The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1899-05-27
SHE q W AS a GERMAN,
AND COULD N or TRAVEL BY
@ B z.S HERSELF. 2 2
Envied the American Women - Frau.
ss.' vEsrwitt~ete Had Always Wanted to.
II Roam the World s*# but Whom Her
81 81 Chance Came Her Nationality Interf cred

This particular Mrs. Widow, as the
Germans put it, was the relict of d
=Lleipsic merchant, who had left her
we'll provided for, says the New. York
Commercial Advertiser. She was a,
short, stout, prosperous looking WON
an OF somewhere about go, with beau
tiful white hair. She bought 1t at that
nice place In Munich, and with. it
dressed her head In more elaborate
and French way than Is 4 common.
among German women Of her years.
She also eschewed the caps with which
they commonly make themselves so
unnecessarily 8 old LADY, In fact. so
Tar as looks went, the Frau EVerwitt-
wete ran the, American mamma in the
pension q close second. And they adj,
mtred each other mutual thew
were on speaking terms. The Fran
VerWittwete was on her travels. too,
10 be sure she was not dozen blocks
away from where she had always liv-
ed, having married and settled in Leip-
sic and stayed in it right along with
only an occasional break in the way
OF a cure" at some Bad. But all
through the years when she had had
to bide at home and keep her hus-
bands house, as German wives are ex-
pected to do, she had nourished a se-
cret desire to see the world, longing
to travel. And the death of her Herr
'Gemahl, which is to say her lord and
master, together with his substantial
nachlass, had set her free at last to
indulge her lifelong wish. She ac-
cordingly sold her house and estab-
llshed herself in that popular pension
through which cosmopolitan stream
OF travel poured. It was a .vicarious
way of seeing the world, but German
women, even in their Cos, are shv
about setting off on their travels alone
especially Frau Verwittwete. The hab-
1t OF being looked after and decided
Tor by man keeps them down, even
after he is gone. The principle on
which all German life is based. that
the man is herr i'm hause as well as
in the shop, leaves it's mark. That
mark lay like a clog on that Frau Ver-
wittwete, though she was clever
enough to realize it and to rebel
against it in a spirited but impotent
way, which expressed itself in the dec
laration flung many times and def
antly into the faces of the Germans
among her fellow-pensionaires: IF
had my life to live over
again, my friends, I should 20
to America and marry an Am
erican. They make the best hus-
bands" This opinion, the strongest
evidently and most important which
the Frau Verwittwete had arrived at
in her travels, was all the more fatter-
ing to that famous benedict, the Amer
lean husband, in that it was based up
on the American wife, of whom the
usual constant current swept through
that pension. Their air of personal in.
dependence and financial security in
spired the Frau Verwittwete alike with
admiration, envy and dislike. In fact.
to tell the whole truth, as she would
when her temper got the better Of her,
the Frau Verwittwete and a higher
opinion of the American husband
whom she did not see than of the
American wife whom she did. Just as,
now and again, she would wax senti-
mental and spout Schiller's Jungfrau
like any Backisch, so now and again
~