rmance.

The history of this man illustrates what I mean by the Oberammergau
spirit. In 1830 he was a young peasant who saw the possibilities of the
Passion Play. He went to the head of the Monastery at Ettal, and vowed
to consecrate his whole life to this work, if they would make him a
priest and permit him to become the spiritual director of the people of
the village. But he was obliged to study seven years before they gave
him the position. He was seventy years old when he died, having so nobly
fulfilled his vow that he is called "The Shakespeare of the Passion
Play." For forty-five years he superintended every performance and every
public rehearsal, and as these rehearsals take place in some form or
other almost every night during the ten years which intervene between
one performance and another, something of the depth of his devotion to
his beloved task may be gathered.

Jimmie marvelled that he could leave his money and his valuables around,
and his room door unlocked, until they told him that the street door was
never locked either. At this information Jimmie grew suspicious, and
locked his bedroom door, much to the affliction of the gentle family of
Bertha Wolf, who plays Mary Magdalene. He explained to them that there
were plenty of Italian, French, and English robbers, even if there were
no Tyrolese. "And are there no American robbers?" they asked, simply, to
which Jimmie replied with equal guilelessness that Americans in Europe
had no time to rob other people, they were so busy in being robbed.

"People think we are so very rich, you see," he explained, when they
gazed at him uncomprehendingly. Then he gave the little brown-eyed boy
who clings to his mother's skirt in one of the tableaux five pfennigs to
see him clap his hands twice and bob his yellow head, which is the way
Tyrolese children express their thanks.

This living in the families of the actors was most interesting, except
for the autograph fiends, who simply mobbed the Christus, Anton Lang,
and Josef Maier, the Christus of the last three performances, who now
takes the part of the speaker of the prologue. Those dear people were so
obliging that no one was ever refused, consequently thousands of
tourists must possess autographs of most of the principals. Not one of
our party asked an autograph of anybody. I hope they are grateful to us.
I should think they would remember us for that alone.

Mrs. Jimmie was not at all disturbed by the somewhat w