris seems expensive in comparison. We became so much interested in the Christmas display that we did not notice the flight of time. When we had bought several heavy things to weigh our trunks down a little more and to pay extra luggage on, I happened to glance at the sun, and it was just above the horizon. It looked to be about four o'clock in the afternoon, and we had had nothing to eat since nine o'clock, and even then only a cup of coffee. I felt myself suddenly grow faint and weak. ”Heavens!” I said, ”see what time it is!

We have shopped all day and we have forgotten to get our luncheon.”

My companion glanced at her watch.

”It's only half past eleven o'clock by my watch. I couldn't have wound it last night. No, it is going.”

”Perhaps the hands stick. They do on mine. Whenever I wind it, I have to hit it with the hair-brush to start it; and even then it loses time every day.”

”Let's take them both to a jeweller,” she said. ”We can't travel with watches which act this way.”

So we left them to be repaired, and as we came out, I said, ”It will take us half an hour to get back to the hotel. Don't you think we ought to go in somewhere and get just a little something to sustain us?”

”Of course we ought,” she said, in a weak voice. So we went in and got a light luncheon. Then we went back to the hotel, intending to lie down and rest after such an arduous day.

”We must not do this again,” I said, firmly. ”Mamma told me particularly not to overdo.”

My companion did not answer. She was looking at the clock. It was just noon.

”Why, _that_ clock has stopped too,” she said.

But as we looked into the reading-room _that_ clock struck twelve.

Then it dawned on me, and I dropped into a chair and nearly had hysterics.

”It's because we are so far _north_!” I cried. ”Our watches were all right and the sun's all right. That is as high as it can get!”

She was too much astonished to laugh.

”And you had to go in and get luncheon because you felt so faint,” she said, in a tone of gentle sarcasm.

”Well, you confessed to a fearful sense of goneness yourself.”

”Don't tell anybody,” she said.

”I should think not!” I retorted, with dignity. ”I hope I have _some_ pride.”

”Have you presented your letter to the amba.s.sador?” she asked.

”Yes, but it's so near Christmas that I suppose he won't bother about two waifs like us until after it's over.”

”My! but you _are_ blue,” she said. ”I never heard you refer to yourself as a waif before.”

”I am a worm of the dust. I wish there wasn't such a thing as Christmas! I wonder what Billy will say when he sees his tree.”