Chapter III: Part 3

The city was in full festival array. Every shop was gorgeous in honor of Saint Nicholas. Captain Peter was forced, more than once, to order his men away from the tempting show windows, where everything that is, has been, or can be, thought of in the way of toys was displayed. Holland is famous for this branch of manufacture. Every possible thing is copied in miniature for the benefit of the little ones; the intricate mechanical toys that a Dutch youngster tumbles about in stolid unconcern would create a stir in our patent office. Ben laughed outright at some of the mimic fishing boats. They were so heavy and stumpy, so like the queer craft that he had seen about Rotterdam. The tiny trekschuiten, however, only a foot or two long, and fitted out, complete, made his heart ache. He so longed to buy one at once for his little brother in England. He had no money to spare, for with true Dutch prudence, the party had agreed to take with them merely the sum required for each boy’s expenses and to consign the purse to Peter for safekeeping. Consequently Master Ben concluded to devote all his energies to sight-seeing and to think as seldom as possible of little Robby.

He made a hasty call at the Marine school and envied the sailor students their full-rigged brig and their sleeping berths swung over their trunks or lockers; he peeped into the Jews’ Quarter of the city, where the rich diamond cutters and squalid old-clothesmen dwell, and wisely resolved to keep away from it; he also enjoyed hasty glimpses of the four principal avenues of Amsterdam--the Prinsengracht, Keizersgracht, Herengracht, and Singel. These are semicircular in form, and the first three average more than two miles in length. A canal runs through the center of each, with a well-paved road on either side, lined with stately buildings. Rows of naked elms, bordering the canal, cast a network of shadows over its frozen surface, and everything was so clean and bright that Ben told Lambert it seemed to him like petrified neatness.

Fortunately the weather was cold enough to put a stop to the usual street flooding and window-washing, or our young excursionists might have been drenched more than once. Sweeping, mopping, and scrubbing form a passion with Dutch housewives, and to soil their spotless mansions is considered scarcely less than a crime. Everywhere a hearty contempt is felt for those who neglect to rub the soles of their shoes to a polish before crossing the doorsill; and in certain places visitors are expected to remove their heavy shoes before entering.

Sir William Temple, in his memoirs of “What Passed in Christendom from 1672 to 1679,” tells a story of a pompous magistrate going to visit a lady of Amsterdam. A stout Holland lass opened the door, and told him in a breath that the lady was at home and that his shoes were not very clean. Without another word she took the astonished man up by both arms, threw him across her back, carried him through two rooms, set him down at the bottom of the stairs, seized a pair of slippers that stood there, and put them upon his feet. Then, and not until then, she spoke, telling him that his mistress was on the floor above, and that he might go up.

While Ben was skating with his friends upon the crowded canals of the city, he found it difficult to believe that the sleepy Dutchmen he saw around him, smoking their pipes so leisurely and looking as though their hats might be knocked off their heads without their making any resistance, were capable of those outbreaks that had taken place in Holland--that they were really fellow countrymen of the brave, devoted heroes of whom he had read in Dutch history.

As his party skimmed lightly along he told Van Mounen of a burial riot which in 1696 had occurred in that very city, where the women and children turned out, as well as the men, and formed mock funeral processions through the town, to show the burgomasters that certain new regulations, with regard to burying the dead would not be acceded to--how at last they grew so unmanageable and threatened so much damage to the city that the burgomasters were glad to recall the offensive law.

“There’s the corner,” said Jacob, pointing to some large buildings, where, about fifteen years ago, the great corn houses sank down in the mud. They were strong affairs and set up on good piles, but they had over seven million pounds of corn in them, and that was too much.”

It was a long story for Jacob to tell, and he stopped to rest.

“How do you know there were seven million pounds in them?” asked Carl sharply. “You were in your swaddling clothes then.”

“My father knows all about it” was Jacob’s suggestive reply. Rousing himself with an effort, he continued, “Ben likes pictures. Show him some.”

“All right,” said the captain.

“If we had time, Benjamin,” said Lambert van Mounen in English, “I should like to take you to the City Hall, or Stadhuis. There are building piles for you! It is built on nearly fourteen thousand of them, driven seventy feet into the ground. But what I wish you to see there is the big picture of Van Speyk blowing up his ship--great picture.”

“Van WHO?” asked Ben.

“Van Speyk. Don’t you remember? He was in the height of an engagement with the Belgians, and when he found that they had the better of him and would capture his ship, he blew it up, and himself, too, rather than yield to the enemy.”

“Wasn’t that Van Tromp?”

“Oh, no. Van Tromp was another brave fellow. They’ve a monument to him down at Delftshaven--the place where the Pilgrims took ship for America.”

“Well, what about Van Tromp? He was a great Dutch admiral, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, he was in more than thirty sea fights. He beat the Spanish fleet and an English one, and then fastened a broom to his masthead to show that he had swept the English from the sea. Takes the Dutch to beat, my boy!”

“Hold up!” cried Ben. “Broom or no broom, the English conquered him at last. I remember all about it now. He was killed somewhere on the Dutch coast in an engagement in which the English fleet was victorious. Too bad,” he added maliciously, “wasn’t it?”

“Ahem! Where are we?” exclaimed Lambert, changing the subject. “Halloo! The others are way ahead of us--all but Jacob. Whew! How fat he is! He’ll break down before we’re halfway.”

Ben, of course, enjoyed skating beside Lambert, who, though a staunch Hollander, had been educated near London and could speak English as fluently as Dutch, but he was not sorry when Captain van Holp called out, “Skates off! There’s the museum!”

It was open, and there was no charge on that day for admission. In they went, shuffling, as boys will when they have a chance, just to hear the sound of their shoes on the polished floor.

This museum is in fact a picture gallery where some of the finest works of the Dutch masters are to be seen, besides nearly two hundred portfolios of rare engravings.

Ben noticed, at once, that some of the pictures were hung on panels fastened to the wall with hinges. These could be swung forward like a window shutter, thus enabling the subject to be seen in the best light. The plan served them well in viewing a small group by Gerard Douw, called the “Evening School,” enabling them to observe its exquisite finish and the wonderful way in which the picture seemed to be lit through its own windows. Peter pointed out the beauties of another picture by Douw, called “The Hermit,” and he also told them some interesting anecdotes of the artist, who was born at Leyden in 1613.

“Three days painting a broom handle!” echoed Carl in astonishment, while the captain was giving some instances of Douw’s extreme slowness of execution.

“Yes, sir, three days. And it is said that he spent five in finishing one hand in a lady’s portrait. You see how very bright and minute everything is in this picture. His unfinished works were kept carefully covered and his painting materials were put away in airtight boxes as soon as he had finished using them for the day. According to all accounts, the studio itself must have been as close as a bandbox. The artist always entered it on tiptoe, besides sitting still, before he commenced work, until the slight dust caused by his entrance had settled. I have read somewhere that his paintings are improved by being viewed through a magnifying glass. He strained his eyes so badly with the extra finishing, that he was forced to wear spectacles before he was thirty. At forty he could scarcely see to paint, and he couldn’t find a pair of glasses anywhere that would help his sight. At last, a poor old German woman asked him to try hers. They suited him exactly, and enabled him to go on painting as well as ever.”

“Humph!” exclaimed Ludwig indignantly. “That was high! What did SHE do without them, I wonder?”

“Oh,” said Peter, laughing, “likely she had another pair. At any rate she insisted upon his taking them. He was so grateful that he painted a picture of the spectacles for her, case and all, and she sold it to a burgomaster for a yearly allowance that made her comfortable for the rest of her days.”

“Boys!” called Lambert in a loud whisper, “come look at this ‘Bear Hunt.’”

It was a fine painting by Paul Potter, a Dutch artist of the seventeenth century, who produced excellent works before he was sixteen years old. The boys admired it because the subject pleased them. They passed carelessly by the masterpieces of Rembrandt and Van der Helst, and went into raptures over an ugly picture by Van der Venne, representing a sea fight between the Dutch and English. They also stood spellbound before a painting of two little urchins, one of whom was taking soup and the other eating an egg. The principal merit in this work was that the young egg-eater had kindly slobbered his face with the yolk for their entertainment.

An excellent representation of the “Feast of Saint Nicholas” next had the honor of attracting them.

“Look, Van Mounen,” said Ben to Lambert. “Could anything be better than this youngster’s face? He looks as if he KNOWS he deserves a whipping, but hopes Saint Nicholas may not have found him out. That’s the kind of painting I like; something that tells a story.”

“Come, boys!” cried the captain. “Ten o’clock, time we were off!”

They hastened to the canal.

“Skates on! Are you ready? One, two--halloo! Where’s Poot?”

Sure enough, where WAS Poot?

A square opening had just been cut in the ice not ten yards off. Peter observed it and, without a word, skated rapidly toward it.

All the others followed, of course.

Peter looked in. They all looked in; then stared anxiously at each other.

“Poot!” screamed Peter, peering into the hole again. All was still. The black water gave no sign; it was already glazing on top.

Van Mounen turned mysteriously to Ben. “DIDN’T HE HAVE A FIT ONCE?”

“My goodness! yes!” answered Ben in a great fright.

“Then, depend upon it, he’s been taken with one in the museum!”

The boys caught his meaning. Every skate was off in a twinkling. Peter had the presence of mind to scoop up a capful of water from the hole, and off they scampered to the rescue.

Alas! They did indeed find poor Jacob in a fit, but it was a fit of sleepiness. There he lay in a recess of the gallery, snoring like a trooper! The chorus of laughter that followed this discovery brought an angry official to the spot.

“What now! None of this racket! Here, you beer barrel, wake up!” And Master Jacob received a very unceremonious shaking.

As soon as Peter saw that Jacob’s condition was not serious, he hastened to the street to empty his unfortunate cap. While he was stuffing in his handkerchief to prevent the already frozen crown from touching his head, the rest of the boys came down, dragging the bewildered and indignant Jacob in their midst.

“The order to start was again given. Master Poot was wide-awake at last. The ice was a little rough and broken just there, but every boy was in high spirits.

“Shall we go on by the canal or the river?” asked Peter.

“Oh, the river, by all means,” said Carl. “It will be such fun; they say it is perfect skating all the way, but it’s much farther.”

Jacob Poot instantly became interested.

“I vote for the canal!” he cried.

“Well, the canal it shall be,” responded the captain, “if all are agreed.”

“Agreed!” they echoed, in rather a disappointed tone, and Captain Peter led the way.

“All right, come on. We can reach Haarlem in an hour!”

Big Manias and Little Oddities

While skating along at full speed, they heard the cars from Amsterdam coming close behind them.

“Halloo!” cried Ludwig, glancing toward the rail track, “who can’t beat a locomotive? Let’s give it a race!”

The whistle screamed at the very idea--so did the boys--and at it they went.

For an instant the boys were ahead, hurrahing with all their might--only for an instant, but even THAT was something.

This excitement over, they began to travel more leisurely and indulge in conversation and frolic. Sometimes they stopped to exchange a word with the guards who were stationed at certain distances along the canal. These men, in winter, attend to keeping the surface free from obstruction and garbage. After a snowstorm they are expected to sweep the feathery covering away before it hardens into a marble pretty to look at but very unwelcome to skaters. Now and then the boys so far forgot their dignity as to clamber among the icebound canal boats crowded together in a widened harbor off the canal, but the watchful guards would soon spy them out and order them down with a growl.

Nothing could be straighter than the canal upon which our party were skating, and nothing straighter than the long rows of willow trees that stood, bare and wispy, along the bank. On the opposite side, lifted high above the surrounding country, lay the carriage road on top of the great dike built to keep the Haarlem Lake within bounds; stretching out far in the distance, until it became lost in a point, was the glassy canal with its many skaters, its brown-winged iceboats, its push-chairs, and its queer little sleds, light as cork, flying over the ice by means of iron-pronged sticks in the hands of the riders. Ben was in ecstasy with the scene.

Ludwig van Holp had been thinking how strange it was that the English boy should know so much of Holland. According to Lambert’s account, he knew more about it than the Dutch did. This did not quite please our young Hollander. Suddenly he thought of something that he believed would make the “Shon Pull” open his eyes; he drew near Lambert with a triumphant “Tell him about the tulips!”

Ben caught the word tulpen.

“Oh, yes!” said he eagerly, in English, “the Tulip Mania--are you speaking of that? I have often heard it mentioned but know very little about it. It reached its height in Amsterdam, didn’t it?”

Ludwig moaned; the words were hard to understand, but there was no mistaking the enlightened expression on Ben’s face. Lambert, happily, was quite unconscious of his young countryman’s distress as he replied, “Yes, here and in Haarlem, principally; but the excitement ran high all over Holland, and in England too for that matter.”

“Hardly in England, I think,” said Ben, “but I am not sure, as I was not thereat the time.”

*{Although the Tulip Mania did not prevail in England as in
Holland, the flower soon became an object of speculation and
brought very large prices. In 1636, tulips were publicly
sold on the Exchange of London. Even as late as 1800 a
common price was fifteen guineas for one bulb. Ben did not
know that in his own day a single tulip plant, called the
“Fanny Kemble”, had been sold in London for more than
seventy guineas.

Mr Mackay, in his “Memoirs of Popular Delusions,” tells a
funny story of an English botanist who happened to see a
tulip bulb lying in the conservatory of a wealthy Dutchman.
Ignorant if its value, he took out his penknife and, cutting
the bulb in two, became very much interested in his
investigations. Suddenly the owner appeared and, pouncing
furiously upon him, asked if he knew what he was doing.
“Peeling a most extraordinary onion,” replied the
philosopher. “Hundert tousant tuyvel!” shouted the Dutchman,
“it’s an Admiral Van der Eyk!” “Thank you,” replied the
traveler, immediately writing the name in his notebook.
“Pray, are these very common in your country?” “Death and
the tuyvel!” screamed the Dutchman, “come before the Syndic
and you shall see!” In spite of his struggles the poor
investigator, followed by an indignant mob, was taken
through the streets to a magistrate. Soon he learned to his
dismay that he had destroyed a bulb worth 4,000 florins
($1,600). He was lodged in prison until securities could be
procured for the payment of the sum.}

“Ha! ha! that’s true, unless you are over two hundred years old. Well, I tell you, sir, there never was anything like it before nor since. Why, persons were so crazy after tulip bulbs in those days that they paid their weight in gold for them.”

“What, the weight of a man!” cried Ben, showing such astonishment in his eyes that Ludwig fairly capered.

“No, no, the weight of a BULB. The first tulip was sent here from Constantinople about the year 1560. It was so much admired that the rich people of Amsterdam sent to Turkey for more. From that time they grew to be the rage, and it lasted for years. Single roots brought from one to four thousand florins; and one bulb, the Semper Augustus, brought fifty-five hundred.”

“That’s more than four hundred guineas of our money,” interposed Ben.

“Yes, and I know I’m right, for I read it in a translation from Beckman, only day before yesterday. Well, sir, it was great. Everyone speculated in tulips, even bargemen and rag women and chimney sweeps. The richest merchants were not ashamed to share the excitement. People bought bulbs and sold them again at a tremendous profit without ever seeing them. It grew into a kind of gambling. Some became rich by it in a few days, and some lost everything they had. Land, houses, cattle, and even clothing went for tulips when people had no ready money. Ladies sold their jewels and finery to enable them to join in the fun. Nothing else was thought of. At last the States-General interfered. People began to see what dunces they were making of themselves, and down went the price of tulips. Old tulip debts couldn’t be collected. Creditors went to law, and the law turned its back upon them; debts made in gambling were not binding, it said. Then there was a time! Thousands of rich speculators were reduced to beggary in an hour. As old Beckman says, ‘The bubble was burst at last.’”

“Yes, and a big bubble it was,” said Ben, who had listened with great interest. “By the way, did you know that the name tulip came from a Turkish word, signifying turban?”

“I had forgotten that,” answered Lambert, “but it’s a capital idea. Just fancy a party of Turks in full headgear squatted upon a lawn--perfect tulip bed! Ha! ha! Capital idea!”

“There,” groaned Ludwig to himself, “he’s been telling Lambert something wonderful about tulips--I knew it!”

“The fact is,” continued Lambert, “you can conjure up quite a human picture of a tulip bed in bloom, especially when it is nodding and bobbing in the wind. Did you ever notice it?”

“Not I. It strikes me, Van Mounen, that you Hollanders are prodigiously fond of the flower to this day.”

“Certainly. You can’t have a garden without them; prettiest flower that grows, I think. My uncle has a magnificent bed of the finest varieties at his summer house on the other side of Amsterdam.”

“I thought your uncle lived in the city?”

“So he does; but his summer house, or pavilion, is a few miles off. He has another one built out over the river. We passed near it when we entered the city. Everybody in Amsterdam has a pavilion somewhere, if he can.”

“Do they ever live there?” asked Ben.

“Bless you, no! They are small affairs, suitable only to spend a few hours in on summer afternoons. There are some beautiful ones on the southern end of the Haarlem Lake--now that they’ve commenced to drain it into polders, it will spoil THAT fun. By the way, we’ve passed some red-roofed ones since we left home. You noticed them, I suppose, with their little bridges and ponds and gardens, and their mottoes over the doorway.”

Ben nodded.

“They make but little show, now,” continued Lambert, “but in warm weather they are delightful. After the willows sprout, uncle goes to his summer house every afternoon. He dozes and smokes; aunt knits, with her feet perched upon a foot stove, never mind how hot the day; my cousin Rika and the other girls fish in the lake from the windows or chat with their friends rowing by; and the youngsters tumble about or hang upon the little bridges over the ditch. Then they have coffee and cakes, beside a great bunch of water lilies on the table. It’s very fine, I can tell you; only (between ourselves), though I was born here, I shall never fancy the odor of stagnant water that hangs about most of the summer houses. Nearly every one you see is built over a ditch. Probably I feel it more, from having lived so long in England.”

“Perhaps I shall notice it too,” said Ben, “if a thaw comes. The early winter has covered up the fragrant waters for my benefit--much obliged to it. Holland without this glorious skating wouldn’t be the same thing at all.”

“How very different you are from the Poots!” exclaimed Lambert, who had been listening in a sort of brown study. “And yet you are cousins--I cannot understand it.”

“We ARE cousins, or rather we have always considered ourselves such, but the relationship is not very close. Our grandmothers were half-sisters. MY side of the family is entirely English, while he is entirely Dutch. Old Great-grandfather Poot married twice, you see, and I am a descendant of his English wife. I like Jacob, though, better than half of my English cousins put together. He is the truest-hearted, best-natured boy I ever knew. Strange as you may think it, my father became accidentally acquainted with Jacob’s father while on a business visit to Rotterdam. They soon talked over their relationship--in French, by the way--and they have corresponded in the language ever since. Queer things come about in this world. My sister Jenny would open her eyes at some of Aunt Poot’s ways. Aunt is a thorough lady, but so different from mother--and the house, too, and furniture, and way of living, everything is different.”

“Of course,” assented Lambert, complacently, as if to say You could scarcely expect such general perfection anywhere else than in Holland. “But you will have all the more to tell Jenny when you go back.”

“Yes, indeed. I can say one thing--if cleanliness is, as they claim, next to godliness, Broek is safe. It is the cleanest place I ever saw in my life. Why, my Aunt Poot, rich as she is, scrubs half the time, and her house looks as if it were varnished all over. I wrote to mother yesterday that I could see my double always with me, feet to feet, in the polished floor of the dining room.”

“Your DOUBLE! That word puzzles me; what do you mean?”

“Oh, my reflection, my apparition. Ben Dobbs number two.”

“Ah, I see,” exclaimed Van Mounen. “Have you ever been in your Aunt Poot’s grand parlor?”

Ben laughed. “Only once, and that was on the day of my arrival. Jacob says I shall have no chance of entering it again until the time of his sister Kanau’s wedding, the week after Christmas. Father has consented that I shall remain to witness the great event. Every Saturday Aunt Poot and her fat Kate go into that parlor and sweep and polish and scrub; then it is darkened and closed until Saturday comes again; not a soul enters it in the meantime; but the schoonmaken, as she calls it, must be done just the same.”

“That is nothing. Every parlor in Broek meets with the same treatment,” said Lambert. “What do you think of those moving figures in her neighbor’s garden?”

“Oh, they’re well enough; the swans must seem really alive gliding about the pond in summer; but that nodding mandarin in the corner, under the chestnut trees, is ridiculous, only fit for children to laugh at. And then the stiff garden patches, and the trees all trimmed and painted. Excuse me, Van Mounen, but I shall never learn to admire Dutch taste.”

“It will take time,” answered Lambert condescendingly, “but you are sure to agree with it at last. I saw much to admire in England, and I hope I shall be sent back with you to study at Oxford, but, take everything together, I like Holland best.”

“Of course you do,” said Ben in a tone of hearty approval. “You wouldn’t be a good Hollander if you didn’t. Nothing like loving one’s country. It is strange, though, to have such a warm feeling for such a cold place. If we were not exercising all the time, we should freeze outright.”

Lambert laughed.

“That’s your English blood, Benjamin. I’M not cold. And look at the skaters here on the canal--they’re red as roses and happy as lords. Halloo, good Captain van Holp,” called out Lambert in Dutch, “what say you to stopping at yonder farmhouse and warming our toes?”

“Who is cold?” asked Peter, turning around.

“Benjamin Dobbs.”

“Benjamin Dobbs shall be warmed,” and the party was brought to a halt.

On the Way to Haarlem

On approaching the door of the farmhouse the boys suddenly found themselves in the midst of a lively domestic scene. A burly Dutchman came rushing out, closely followed by his dear vrouw, and she was beating him smartly with her long-handled warming pan. The expression on her face gave our boys so little promise of a kind reception that they prudently resolved to carry their toes elsewhere to be warmed.

The next cottage proved to be more inviting. Its low roof of bright red tiles extended over the cow stable that, clean as could be, nestled close to the main building. A neat, peaceful-looking old woman sat at one window, knitting. At the other could be discerned part of the profile of a fat figure that, pipe in mouth, sat behind the shining little panes and snowy curtain. In answer to Peter’s subdued knock, a fair-haired, rosy-cheeked lass in holiday attire opened the upper half of the green door (which was divided across the middle) and inquired their errand.

“May we enter and warm ourselves, jufvrouw?” asked the captain respectfully.

“Yes, and welcome” was the reply as the lower half of the door swung softly toward its mate. Every boy, before entering, rubbed long and faithfully upon the rough mat, and each made his best bow to the old lady and gentleman at the window. Ben was half inclined to think that these personages were automata like the moving figures in the garden at Broek; for they both nodded their heads slowly, in precisely the same way, and both went on with their employment as steadily and stiffly as though they worked by machinery. The old man puffed, puffed, and his vrouw clicked her knitting needles, as if regulated by internal cog wheels. Even the real smoke issuing from the motionless pipe gave no convincing proof that they were human.

But the rosy-cheeked maiden. Ah, how she bustled about. How she gave the boys polished high-backed chairs to sit upon, how she made the fire blaze as if it were inspired, how she made Jacob Poot almost weep for joy by bringing forth a great square of gingerbread and a stone jug of sour wine! How she laughed and nodded as the boys ate like wild animals on good behavior, and how blank she looked when Ben politely but firmly refused to take any black bread and sauerkraut! How she pulled off Jacob’s mitten, which was torn at the thumb, and mended it before his eyes, biting off the thread with her whit teeth, and saying “Now it will be warmer” as she bit; and finally, how she shook hands with every boy in turn and, throwing a deprecating glance at the female automaton, insisted upon filling their pockets with gingerbread!

All this time the knitting needles clicked on, and the pipe never missed a puff.

When the boys were fairly on their way again, they came in sight of the Zwanenburg Castle with its massive stone front, and its gateway towers, each surmounted with a sculptured swan.

“Halfweg, *{Halfway.} boys,” said Peter, “off with your skates.”

“You see,” explained Lambert to his companions, “the Y and the Haarlem Lake meeting here make it rather troublesome. The river is five feet higher than the land, so we must have everything strong in the way of dikes and sluice gates, or there would be wet work at once. The sluice arrangements are supposed to be something extra. We will walk over them and you shall see enough to make you open your eyes. The spring water of the lake, they say, has the most wonderful bleaching powers of any in the world; all the great Haarlem bleacheries use it. I can’t say much upon that subject, but I can tell you ONE thing from personal experience.”

“What is that?”

“Why, the lake is full of the biggest eels you ever saw. I’ve caught them here, often--perfectly prodigious! I tell you they’re sometimes a match for a fellow; they’d almost wriggle your arm from the socket if you were not on your guard. But you’re not interested in eels, I perceive. The castle’s a big affair, isn’t it?”

“Yes. What do those swans mean? Anything?” asked Ben, looking up at the stone gate towers.

“The swan is held almost in reverence by us Hollanders. These give the building its name--Zwanenburg, swan castle. That is all I know. This is a very important spot; for it is here that the wise ones hold council with regard to dike matters. The castle was once the residence of the celebrated Christian Brunings.”

“What about HIM?” asked Ben.

“Peter could answer you better than I,” said Lambert, “if you could only understand each other, or were not such cowards about leaving your mother tongues. But I have often heard my grandfather speak of Brunings. He is never tired of telling us of the great engineer--how good he was and how learned and how, when he died, the whole country seemed to mourn as for a friend. He belonged to a great many learned societies and was at the head of the State Department intrusted with the care of the dikes and other defences against the sea. There’s no counting the improvements he made in dikes and sluices and water mills and all that kind of thing. We Hollanders, you know, consider our great engineers as the highest of public benefactors. Brunings died years ago; they’ve a monument to his memory in the cathedral of Haarlem. I have seen his portrait, and I tell you, Ben, he was right noble-looking. No wonder the castle looks so stiff and proud. It is something to have given shelter to such a man!”

“Yes, indeed,” said Ben. “I wonder, Van Mounen, whether you or I will ever give any old building a right to feel so proud. Heigh-ho! There’s a great deal to be done yet in this world and some of us, who are boys now, will have to do it. Look to your shoe latchet, Van. It’s unfastened.”

A Catastrophe

It was nearly one o’clock when Captain van Holp and his command entered the grand old city of Haarlem. They had skated nearly seventeen miles since morning and were still as fresh as young eagles. From the youngest (Ludwig van Holp, who was just fourteen) to the eldest, no less a personage than the captain himself, a veteran of seventeen, there was but one opinion--that this was the greatest frolic of their lives. To be sure, Jacob Poot had become rather short of breath during the last mile of two, and perhaps he felt ready for another nap, but there was enough jollity in him yet for a dozen. Even Carl Schummel, who had become very intimate with Ludwig during the excursion, forgot to be ill-natured. As for Peter, he was the happiest of the happy and had sung and whistled so joyously while skating that the staidest passersby had smiled as they listened.

“Come, boys! It’s nearly tiffin hour,” he said as they neared a coffeehouse on the main street. “We must have something more solid than the pretty maiden’s gingerbread”--and the captain plunged his hands into his pockets as if to say, “There’s money enough here to feed an army!”

“Halloo!” cried Lambert. “What ails the man?”

Peter, pale and staring, was clapping his hands upon his breast and sides. He looked like one suddenly becoming deranged.

“He’s sick!” cried Ben.

“No, he’s lost something,” said Carl.

Peter could only gasp, “The pocketbook with all our money in it--it’s gone!”

For an instant all were too much startled to speak.

Carl at last came out with a gruff, “No sense in letting one fellow have all the money. I said so from the first. Look in your other pocket.”

“I did. It isn’t there.”

“Open your underjacket.”

Peter obeyed mechanically. He even took off his hat and looked into it, then thrust his hand desperately into every pocket.

“It’s gone, boys,” he said at last in a hopeless tone. “No tiffin for us, nor dinner, either. What is to be done? We can’t get on without money. If we were in Amsterdam, I could get as much as we want, but there is not a man in Haarlem from whom I can borrow a stiver. Doesn’t one of you know anyone here who would lend us a few guilders?”

Each boy looked into five blank faces. Then something like a smile passed around the circle, but it got sadly knotted up when it reached Carl.

“That wouldn’t do,” he said crossly. “I know some people here, rich ones, too, but father would flog me soundly if I borrowed a cent from anyone. He has ‘An honest man need not borrow’ written over the gateway of his summer house.”

“Humph!” responded Peter, not particularly admiring the sentiment just at that moment.

The boys grew desperately hungry at once.

“It wash my fault,” said Jacob, in a penitent tone, to Ben. “I say first, petter all de boys put zair pursh into Van Holp’s monish.”

“Nonsense, Jacob. You did it all for the best.”

Ben said this in such a sprightly tone that the two Van Holps and Carl felt sure that he had proposed a plan that would relieve the party at once.

“What? what? Tell us, Van Mounen,” they cried.

“He says it is not Jacob’s fault that the money is lost--that he did it for the best when he proposed that Van Holp should put all of our money into his purse.”

“Is that all?” said Ludwig dismally. “He need not have made such a fuss in just saying THAT. How much money have we lost?”

“Don’t you remember?” said Peter. “We each put in exactly ten guilders. The purse had sixty guilders in it. I am the stupidest fellow in the world; little Schimmelpenninck would have made you a better captain. I could pommel myself for bringing such a disappointment upon you.”

“Do it, then,” growled Carl. “Pooh,” he added, “we all know that it was an accident, but that doesn’t help matters. We must have money, Van Holp--even if you have to sell your wonderful watch.”

“Sell my mother’s birthday present! Never! I will sell my coat, my hat, anything but my watch.”

“Come, come,” said Jacob pleasantly, “we are making too much of this affair. We can go home and start again in a day or two.”

“YOU may be able to get another ten-guilder piece,” said Carl, “but the rest of us will not find it so easy. If we go home, we stay home, you may depend.”

Our captain, whose good nature had not yet forsaken him for a moment, grew indignant.

“Do you think that I will let you suffer for my carelessness?” he exclaimed. “I have three times sixty guilders in my strong box at home!”

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Carl hastily, adding in a surlier tone, “Well, I see no better way than to go back hungry.”

“I see a better plan than that,” said the captain.

“What is it?” cried all the boys.

“Why, to make the best of a bad business and go back pleasantly and like men,” said Peter, looking so gallant and handsome as he turned his frank face and clear blue eyes upon them that they caught his spirit.

“Ho for the captain!” they shouted.

“Now, boys, we may as well make up our minds, there’s no place like Broek, after all--and that we mean to be there in two hours. Is that agreed to?”

“Agreed!” cried all as they ran to the canal.

“On with your skates! Are you ready? Here, Jacob, let me help you.”

“Now. One, two, three, start!”

And the boyish faces that left Haarlem at that signal were nearly as bright as those that had entered it with Captain Peter half an hour before.

Hans

“Donder and Blixin!” cried Carl angrily, before the party had skated twenty yards from the city gates, “if here isn’t that wooden-skate ragamuffin in the patched leather breeches. That fellow is everywhere, confound him! We’ll be lucky,” he added, in as sneering a tone as he dared to assume, “if our captain doesn’t order us to halt and shake hands with him.”

“Your captain is a terrible fellow,” said Peter pleasantly, “but this is a false alarm, Carl. I cannot spy your bugbear anywhere among the skaters. Ah, there he is! Why, what is the matter with the lad?”

Poor Hans! His face was pale, his lips compressed. He skated like one under the effects of a fearful dream. Just as he was passing, Peter hailed him:

“Good day, Hans Brinker!”

Hans’s countenance brightened at once. “Ah, mynheer, is that you? It is well we meet!”

“Just like his impertinence,” hissed Carl Schummel, darting scornfully past his companions, who seemed inclined to linger with their captain.

“I am glad to see you, Hans,” responded Peter cheerfully, “but you look troubled. Can I serve you?”

“I have a trouble, mynheer,” answered Hans, casting down his eyes. Then, lifting them again with almost a happy expression, he added, “But it is Hans who can help Mynheer van Holp THIS time.”

“How?” asked Peter, making, in his blunt Dutch way, no attempt to conceal his surprise.

“By giving you THIS, mynheer.” And Hans held forth the missing purse.

“Hurrah!” shouted the boys, taking their cold hands from their pockets to wave them joyfully in the air. But Peter said “Thank you, Hans Brinker” in a tone that made Hans feel as if the king had knelt to him.

The shout of the delighted boys had reached the muffled ears of the fine young gentleman who, under a full pressure of pent-up wrath, was skating toward Amsterdam. A Yankee boy would have wheeled about at once and hastened to satisfy his curiosity. But Carl only halted, and, with his back toward his party, wondered what on earth had happened. There he stood, immovable, until, feeling sure that nothing but the prospect of something to eat could have made them hurrah so heartily, he turned and skated slowly toward his excited comrades.

In the meantime Peter had drawn Hans aside from the rest.

“How did you know it was my purse?” he asked.

“You paid me three guilders yesterday, mynheer, for making the whitewood chain, telling me that I must buy skates.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“I saw your purse then. It was of yellow leather.”

“And where did you find it today?”

“I left my home this morning, mynheer, in great trouble, and as I skated, I took no heed until I stumbled against some lumber, and while I was rubbing my knee I saw your purse nearly hidden under a log.”

“That place! Ah, I remember now. Just as we were passing it I pulled my tippet from my pocket and probably flipped out the purse at the same time. It would have been gone but for you, Hans. Here”--pouring out the contents--“you must give us the pleasure of dividing the money with you.”

“No, mynheer,” answered Hans. He spoke quietly, without pretence or any grace of manner, but Peter, somehow, felt rebuked, and put the silver back without a word.

I like that boy, rich or poor, he thought to himself, then added aloud, “May I ask about this trouble of yours, Hans?”

“Ah, mynheer, it is a sad case, but I have waited here too long. I am going to Leyden to see the great Dr. Boekman.”

“Dr. Boekman!” exclaimed Peter in astonishment.

“Yes, mynheer, and I have not a moment to lose. Good day!”

“Stay, I am going that way. Come, my lads! Shall we return to Haarlem!”

“Yes,” cried the boys, eagerly--and off they started.

“Now,” said Peter, drawing near Hans, both skimming the ice so easily and lightly as they skated on together that they seemed scarcely conscious of moving. “We are going to stop at Leyden, and if you are going there only with a message to Dr. Boekman, cannot I do the errand for you? The boys may be too tired to skate so far today, but I will promise to see him early tomorrow if he is to be found in the city.”

“Ah, mynheer, that would be serving me indeed; it is not the distance I dread but leaving my mother so long.”

“Is she ill?”

“No, mynheer. It is the father. You may have heard it, how he has been without wit for many a year--ever since the great Schlossen Mill was built; but his body has been well and strong. Last night the mother knelt upon the hearth to blow the peat (it is his only delight to sit and watch the live embers, and she will blow them into a blaze every hour of the day to please him). Before she could stir, he sprang upon her like a giant and held her close to the fire, all the time laughing and shaking his head. I was on the canal, but I heard the mother scream and ran to her. The father had never loosened his hold, and her gown was smoking. I tried to deaden the fire, but with one hand he pushed me off. There was no water in the cottage or I could have done better, and all that time he laughed--such a terrible laugh, mynheer, hardly a sound, but all in his face. I tried to pull her away, but that only made it worse. Then--it was dreadful, but could I see the mother burn? I beat him--beat him with a stool. He tossed me away. The gown was on fire.! I WOULD put it out. I can’t remember well after that. I found myself upon the floor, and the mother was praying. It seemed to me that she was in a blaze, and all the while I could hear that laugh. Gretel flew to the closet and filled a porringer with the food he liked and put it upon the floor. Then, mynheer, he left the mother and crawled to it like a little child. She was not burned, only a part of her clothing. Ah, how kind she was to him all night, watching and tending him. He slept in a high fever, with his hands pressed to his head. The mother says he has done that so much of late, as though he felt pain there. Ah, mynheer, I did not mean to tell you. If the father was himself, he would not harm even a kitten.”

For a moment the two boys moved on in silence.

“It is terrible,” said Peter at last. “How is he today?”

“Very sick, mynheer.”

“Why go for Dr. Boekman, Hans? There are others in Amsterdam who could help him, perhaps. Boekman is a famous man, sought only by the wealthiest, and they often wait upon him in vain.”

“He PROMISED, mynheer, he promised me yesterday to come to the father in a week. But now that the change has come, we cannot wait. We think the poor father is dying. Oh, mynheer, you can plead with him to come quick. He will not wait a whole week and our father dying, the good meester is so kind.”

“SO KIND!” echoed Peter in astonishment. “Why, he is known as the crossest man in Holland!”

“He looks so because he has no fat and his head is busy, but his heart is kind, I know. Tell the meester what I have told you, mynheer, and he will come.”

“I hope so, Hans, with all my heart. You are in haste to turn homeward, I see. Promise me that should you need a friend, you will go to my mother in Broek. Tell her I bade you see her. And, Hans Brinker, not as a reward, but as a gift, take a few of these guilders.”

Hans shook his head resolutely.

“No, no, mynheer. I cannot take it. If I could find work in Broek or at the South Mill, I would be glad, but it is the same story everywhere--‘Wait until spring’”.

“It is well you speak of it,” said Peter eagerly, “for my father needs help at once. Your pretty chain pleased him much. He said, ‘That boy has a clean cut; he would be good at carving.’ There is to be a carved portal to our new summer house, and father will pay well for the job.”

“God is good!” cried Hans in sudden delight. “Oh, mynheer, that would be too much joy. I have never tried big work, but I can do it. I know I can.”

“Well, tell my father you are the Hans Brinker of whom I spoke. He will be glad to serve you.”

Hans stared in honest surprise.

“Thank you, mynheer.”

“Now, captain,” shouted Carl, anxious to appear as good humored as possible, by way of atonement, “here we are in the midst of Haarlem, and no word from you yet. We await your orders, and we’re as hungry as wolves.”

Peter made a cheerful answer, and turned hurriedly to Hans.

“Come, get something to eat, and I will detain you no longer.”

What a quick, wistful look Hans threw upon him! Peter wondered that he had not noticed before that the poor boy was hungry.

“Ah, mynheer, even now the mother may need me, the father may be worse--I must not wait. May God care for you.” And, nodding hastily, Hans turned his face homeward and was gone.

“Come, boys,” sighed Peter, “now for our tiffin!”

Homes

It must not be supposed that our young Dutchmen had already forgotten the great skating race which was to take place on the twentieth. On the contrary, they had thought and spoken of it very often during the day. Even Ben, though he had felt more like a traveler than the rest, had never once, through all the sight-seeing, lost a certain vision of silver skates which, for a week past, had haunted him night and day.

Like a true “John Bull,” as Jacob had called him, he never doubted that his English fleetness, English strength, English everything, could at any time enable him, on the ice, to put all Holland to shame, and the rest of the world too, for that matter. Ben certainly was a superb skater. He had enjoyed not half the opportunities for practicing that had fallen to his new comrades but he had improved his share to the utmost and was, besides, so strong of frame, so supple of limb, in short, such a tight, trim, quick, graceful fellow in every way that he had taken to skating as naturally as a chamois to leaping or an eagle to soaring.

Only to the heavy heart of poor Hans had the vision of the silver skates failed to appear during that starry winter night and the brighter sunlit day.

Even Gretel had seen them flitting before her as she sat beside her mother through those hours of weary watching--not as prizes to be won, but as treasures passing hopelessly beyond her reach.

Rychie, Hilda, and Katrinka--why, they had scarcely known any other thought than “The race, the race. It will come off on the twentieth!”

These three girls were friends. Though of nearly the same age, talent, and station, they were as different as girls could be.

Hilda van Gleck, as you already know, was a warm-hearted, noble girl of fourteen. Rychie Korbes was beautiful to look upon, far more sparkling and pretty than Hilda but not half so bright and sunny within. Clouds of pride, of discontent, and envy had already gathered in her heart and were growing bigger and darker every day. Of course, these often relieved themselves very much after the manner of other clouds. But who saw the storms and the weeping? Only her maid or her father, mother, and little brother--those who loved her better than all. Like other clouds, too, hers often took queer shapes, and what was really but mist and vapory fancy assumed the appearance of monster wrongs and mountains of difficulty. To her mind, the poor peasant girl Gretel was not a human being, a God-created creature like herself--she was only something that meant poverty, rags, and dirt. Such as Gretel had no right to feel, to hope; above all, they should never cross the paths of their betters--that is, not in a disagreeable way. They could toil and labor for them at a respectful distance, even admire them, if they would do it humbly, but nothing more. If they rebel, put them down; if they suffer, “Don’t trouble me about it” was Rychie’s secret motto. And yet how witty she was, how tastefully she dressed, how charmingly she sang; how much feeling she displayed (for pet kittens and rabbits), and how completely she could bewitch sensible, honest-minded lads like Lambert van Mounen and Ludwig van Holp!

Carl was too much like her, within, to be an earnest admirer, and perhaps he suspected the clouds. He, being deep and surly and always uncomfortably in earnest, of course preferred the lively Katrinka, whose nature was made of a hundred tinkling bells. She was a coquette in her infancy, a coquette in her childhood, and now a coquette in her school days. Without a thought of harm she coquetted with her studies, her duties, even her little troubles. She coquetted with her mother, her pet lamb, her baby brother, even with her own golden curls--tossing them back as if she despised them. Everyone liked her, but who could love her? She was never in earnest. A pleasant face, a pleasant heart, a pleasant manner--these satisfy for an hour. Poor happy Katrinka! She tinkled, tinkled so merrily through their early days, but life is so apt to coquette with them in turn, to put all their sweet bells out of tune or to silence them one by one!

How different were the homes of these three girls from the tumbling old cottage where Gretel dwelt. Rychie lived in a beautiful house near Amsterdam, where the carved sideboards were laden with services of silver and gold and where silken tapestries hung in folds from ceiling to floor.

Hilda’s father owned the largest mansion in Broek. Its glittering roof of polished tiles and its boarded front, painted in half a dozen various colors, were the admiration of the neighborhood.

Katrinka’s home, not a mile distant, was the finest of Dutch country seats. The garden was so stiffly laid out in little paths and patches that the birds might have mistaken it for a great Chinese puzzle with all the pieces spread out ready for use. But in summer it was beautiful; the flowers made the best of their stiff quarters, and, when the gardener was not watching, glowed and bent about each other in the prettiest way imaginable. Such a tulip bed! Why, the queen of the fairies would never care for a grander city in which to hold her court! But Katrinka preferred the bed of pink and white hyacinths. She loved their freshness and fragrance and the lighthearted way in which their bell-shaped blossoms swung in the breeze.