Chapter VIII: Part 8

Soon he looked up again and spoke in a cheerful voice. “I should know her, vrouw,” he said, holding the sweet young face between his hands and gazing at it as though he were watching it grow. “I should know her. The same blue eyes and the lips, and ah! me, the little song she could sing almost before she could stand. But that was long ago,” he added, with a sigh, still looking at her dreamily. “Long ago; it’s all gone now.”

“Not so, indeed,” cried Dame Brinker eagerly. “Do you think I would let her forget it? Gretel, child, sing the old song thou hast known so long!”

Raff Brinker’s hand fell wearily and his eyes closed, but it was something to see the smile playing about his mouth as Gretel’s voice floated about him like incense.

It was a simple air; she had never known the words.

With loving instinct she softened every note, until Raff almost fancied that his two-year-old baby was once more beside him.

As soon as the song was finished, Hans mounted a wooden stool and began to rummage in the cupboard.

“Have a care, Hans,” said Dame Brinker, who through all her poverty was ever a tidy housewife. “Have a care, the wine is there at your right and the white bread beyond it.”

“Never fear, Mother,” answered Hans, reaching far back on an upper shelf. “I shall do no mischief.”

Jumping down, he walked toward his father and placed an oblong block of pine wood in his hands. One of its ends was rounded off, and some deep cuts had been made on the top.

“Do you know what that is, Father?” asked Hans.

Raff Brinker’s face brightened. “Indeed I do, boy! It is the boat I was making you yest--alack, not yesterday, but years ago.”

“I have kept it ever since, Father. It can be finished when your hand grows strong again.”

“Yes, but not for you, my lad. I must wait for the grandchildren. Why, you are nearly a man. Have you helped your mother through all these years?”

“Aye and bravely,” put in Dame Brinker.

“Let me see,” muttered the father, looking in a puzzled way at them all, “how long is it since the night when the waters were coming in? ‘Tis the last I remember.”

“We have told thee true, Raff. It was ten years last Pinxter week.”

“Ten years--and I fell then, you say? Has the fever been on me ever since?”

Dame Brinker scarcely knew how to reply. Should she tell him all? Tell him that he had been an idiot, almost a lunatic? The doctor had charged her on no account to worry or excite his patient.

Hans and Gretel looked astonished.

“Like enough, Raff,” she said, nodding her head and raising her eyebrows. “When a heavy man like thee falls on his head, it’s hard to say what will come--but thou’rt well NOW, Raff. Thank the good Lord!”

The newly awakened man bowed his head.

“Aye, well enough, mine vrouw,” he said after a moment’s silence, “but my brain turns somehow like a spinning wheel. It will not be right till I get on the dikes again. When shall I be at work, think you?”

“Hear the man!” cried Dame Brinker, delighted, yet frightened, too, for that matter. “We must get him on the bed, Hans. Work indeed!”

They tried to raise him from the chair, but he was not ready yet.

“Be off with ye!” he said with something like his old smile (Gretel had never seen it before). “Does a man want to be lifted about like a log? I tell you before three suns I shall be on the dikes again. Ah! There’ll be some stout fellows to greet me. Jan Kamphuisen and young Hoogsvliet. They have been good friends to thee, Hans, I’ll warrant.”

Hans looked at his mother. Young Hoogsvliet had been dead five years. Jan Kamphuisen was in the jail at Amsterdam.

“Aye, they’d have done their share no doubt,” said Dame Brinker, parrying the inquiry, “had we asked them. But what with working and studying, Hans has been busy enough without seeking comrades.”

“Working and studying,” echoed Raff, in a musing tone. “Can the youngsters read and cipher, Meitje?”

“You should hear them!” she answered proudly. “They can run through a book while I mop the floor. Hans there is as happy over a page of big words as a rabbit in a cabbage patch; as for ciphering--”

“Here, lad, help a bit,” interrupted Raff Brinker. “I must get me on the bed again.”

The Thousand Guilders

None seeing the humble supper eaten in the Brinker cottage that night would have dreamed of the dainty repast hidden away nearby. Hans and Gretel looked rather wistfully toward the cupboard as they drank their cupful of water and ate their scanty share of black bread; but even in thought they did not rob their father.

“He relished his supper well,” said Dame Brinker, nodding sidewise toward the bed, “and fell asleep the next moment. Ah, the dear man will be feeble for many a day. He wanted sore to sit up again, but while I made show of humoring him and getting ready, he dropped off. Remember that, my girl, when you have a man of your own (and many a day may it be before that comes to pass), remember that you can never rule by differing; ‘humble wife is husband’s boss.’ Tut! tut! Never swallow such a mouthful as that again, child. Why, I could make a meal off two such pieces. What’s in thee, Hans? One would think there were cobwebs on the walls.”

“Oh, no, Mother, I was only thinking--”

“Thinking about what? Ah, no use asking,” she added in a changed tone. “I was thinking of the same a while ago. Well, it’s no blame if we DID look to hear something by this time about the thousand guilders but not a word--no--it’s plain enough he knows naught about them.”

Hans looked up anxiously, dreading lest his mother should grow agitated, as usual, when speaking of the lost money, but she was silently nibbling her bread and looking with a doleful stare toward the window.

“Thousand guilders,” echoed a faint voice from the bed. “Ah, I am sure they have been of good use to you, vrouw, through the long years when your man was idle.”

The poor woman started up. These words quite destroyed the hope that of late had been glowing within her.

“Are you awake, Raff?” she faltered.

“Yes, Meitje, and I feel much better. Our money was well saved, vrouw, I was saying. Did it last through all those ten years?”

“I--I--have not got it, Raff, I--” She was going to tell him the whole truth when Hans lifted his finger warningly and whispered, “Remember what the meester told us. The father must not be worried.”

“Speak to him, child,” she answered, trembling.

Hans hurried to the bedside.

“I am glad you are feeling better,” he said, leaning over his father. “Another day will see you quite strong again.”

“Aye, like enough. How long did the money last, Hans? I could not hear your mother. What did she say?”

“I said, Raff,” stammered Dame Brinker in great distress, “that it was all gone.”

“Well, well, wife, do not fret at that; one thousand guilders is not so very much for ten years and with children to bring up... but it has helped to make you all comfortable. Have you had much sickness to bear?”

“No, no,” sobbed Dame Brinker, lifting her apron to her eyes.

“Tut, tut, woman, why do you cry?” said Raff kindly. “We will soon fill another pouch when I am on my feet again. Lucky I told you all about it before I fell.”

“Told me what, man?”

“Why, that I buried the money. In my dream just now, it seemed that I had never said aught about it.”

Dame Brinker started forward. Hans caught her arm.

“Hist! Mother,” he whispered, hastily leading her away, “we must be very careful.” Then, while she stood with clasped hands waiting in breathless anxiety, he once more approached the cot. Trembling with eagerness he said, “That was a troublesome dream. Do you remember WHEN you buried the money, Father?”

“Yes, my boy. It was just before daylight on the same day I was hurt. Jan Kamphuisen said something, the sundown before, that made me distrust his honesty. He was the only one living besides Mother who knew that we had saved a thousand guilders, so I rose up that night and buried the money--blockhead that I was ever to suspect an old friend!”

“I’ll be bound, Father,” pursued Hans in a laughing voice, motioning to his mother and Gretel to remain quiet, “that you’ve forgotten where you buried it.”

“Ha! ha! Not I, indeed. But good night, my son, I can sleep again.”

Hans would have walked away, but his mother’s gestures were not to be disobeyed. So he said gently, “Good night, Father. Where did you say you buried the money? I was only a little one then.”

“Close by the willow sapling behind the cottage,” said Raff Brinker drowsily.

“Ah, yes. North side of the tree, wasn’t it, Father?”

“No, the south side. Ah, you know the spot well enough, you rogue. Like enough you were there when your mother lifted it. Now, son, easy. Shift this pillow so. Good night.”

“Good night, Father!” said Hans, ready to dance for joy.

The moon rose very late that night, shining in, full and clear, at the little window, but its beams did not disturb Raff Brinker. He slept soundly; so did Gretel. As for Hans and his mother, they had something else to do.

After making a few hurried preparations, they stole forth with bright, expectant faces, bearing a broken spade and a rusty implement that had done many a day’s service when Raff was a hale worker on the dikes.

It was so light out of doors that they could see the willow tree distinctly. The frozen ground was hard as stone, but Hans and his mother were resolute. Their only dread was that they might disturb the sleepers in the cottage.

“This ysbreeker is just the thing, Mother,” said Hans, striking many a vigorous blow, “but the ground has set so firm it’ll be a fair match for it.”

“Never fear, Hans,” she answered, watching him eagerly. “Here, let me try awhile.”

They soon succeeded in making an impression. One opening and the rest was not so difficult.

Still they worked on, taking turns and whispering cheerily to one another. Now and then Dame Brinker stepped noiselessly over the threshold and listened, to be certain that her husband slept.

“What grand news it will be for him,” she said, laughing, “when he is strong enough to bear it. How I should like to put the pouch and the stocking, just as we find them, all full of money, near him this blessed night, for the dear man to see when he wakens.”

“We must get them first, Mother,” panted Hans, still tugging away at his work.

“There’s no doubt of that. They can’t slip away from us now,” she answered, shivering with cold and excitement as she crouched beside the opening. “Like enough we’ll find them stowed in the old earthen pot I lost long ago.”

By this time Hans, too, began to tremble, but not with cold. He had penetrated a foot deep for quite a space on the south side of the tree. At any moment they might come upon the treasure. Meantime the stars winked and blinked at each other as if to say, “Queer country, this Holland! How much we do see, to be sure!”

“Strange that the dear father should have put it down so woeful deep,” said Dame Brinker in rather a provoked tone. “Ah, the ground was soft enough then, I warrant. How wise of him to mistrust Jan Kamphuisen, and Jan in full credit at the time. Little I thought that handsome fellow with his gay ways would ever go to jail! Now, Hans, let me take a turn. It’s lighter work, d’ye see, the deeper we go? I’d be loath to kill the tree, Hans. Will we harm it, do you think?”

“I cannot say,” he answered gravely.

Hour after hour, mother and son worked on. The hole grew larger and deeper. Clouds began to gather in the sky, throwing elfish shadows as they passed. Not until moon and stars faded away and streaks of daylight began to appear did Meitje Brinker and Hans look hopelessly into each other’s faces.

They had searched the ground thoroughly, desperately, all round the tree; south, north, east, west. THE HIDDEN MONEY WAS NOT THERE!

Glimpses

Annie Bouman had a healthy distaste for Janzoon Kolp. Janzoon Kolp, in his own rough way, adored Annie. Annie declared that she could not “to save her life” say one civil word to that odious boy. Janzoon believed her to be the sweetest, sauciest creature in the world. Annie laughed among her playmates at the comical flapping of Janzoon’s tattered and dingy jacket; he sighed in solitude over the floating grace of her jaunty blue petticoat. She thanked her stars that her brothers were not like the Kolps, and he growled at his sister because she was not like the Boumans. His presence made her harsh and unfeeling, and the very sight of her made him gentle as a lamb. Of course they were thrown together very often. It is thus that in some mysterious way we are convinced of error and cured of prejudice. In this case, however, the scheme failed. Annie detested Janzoon more and more at each encounter; and Janzoon liked her better and better every day.

He killed a stork, the wicked old wretch! she would say to herself.

She knows I am strong and fearless, thought Janzoon.

How red and freckled and ugly he is! was Annie’s secret comment when she looked at him.

How she stares and stares! thought Janzoon. Well, I am a fine, weather-beaten fellow, anyway.

“Janzoon Kolp, you impudent boy, go right away from me!” Annie often said. “I don’t want any of your company.”

Ha! Ha! laughed Janzoon to himself. Girls never say what they mean. I’ll skate with her every chance I can get.

And so it came to pass that the pretty maid would not look up that morning when, skating homeward from Amsterdam, she became convinced that a great burly boy was coming down the canal toward her.

Humph! if I look at him, thought Annie, I’ll--

“Good morrow, Annie Bouman,” said a pleasant voice.

How a smile brightens a girl’s face!

“Good morrow, Master Hans, I am right glad to meet you.”

How a smile brightens a boy’s face!

“Good morrow, again, Annie. There has been a great change at our house since you left.”

“How so?” she exclaimed, opening her eyes very wide.

Hans, who had been in a great hurry and rather moody, grew talkative and quite at leisure in Annie’s sunshine.

Turning about, and skating slowly with her toward Broek, he told the good news of his father. Annie was so true a friend that he told her even of their present distress, of how money was needed and how everything depended upon his obtaining work, and he could find nothing to do in the neighborhood.

All this was not said as a complaint but just because she was looking at him and really wished to know. He could not speak of last night’s bitter disappointment, for that secret was not wholly his own.

“Good-bye, Annie!” he said at last. “The morning is going fast, and I must haste to Amsterdam and sell these skates. Mother must have money at once. Before nightfall I shall certainly find a job somewhere.”

“Sell your new skates, Hans?” cried Annie. “You, the best skater around Broek! Why, the race is coming off in five days!”

“I know it,” he answered resolutely. “Good-bye! I shall skate home again on the old wooden ones.”

Such a bright glance! So different from Janzoon’s ugly grin--and Hans was off like an arrow.

“Hans, come back!” she called.

Her voice changed the arrow into a top. Spinning around, he darted, in one long, leaning sweep, toward her.

“Then you really are going to sell your new skates if you can find a customer?”

“Well, Hans, if you ARE going to sell your skates,” said Annie, quite confused, “I mean if you--well, I know somebody who would like to buy them, that’s all.”

“Not Janzoon Kolp?” asked Hans, flushing.

“Oh, no,” she said, pouting, “he is not one of my friends.”

“But you KNOW him,” persisted Hans.

Annie laughed, “Yes, I know him, and it’s all the worse for him that I do. Now, please, Hans, don’t ever talk any more to me about Janzoon. I hate him!”

“Hate him! YOU hate anybody, Annie?”

She shook her head saucily. “Yes, and I’ll hate you, too, if you persist in calling him one of my friends. You boys may like him because he caught the greased goose at the kermis last summer and climbed the pole with his great, ugly body tied up in a sack, but I don’t care for such things. I’ve disliked him ever since I saw him try to push his little sister out of the merry-go-round at Amsterdam, and it’s no secret up OUR way who killed the stork on your mother’s roof. But we mustn’t talk about such a bad, wicked fellow. Really, Hans, I know somebody who would be glad to buy your skates. You won’t get half a price for them in Amsterdam. Please give them to me. I’ll take you the money this very afternoon.”

If Annie was charming even when she said HATE, there was no withstanding her when she said PLEASE; at least Hans found it to be so.

“Annie,” he said, taking off the skates and rubbing them carefully with a snarl of twine before handing them to her, “I am sorry to be so particular, but if your friend should not want them, will you bring them back to me today? I must buy peat and meal for the mother early tomorrow morning.”

“My friend WILL want them,” Annie laughed, nodding gaily, and skated off at the top of her speed.

As Hans drew forth the wooden “runners” from his capricious pockets and fastened them on as best he could, he did not hear Annie murmur, “I wish I had not been so rude. Poor, brave Hans. What a noble boy he is!” And as Annie skated homeward, filled with pleasant thoughts, she did not hear Hans say, “I grumbled like a bear. But bless her! Some girls are like angels!”

Perhaps it was all for the best. One cannot be expected to know everything that is going on around the world.

Looking For Work

Luxuries unfit us for returning to hardships easily endured before. The wooden runners squeaked more than ever. It was as much as Hans could do to get on with the clumsy old things; still, he did not regret that he had parted with his beautiful skates, but resolutely pushed back the boyish trouble that he had not been able to keep them just a little longer, at least until after the race.

Mother surely will not be angry with me, he thought, for selling them without her leave. She has had care enough already. It will be full time to speak of it when I take home the money.

Hans went up and down the streets of Amsterdam that day, looking for work. He succeeded in earning a few stivers by assisting a man who was driving a train of loaded mules into the city, but he could not secure steady employment anywhere. He would have been glad to obtain a situation as porter or errand boy, but though he passed on his way many a loitering shuffling urchin, laden with bundles, there was no place for him. Some shopkeepers had just supplied themselves; others needed a trimmer, more lightly built fellow (they meant better dressed but did not choose to say so); others told him to call again in a month or two, when the canals would probably be broken up; and many shook their heads at him without saying a word.

At the factories he met with no better luck. It seemed to him that in those great buildings, turning out respectively such tremendous quantities of woolen, cotton, and linen stuffs, such world-renowned dyes and paints, such precious diamonds cut from the rough, such supplies of meal, of bricks, of glass and china--that in at least one of these, a strong-armed boy, able and eager to work, could find something to do. But no--nearly the same answer met him everywhere. No need of more hands just now. If he had called before Saint Nicholas’s Day they might have given him a job as they were hurried then; but at present they had more boys than they needed. Hans wished they could see, just for a moment, his mother and Gretel. He did not know how the anxiety of both looked out from his eyes, and how, more than once, the gruffest denials were uttered with an uncomfortable consciousness that the lad ought not be turned away. Certain fathers, when they went home that night, spoke more kindly than usual to their youngsters, from memory of a frank, young face saddened at their words, and before morning one man actually resolved that he would instruct his head man Blankert to set the boy from Broek at something if he should come in again.

But Hans knew nothing of all this. Toward sundown he started on his return to Broek, uncertain whether the strange, choking sensation in his throat arose from discouragement or resolution. There was certainly one more chance. Mynheer van Holp might have returned by this time. Master Peter, it was reported, had gone to Haarlem the night before to attend to something connected with the great skating race. Still, Hans would go and try.

Fortunately Peter had returned early that morning. He was at home when Hans reached there and was just about starting for the Brinker cottage.

“Ah, Hans!” he cried as the weary boy approached the door. “You are the very one I wished to see. You are the very one I wished to see. Come in and warm yourself.”

After tugging at his well-worn hat, which always WOULD stick to his head when he was embarrassed, Hans knelt down, not by way of making a new style of oriental salute, nor to worship the goddess of cleanliness who presided there, but because his heavy shoes would have filled the soul of a Broek housewife with horror. When their owner stepped softly into the house, they were left outside to act as sentinels until his return.

Hans left the Van Holp mansion with a lightened heart. Peter had brought word from Haarlem that young Brinker was to commence working upon the summer-house doors immediately. There was a comfortable workshop on the place and it was to be at his service until the carving was done.

Peter did not tell him that he had skated all the way to Haarlem for the purpose of arranging this plan with Mynheer van Holp. It was enough for him to see the glad, eager look rise on young Brinker’s face.

“I THINK I can do it,” said Hans, “though I have never learned the trade.”

“I am SURE you can,” responded Peter heartily. “You will find every tool you require in the workshop. It is nearly hidden yonder by that wall of twigs. In summer, when the hedge is green, one cannot see the shop from here at all. How is your father today?”

“Better, mynheer. He improves every hour.”

“It is the most astonishing thing I ever heard of. That gruff old doctor is a great fellow after all.”

“Ah, mynheer,” said Hans warmly, “he is more than great. He is good. But for the meester’s kind heart and great skill my poor father would yet be in the dark. I think, mynheer,” he added with kindling eyes, “surgery is the very noblest science in the world!”

Peter shrugged his shoulders. “Very noble it may be, but not quite to my taste. This Dr. Boekman certainly has skill. As for his heart--defend me from such hearts as his!”

“Why do you say so, mynheer?” asked Hans.

Just then a lady slowly entered from an adjoining apartment. It was Mevrouw van Holp arrayed in the grandest of caps and the longest of satin aprons ruffled with lace. She nodded placidly as Hans stepped back from the fire, bowing as well as he knew how.

Peter at once drew a high-backed oaken chair toward the fire, and the lady seated herself. There was a block of cork on each side of the chimney place. One of these he placed under his mother’s feet.

Hans turned to go.

“Wait a moment, if you please, young man,” said the lady. “I accidentally overheard you and my son speaking, I think, of my friend Dr. Boekman. You are right, young man. Dr. Boekman has a very kind heart. You perceive, Peter, that we may be quite mistaken in judging a person solely by his manners, though a courteous deportment is by no means to be despised.”

“I intended no disrespect, mother,” said Peter, “but surely one has no right to go growling and snarling through the world as they say he does.”

“They say. Ah, Peter, ‘they’ means everybody or nobody. Surgeon Boekman has had a great sorrow. Many years ago he lost his only child under very painful circumstances. A fine lad, except that he was a thought too hasty and high-spirited. Before then Gerard Boekman was one of the most agreeable gentlemen I ever knew.”

So saying, Mevrouw van Holp, looking kindly upon the two boys, rose, and left the room with the same dignity with which she had entered.

Peter, only half convinced, muttered something about “the sin of allowing sorrow to turn all one’s honey into gall” as he conducted his visitor to the narrow side door. Before they parted, he advised Hans to keep himself in good skating order, “for,” he added, “now that your father is all right, you will be in fine spirits for the race. That will be the prettiest skating show ever seen in this part of the world. Everybody is talking of it; you are to try for the prize, remember.”

“I shall not be in the race, mynheer,” said Hans, looking down.

“Not in the race! Why not, indeed!” And immediately Peter’s thoughts swept on a full tide of suspicion toward Carl Schummel.

“Because I cannot, mynheer,” answered Hans as he bent to slip his feet into his big shoes.

Something in the boy’s manner warned Peter that it would be no kindness to press the matter further. He bade Hans good-bye, and stood thoughtfully watching him as he walked away.

In a minute Peter called out, “Hans Brinker!”

“Yes, mynheer.”

“I’ll take back all I said about Dr. Boekman.”

“Yes, mynheer.”

Both were laughing. But Peter’s smile changed to a look of puzzled surprise when he saw Hans kneel down by the canal and put on the wooden skates.

“Very queer,” muttered Peter, shaking his head as he turned to go into the house. “Why in the world doesn’t the boy wear his new ones?”

The Fairy Godmother

The sun had gone down quite out of sight when our hero--with a happy heart but with something like a sneer on his countenance as he jerked off the wooden “runners”--trudged hopefully toward the tiny hutlike building, known of old as the “idiot’s cottage.”

Duller eyes than his would have discerned two slight figures moving near the doorway.

That gray well-patched jacket and the dull blue skirt covered with an apron of still duller blue, that faded close-fitting cap, and those quick little feet in their great boatlike shoes, they were Gretel’s of course. He would have known them anywhere.

That bright coquettish red jacket, with its pretty skirt, bordered with black, that graceful cap bobbing over the gold earrings, that dainty apron, and those snug leather shoes that seemed to have grown with the feet--why if the Pope of Rome had sent them to him by express, Hans could have sworn they were Annie’s.

The two girls were slowly pacing up and down in front of the cottage. Their arms were entwined, of course, and their heads were nodding and shaking as emphatically as if all the affairs of the kingdom were under discussion.

With a joyous shout Hans hastened toward them.

“Huzza, girls, I’ve found work!”

This brought his mother to the cottage door.

She, too, had pleasant tidings. The father was still improving. He had been sitting up nearly all day and was now sleeping as Dame Brinker declared, “Just as quiet as a lamb.”

“It is my turn now, Hans,” said Annie, drawing him aside after he had told his mother the good word from Mynheer van Holp. “Your skates are sold, and here’s the money.”

“Seven guilders!” cried Hans, counting the pieces in astonishment. “Why, that is three times as much as I paid for them.”

“I cannot help that,” said Annie. “If the buyer knew no better, that is not our fault.”

Hans looked up quickly.

“Oh, Annie!”

“Oh, Hans!” she mimicked, pursing her lips, and trying to look desperately wicked and unprincipled.

“Now, Annie, I know you would never mean that! You must return some of this money.”

“But I’ll not do any such thing,” insisted Annie. “They’re sold, and that’s an end of it.” Then, seeing that he looked really pained, she added in a lower tone, “Will you believe me, Hans, when I say that there has been no mistake, that the person who bought your skates INSISTED upon paying seven guilders for them?”

“I will,” he answered, and the light from his clear blue eyes seemed to settle and sparkle under Annie’s lashes.

Dame Brinker was delighted at the sight of so much silver, but when she learned that Hans had parted with his treasures to obtain it, she sighed and then exclaimed, “Bless thee, child! That will be a sore loss for thee!”

“Here, Mother,” said the boy, plunging his hands far into his pocket, “here is more--we shall be rich if we keep on!”

“Aye, indeed,” she answered, eagerly reaching forth her hand. Then, lowering her voice, added, “We SHOULD be rich but for that Jan Kamphuisen. He was at the willow tree years ago, Hans. Depend upon it!”

“Indeed, it seems likely,” sighed Hans. “Well, Mother, we must give up the money bravely. It is certainly gone. The father has told us all he knows. Let us think no more about it.”

“That’s easy saying, Hans. I shall try, but it’s hard and my poor man wanting so many comforts. Bless me! How girls fly about! They were here but this instant. Where did they run to?”

“They slipped behind the cottage,” said Hans, “like enough to hide from us. Hist! I’ll catch them for you! They both can move quicker and softer than yonder rabbit, but I’ll give them a good start first.”

“Why, there IS a rabbit, sure enough. Hold, Hans, the poor thing must have been in sore need to venture from its burrow in this bitter weather. I’ll get a few crumbs for it within.”

So saying, the good woman bustled into the cottage. She soon came out again, but Hans had forgotten to wait, and the rabbit, after taking a cool survey of the premises, had scampered off to unknown quarters. Turning the corner of the cottage, Dame Brinker came upon the children. Hans and Gretel were standing before Annie, who was seated carelessly upon a stump.

“That is as good as a picture!” cried Dame Brinker, halting in admiration of the group. “Many a painting have I seen at the grand house at Heidelberg not a whit prettier. My two are rough chubs, Annie, but YOU look like a fairy.”

“Do I?” laughed Annie, sparkling with animation. “Well, then, Gretel and Hans, imagine I’m your godmother just paying you a visit. Now I’ll grant you each a wish. What will you have, Master Hans?”

A shade of earnestness passed over Annie’s face as she looked up at him; perhaps it was because she wished from the depths of her heart that for once she could have a fairy’s power.

Something whispered to Hans that, for a moment, she was more than mortal. “I wish,” said he solemnly, “that I could find something I was searching for last night!”

Gretel laughed merrily. Dame Brinker moaned. “Shame on you, Hans!” And she went wearily into the cottage.

The fairy godmother sprang up and stamped her foot three times.

“Thou shalt have thy wish,” said she. “Let them say what they will.” Then, with playful solemnity, she put her hand in her apron pocket and drew forth a large glass bead. “Bury this,” said she, giving it to Hans, “where I have stamped, and ere moonrise thy wish shall be granted.”

Gretel laughed more merrily than ever.

The godmother pretended great displeasure.

“Naughty child,” said she, scowling terribly. “In punishment for laughing at a fairy, THY wish shall not be granted.”

“Ha!” cried Gretel in high glee, “better wait till you’re asked, godmother. I haven’t made any wish!”

Annie acted her part well. Never smiling, through all their merry laughter, she stalked away, the embodiment of offended dignity.

“Good night, fairy!” they cried again and again.

“Good night, mortals!” she called out at last as she sprang over a frozen ditch and ran quickly homeward.

“Oh, isn’t she just like flowers--so sweet and lovely!” cried Gretel, looking after her in great admiration. “And to think how many days she stays in that dark room with her grandmother. Why, brother Hans! What is the matter? What are you going to do?”

“Wait and see!” answered Hans as he plunged into the cottage and came out again, all in an instant, bearing the spade and ysbreeker in his hands. “I’m going to bury my magic bead!”

Raff Brinker still slept soundly. His wife took a small block of peat from her nearly exhausted store and put it upon the embers. Then opening the door, she called gently, “Come in, children.”

“Mother! Mother! See here!” shouted Hans.

“Holy Saint Bavon!” exclaimed the dame, springing over the doorstep. “What ails the boy!”

“Come quick, Mother,” he cried in great excitement, working with all his might and driving in the ysbreeker at each word. “Don’t you see? THIS is the spot--right here on the south side of the stump. Why didn’t we think of it last night? THE STUMP is the old willow tree--the one you cut down last spring because it shaded the potatoes. That little tree wasn’t here when Father... Huzza!”

Dame Brinker could not speak. She dropped on her knees beside Hans just in time to see him drag forth THE OLD STONE POT!

He thrust in his hand and took out a piece of brick, then another, then another, then the stocking and the pouch, black and moldy, but filled with the long-lost treasure!

Such a time! Such laughing! Such crying! Such counting after they went into the cottage! It was a wonder that Raff did not waken. His dreams were pleasant, however, for he smiled in his sleep.

Dame Brinker and her children had a fine supper, I can assure you. No need of saving the delicacies now.

“We’ll get Father some nice fresh things tomorrow,” Dame Brinker said as she brought forth cold meat, wine, bread, and jelly, and placed them on the clean pine table. “Sit by, children, sit by.”

That night Annie fell asleep wondering whether it was a knife Hans had lost and thinking how funny it would be if he should find it, after all.

Hans had scarcely closed his eyes before he found himself trudging along a thicket; pots of gold were lying all around, and watches and skates, and glittering beads were swinging from every branch.

Strange to say, each tree, as he approached it, changed into a stump, and on the stump sat the prettiest fairy imaginable, clad in a scarlet jacket and a blue petticoat.

The Mysterious Watch

Something else than the missing guilders was brought to light on the day of the fairy godmother’s visit. This was the story of the watch that for ten long years had been so jealously guarded by Raff’s faithful vrouw. Through many an hour of sore temptation she had dreaded almost to look upon it, lest she might be tempted to disobey her husband’s request. It had been hard to see her children hungry and to know that the watch, if sold, would enable the roses to bloom in their cheeks again. “But nay,” she would exclaim, “Meitje Brinker is not one to forget her man’s last bidding, come what may.”

“Take good care of this, mine vrouw,” he had said as he handed it to her--that was all. No explanation followed, for the words were scarcely spoken when one of his fellow workmen rushed into the cottage, crying, “Come, man! The waters are rising! You’re wanted on the dikes.”

Raff had started at once, and that was the last Dame Brinker saw of him in his right mind.

On the day when Hans was in Amsterdam looking for work, and Gretel, after performing her household labors, was wandering in search of chips, twigs, anything that could be burned, Dame Brinker with suppressed excitement had laid the watch in her husband’s hand.

“It wasn’t in reason,” as she afterward said to Hans, “to wait any longer, when a word from the father would settle all. No woman living but would want to know how he came by that watch.” Raff Brinker turned the bright polished thing over and over in his hand, then he examined the bit of smoothly ironed black ribbon fastened to it. He seemed hardly to recognize it. At last he said, “Ah, I remember this! Why, you’ve been rubbing it, vrouw, till it shines like a new guilder.”

“Aye,” said Dame Brinker, nodding her head complacently.

Raff looked at it again. “Poor boy!” he murmured, then fell into a brown study.

This was too much for the dame. “‘Poor boy!’” she echoed, somewhat tartly. “What do you think I’m standing here for, Raff Brinker, and my spinning awaiting, if not to hear more than that?”

“I told ye all, long since,” said Raff positively as he looked up in surprise.

“Indeed, and you never did!” retorted the vrouw.

“Well, if not, since it’s no affair of ours, we’ll say no more about it,” said Raff, shaking his head sadly. “Like enough while I’ve been dead on the earth, all this time, the poor boy’s died and been in heaven. He looked near enough to it, poor lad!”

“Raff Brinker! If you’re going to treat me this way, and I nursing you and bearing with you since I was twenty-two years old, it’s a shame. Aye, and a disgrace,” cried the vrouw, growing quite red and scant of breath.

Raff’s voice was feeble yet. “Treat you WHAT way, Meitje?”

“What way,” said Dame Brinker, mimicking his voice and manner. “What way? Why, just as every woman in the world is treated after she’s stood by a man through the worst, like a--”

“Meitje!”

Raff was leaning forward with outstretched arms. His eyes were full of tears.

In an instant Dame Brinker was at his feet, clasping his hands in hers.

“Oh, what have I done! Made my good man cry, and he not back with me four days! Look up, Raff! Nay, Raff, my own boy, I’m sorry I hurt thee. It’s hard not to be told about the watch after waiting ten years to know, but I’ll ask thee no more, Raff. Here, we’ll put the thing away that’s made the first trouble between us, after God just gave thee back to me.”

“I was a fool to cry, Meitje,” he said, kissing her, “and it’s no more than right that ye should know the truth. But it seemed as if it might be telling the secrets of the dead to talk about the matter.”

“Is the man--the lad--thou wert talking of dead, think thee?” asked the vrouw, hiding the watch in her hand but seating herself expectantly on the end of his long foot bench.

“It’s hard telling,” he answered.

“Was he so sick, Raff?”

“No, not sick, I may say; but troubled, vrouw, very troubled.”

“Had he done wrong, think ye?” she asked, lowering her voice.

Raff nodded.

“MURDER?” whispered the wife, not daring to look up.

“He said it was like to that, indeed.”

“Oh! Raff, you frighten me. Tell me more, you speak so strange and you tremble. I must know all.”

“If I tremble, mine vrouw, it must be from the fever. There is no guilt on my soul, thank God!”

“Take a sip of this wine, Raff. There, now you are better. It was like to a crime, you were saying.”

“Aye, Meitje, like to murder. THAT he told me himself. But I’ll never believe it. A likely lad, fresh and honest-looking as our own youngster but with something not so bold and straight about him.”

“Aye, I know,” said the dame gently, fearing to interrupt the story.

“He came upon me quite suddenly,” continued Raff. “I had never seen his face before, the palest, frightenedest face that ever was. He caught me by the arm. ‘You look like an honest man,’ says he.”

“Aye, he was right in that,” interrupted the dame emphatically.

Raff looked somewhat bewildered.

“Where was I, mine vrouw?”

“The lad took hold of your arm, Raff,” she said, gazing at him anxiously.

“Aye, so. The words come awkward to me, and everything is like a dream, ye see.”

“S-stut! What wonder, poor man.” She sighed, stroking his hand. “If ye had not had enough for a dozen, the wit would never have come to ye again. Well, the lad caught me by the arm and said ye looked honest. (Well he might!) What then? Was it noontime?

“Nay, before daylight--long before early chimes.”

“It was the same day you were hurt,” said the dame. “I know it seemed that you went to your work in the middle of the night. You left off where he caught your arm, Raff.”

“Yes,” resumed her husband, “and I can see his face this minute--so white and wild-looking. ‘Take me down this river a way,’ says he. I was working then, you’ll remember, far down on the line, across from Amsterdam. I told him I was no boatman. ‘It’s an affair of life and death,’ says he. ‘Take me on a few miles. Yonder skiff is not locked, but it may be a poor man’s boat and I’d be loath to rob him!’ (The words might differ some, vrouw, for it’s all like a dream.) Well, I took him down--it might be six or eight miles--and then he said he could run the rest of the way on shore. I was in haste to get the boat back. Before he jumped out, he says, sobbing-like, ‘I can trust you. I’ve done a thing--God knows I never intended it--but the man is dead. I must fly from Holland.”

“What was it? Did he say, Raff? Had he been shooting at a comrade, as they do down at the University at Gottingen?”

“I can’t recall that. Mayhap he told me, but it’s all like a dream. I said it wasn’t for me, a good Hollander, to cheat the laws of my country by helping him off that way, but he kept saying, ‘God knows I am innocent!’ And he looked at me in the starlight as fair, now, and clear-eyed as our little Hans might--and I just pulled away faster.”

“It must have been Jan Kamphuisen’s boat,” remarked Dame Brinker dryly. “None other would have left his oars out that careless.”

“Aye, it was Jan’s boat, sure enough. The man will be coming in to see me Sunday, likely, if he’s heard, and young Hoogsvliet too. Where was I?”

“Where were you? Why, not very far, forsooth--the lad hadn’t yet given ye the watch--alack, I misgive whether he came by it honestly!”

“Why, vrouw,” exclaimed Raff Brinker in an injured tone. “He was dressed soft and fine as the prince himself. The watch was his own, clear enough.”

“How came he to give it up?” asked the dame, looking uneasily at the fire, for it needed another block of peat.

“I told ye just now,” he answered with a puzzled air.

“Tell me again,” said Dame Brinker, wisely warding off another digression.

“Well, just before jumping from the boat, he says, handing me the watch, ‘I’m flying from my country as I never thought I could. I’ll trust you because you look honest. Will you take this to my father--not today but in a week--and tell him his unhappy boy sent it, and tell him if ever the time comes that he wants me to come back to him, I’ll brave everything and come. Tell him to send a letter to--to’--there, the rest is all gone from me. I CAN’T remember where the letter was to go. Poor lad, poor lad!” resumed Raff, sorrowfully, taking the watch from his vrouw’s lap as he spoke. “And it’s never been sent to his father to this day.”

“I’ll take it, Raff, never fear--the moment Gretel gets back. She will be in soon. What was the father’s name, did you say? Where were you to find him?”

“Alack!” answered Raff, speaking very slowly. “It’s all slipped me. I can see the lad’s face and his great eyes, just as plain--and I remember his opening the watch and snatching something from it and kissing it--but no more. All the rest whirls past me; there’s a sound like rushing waters comes over me when I try to think.”

“Aye. That’s plain to see, Raff, but I’ve had the same feeling after a fever. You’re tired now. I must get ye straight on the bed again. Where IS the child, I wonder?”

Dame Brinker opened the door, and called, “Gretel! Gretel!”

“Stand aside, vrouw,” said Raff feebly as he leaned forward and endeavored to look out upon the bare landscape. “I’ve half a mind to stand beyond the door just once.”

“Nay, nay.” She laughed. “I’ll tell the meester how ye tease and fidget and bother to be let out in the air; and if he says it, I’ll bundle ye warm tomorrow and give ye a turn on your feet. But I’m freezing you with this door open. I declare if there isn’t Gretel with her apron full, skating on the canal like wild. Why, man,” she continued almost in a scream as she slammed the door, “thou’rt walking to the bed without my touching thee! Thou’lt fall!”

The dame’s thee proved her mingled fear and delight, even more than the rush which she made toward her husband. Soon he was comfortably settled under the new cover, declaring, as his vrouw tucked him in snug and warm, that it was the last daylight that should see him abed.

“Aye! I can hope it myself,” laughed Dame Brinker, “now you have been frisking about at that rate.” As Raff closed his eyes, the dame hastened to revive her fire, or rather to dull it, for Dutch peat is like a Dutchman, slow to kindle, but very good at a blaze once started. Then, putting her neglected spinning wheel away, she drew forth her knitting from some invisible pocket and seated herself by the bedside.

“If you could remember the man’s name, Raff,” she began cautiously, “I might take the watch to him while you’re sleeping. Gretel can’t but be in soon.”

Raff tried to think but in vain.

“Could it be Boomphoffen?” suggested the dame. “I’ve heard how they’ve had two sons turn out bad--Gerard and Lambert?”

“It might be,” said Raff. “Look if there’s letters on the watch; that’ll guide us some.”

“Bless thee, man,” cried the happy dame, eagerly lifting the watch. “Why, thou’rt sharper than ever! Sure enough. Here’s letters! L.J.B. That’s Lambert Boomphoffen, you may depend. What the J is for I can’t say, but they used to be grand kind o’ people, high-feathered as fancy fowl. Just the kind to give their children all double names, which isn’t Scripture, anyway.”

“I don’t know about that, vrouw. Seems to me there’s long mixed names in the holy Book, hard enough to make out. But you’ve got the right guess at a jump. It was your way always,” said Raff, closing his eyes. “Take the watch to Boompkinks and try.”

“Not Boompkinks. I know no such name; it’s Boomphoffen.”

“Aye, take it there.”

“Take it there, man! Why the whole brood of them’s been gone to America these four years. But go to sleep, Raff, you look pale and out of strength. It’ll al come to you, what’s best to do, in the morning.

“So, Mistress Gretel! Here you are at last!”

Before Raff awoke that evening, the fairy godmother, as we know, had been in the cottage, the guilders were once more safely locked in the big chest, and Dame Brinker and the children were faring sumptuously on meat and white bread and wine.

So the mother, in the joy of her heart, told them the story of the watch as far as she deemed it prudent to divulge it. It was no more than fair, she thought, that the poor things should know after keeping the secret so safe ever since they had been old enough to know anything.

A Discovery

The next sun brought a busy day to the Brinkers. In the first place the news of the thousand guilders had, of course, to be told to the father. Such tidings as that surely could not harm him. Then while Gretel was diligently obeying her mother’s injunction to “clean the place fresh as a new brewing,” Hans and the dame sallied forth to revel in the purchasing of peat and provisions.

Hans was careless and contented; the dame was filled with delightful anxieties caused by the unreasonable demands of ten thousand guilders’ worth of new wants that had sprung up like mushrooms in a single night. The happy woman talked so largely to Hans on their way to Amsterdam and brought back such little bundles after all that he scratched his bewildered head as he leaned against the chimney piece, wondering whether “Bigger the pouch, tighter the string” was in Jacob Cats, and therefore true, or whether he had dreamed it when he lay in a fever.

“What thinking on, Big-eyes?” chirruped his mother, half reading his thoughts as she bustled about, preparing the dinner. “What thinking on? Why, Raff, would ye believe it, the child thought to carry half Amsterdam back on his head. Bless us! He would have bought us as much coffee as would have filled this fire pot. ‘No, no, my lad,’ says I. ‘No time for leaks when the ship is rich laden.’ And then how he stared--aye--just as he stares this minute. Hoot, lad, fly around a mite. Ye’ll grow to the chimney place with your staring and wondering. Now, Raff, here’s your chair at the head of the table, where it should be, for there’s a man to the house now--I’d say it to the king’s face. Aye, that’s the way--lean on Hans. There’s a strong staff for you! Growing like a weed, too, and it seems only yesterday since he was toddling. Sit by, my man, sit by.”

“Can you call to mind, vrouw,” said Raff, settling himself cautiously in the big chair, “the wonderful music box that cheered your working in the big house at Heidelberg?”

“Aye, that I can,” answered the dame. “Three turns of a brass key and the witchy thing would send the music fairly running up and down one’s back. I remember it well. But, Raff”--growing solemn in an instant--“you would never throw our guilders away for a thing like that?”

“No, no, not I, vrouw, for the good Lord has already given me a music box without pay.”

All three cast quick, frightened glances at one another and at Raff. Were his wits on the wing again?

“Aye, and a music box that fifty pouchful would not buy from me,” insisted Raff. “And it’s set going by the turn of a mop handle, and it slips and glides around the room, everywhere in a flash, carrying the music about till you’d swear the birds were back again.”

“Holy Saint Bavon!” screeched the dame. “What’s in the man?”

“Comfort and joy, vrouw, that’s what’s in him! Ask Gretel, ask my little music box Gretel if your man has lacked comfort and joy this day.”

“Not he, Mother,” laughed Gretel. “He’s been MY music box, too. We sang together half the time you were gone.”

“Aye, so,” said the dame, greatly relieved. “Now, Hans, you’ll never get through with a piece like that, but never mind, chick, thou’st had a long fasting. Here, Gretel, take another slice of the sausage. It’ll put blood in your cheeks.”

“Oh! Oh, Mother,” laughed Gretel, eagerly holding forth her platter. “Blood doesn’t grow in girls’ cheeks--you mean roses. Isn’t it roses, Hans?”