Viewing page 117 of 130

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[page number]] 115 [[/page number]]

as do all the people I've heard since I've landed in Europe.  It sounded so good and natural, even though I did now know what they were saying.  I had not realized how gutteral is our speech.-----Henrard said that our Azolla caroliniana was everywhere in their ditches--I had asked him what that red scum on the water was.  He said that it had scared them at first, but it has done no harm.---Leiden is the most charming place, with a branching canal running through the streets, with beautiful old trees beside it, reflected in the water. The children in their wooden shoes are so cunning. I said to Miss Cool that I wished that I had space in my trunk so that I could take home a pair of wooden shoes.  At my place, at the last meal at her house, was a pair of wooden shoes about 3 inches long.  I appreciated the compliment to my feet--especially seeing that I am from Chicago.  Miss Cool is mycologist of the Rijks Herbarium.  She has devised a formula, after years of experimenting, for a solution in which to preserve toadstools and flowering plants in their natural colors.  She showed me jars and jars of toadstools and of black walnuts and such things that discolor the preservative, that were "canned" several years ago.  The plants were their natural color and the solution was clear.  Dr. Henrard said that Dr. Coker of North Carolina had offered her a position at the college of Chapel Hill, but she would not leave her own country.  I told her I did not blame her, but she would find North Carolina very beautiful, too.  I [[underlined]] didn't [[/underlined]] tell her how far it is from being as clean as her country.  The sidewalks are washed every morning as in Geneva and Munich.  Dr. Coker seems to have spent some time at Leiden studying the Persoon herbarium.  They both like him very much.-----On our long walk Sunday evening Henrard got to talking about the war.  What he said was almost the same as what Dr. Briquet had said.  Their sympathy was naturally with Germany.  They used German books in their schools, he said,