ts surroundings, the
uniformed and courteous officials in attendance, the well-dressed and
comfortable-looking people in the first and second-class waiting room,
all made a pleasant impression upon me, which soon was to be disturbed,
however, by the following little incident: As I stepped up to the
ticket window to buy my ticket I observed a poor working woman at the
third-class window with a silver coin in her hand and with tears in her
eyes begging the clerk to give her the change and a ticket. I heard her
pleading that she had left three little children alone at home, that
this was the last train, and if she did not get home with it she would
have to walk in the mud after dark. The clerk insultingly refused her,
stating that he had no time to bother with her trifles unless she paid
the even change; she asked several gentlemen near by to change her money
for her, but they all turned away as if fearing contamination by coming
in contact with one so poor and lowly.[3] I had only a few large bills,
and as the woman was crowded away, the same clerk at the first-class
window took one of my bills, and, with a most polite bow, gave me a
handful of large and small change. Of course I got the woman her ticket
also. This was possibly an exceptional case, but to me it was a striking
example of the difference between Swedish and American ways and
courtesy. I venture to say that in no railway station or other public
place in the whole United States, north or south, east or west, would a
poor woman in her circumstances be left one minute without a friend and
protector. Men of all classes,--from the millionaire to the day-laborer,
or even street loafer,--would have vied with each other in trying to be
the first to render her assistance.

[Footnote 3: The rules in Sweden give the ticket clerks the right to
demand even change.]

I passed my old home at Oennestad station after dark, and soon arrived in
Christianstad, where four years of my youth had been spent. It was my
purpose this time only to pass through the city without looking up any
old acquaintances. This was my thirty-sixth birthday, and, thinking of
family and friends in my western home, I felt lonely, and repaired to my
room at the hotel. I was not left alone very long, however, for the news
of my arrival had preceded me by a telegram from Copenhagen, and soon an
old schoolmate called, and a few minutes later the editor of the leading
newspaper, Karl Moellersvaerd, who was