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HANS BRINKER
Or, The Silver Skates
_To
my father,
JAMES J. MAPES,
this book
is dedicated in gratitude
and love_
HANS BRINKER
OR THE SILVER SKATES
BY MARY MAPES DODGE
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATED BY
EDNA COOKE
PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
[Illustration]
PREFACE
This little work aims to combine the instructive features of a book of
travels with the interest of a domestic tale. Throughout its pages the
descriptions of Dutch localities, customs, and general characteristics,
have been given with scrupulous care. Many of its incidents are drawn
from life, and the story of Raff Brinker is founded strictly upon fact.
While acknowledging my obligations to many well-known writers on Dutch
history, literature, and art, I turn with especial gratitude to those
kind Holland friends, who, with generous zeal, have taken many a
backward glance at their country for my sake, seeing it as it looked
twenty years ago, when the Brinker home stood unnoticed in sunlight and
shadow.
Should this simple narrative serve to give my young readers a just idea
of Holland and its resources, or present true pictures of its
inhabitants and their every-day life, or free them from certain current
prejudices concerning that noble and enterprising people, the leading
desire in writing it will have been satisfied.
Should it cause even one heart to feel a deeper trust in God's goodness
and love, or aid any in weaving a life, wherein, through knots and
entanglements, the golden thread shall never be tarnished or broken, the
prayer with which it was begun and ended will have been answered.
M. M. D.
A LETTER FROM HOLLAND
AMSTERDAM, July 30, 1873.
_Dear Boys and Girls at Home:_
As Messrs. Scribner, Armstrong and Company, of New York, are printing
for you the story of "The Silver Skates," perhaps you would like to have
a letter from this land of the Brinkers.
If you all could be here with me to-day, what fine times we might have
walking through this beautiful Dutch city! How we should stare at the
crooked houses, standing with their gable ends to the street; at the
little slanting mirrors fastened outside of the windows; at the wooden
shoes and dog-carts near by; the windmills in the distance; at the great
warehouses; at the canals, doing the double duty of streets and rivers,
and at the singular mingling of trees and masts to be seen in every
direction. Ah, it would be pleasant, indeed! But here I sit in a great
hotel looking out upon all these things, knowing quite well that not
even the spirit of the Dutch, which seems able to accomplish anything,
can bring you at this moment across the ocean. There is one comfort,
however, in going through these wonderful Holland towns without you--it
would be dreadful to have any of the party tumble into the canals; and
then these lumbering Dutch wagons, with their heavy wheels, so very far
apart: what should I do if a few dozen of you were to fall under _them_?
and, perhaps, one of the wildest of my boys might harm a stork, and then
all Holland would be against us! No. It is better as it is. You will be
coming, one by one, as the years go on, to see the whole thing for
yourselves.
Holland is as wonderful to-day as it was when, more than twenty years
ago, Hans and Gretel skated on the frozen Y. In fact, more wonderful,
for every day increases the marvel of its not being washed away by the
sea. Its cities have grown, and some of its peculiarities have been
brushed away by contact with other nations; but it is Holland still, and
always will be--full of oddity, courage and industry--the pluckiest
little country on earth. I shall not tell you in this letter of its
customs, its cities, its palaces, churches, picture-galleries, and
museums--for these are described in the story--except to say that they
are here still, just the same, in this good year 1873, for I have seen
them nearly all within a week.
To-day an American boy and I seeing some children enter an old house in
the business part of Amsterdam, followed them in--and what do you think
we found? An old woman, here in the middle of summer, selling hot water
and fire! She makes her living by it. All day long she sits tending her
great fires of peat and keeping the shining copper-tanks above them
filled with water. The children who come and go, carry away in a curious
stone pail their kettle of boiling water and their blocks of burning
peat. For these they give her a Dutch cent, which is worth less than
half of one of ours. In this way persons who cannot afford to keep a
fire burning in hot weather, may yet have their cup of tea or coffee and
their bit of boiled fish and potato.
After leaving the old fire-woman, who nodded a pleasant good-bye to us,
and willingly put our stivers in her great outside pocket, we drove
through the streets enjoying the singular sights of a public washing
day. Yes, in certain quarters of the city, away from the canals, the
streets were lively with washerwomen hard at work. Hundreds of them in
clumsy wooden shoes, with their tucked-up skirts, bare arms and
close-fitting caps, were bending over tall wooden tubs that reached as
high as their waists--gossiping and rubbing, rubbing and gossiping--with
perfect unconcern, in the public thoroughfare, and all washing with cold
water instead of using hot, as we do. What a grand thing it would be for
our old fire-woman if boiling water were suddenly to become the fashion
on these public washing days!
But I forget. If this letter ever reaches you, it must do so by being
put in the place where prefaces belong, a small place, you know, that
holds very little, and where, to tell the truth, readers generally wish
to find still less.
So, good-bye. O! I must tell you one more thing. We found to-day in an
Amsterdam bookstore this story of Hans Brinker told in Dutch. It is a
queer looking volume, beautifully printed, and with colored pictures,
but filled with such astonishing words that it really made me feel sorry
for the little Hollanders who are to read them.
Good-bye, again, in the touching words of our Dutch translator with whom
I'm sure you'll heartily agree: Toch ben ik er mijn landgenooten dank
baar voor, die mijn arbeid steeds zoo welwillend outvangen en wier
genegenheid ik voortdurend hoop te verdienen.
Yours affectionately,
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS
I. HANS AND GRETEL 13
II. HOLLAND 18
III. THE SILVER SKATES 28
IV. HANS AND GRETEL FIND A FRIEND 34
V. SHADOWS IN THE HOME 42
VI. SUNBEAMS 50
VII. HANS HAS HIS WAY 55
VIII. INTRODUCING JACOB POOT AND HIS COUSIN 59
IX. THE FESTIVAL OF SAINT NICHOLAS 66
X. WHAT THE BOYS SAW AND DID IN AMSTERDAM 76
XI. BIG MANIAS AND LITTLE ODDITIES 86
XII. ON THE WAY TO HAARLEM 94
XIII. A CATASTROPHE 98
XIV. HANS 102
XV. HOMES 108
XVI. HAARLEM, THE BOYS HEAR VOICES 116
XVII. THE MAN WITH FOUR HEADS 123
XVIII. FRIENDS IN NEED 129
XIX. ON THE CANAL 137
XX. JACOB POOT CHANGES THE PLAN 144
XXI. MYNHEER KLEEF AND HIS BILL OF FARE 152
XXII. THE RED LION BECOMES DANGEROUS 156
XXIII. BEFORE THE COURT 169
XXIV. THE BELEAGUERED CITIES 173
XXV. LEYDEN 180
XXVI. THE PALACE AND THE WOOD 187
XXVII. THE MERCHANT PRINCE, AND THE SISTER-PRINCESS 190
XXVIII. THROUGH THE HAUGE 204
XXIX. A DAY OF REST 212
XXX. HOMEWARD BOUND 216
XXXI. BOYS AND GIRLS 220
XXXII. THE CRISIS 227
XXXIII. GRETEL AND HILDA 234
XXXIV. THE AWAKENING 241
XXXV. BONES AND TONGUES 245
XXXVI. A NEW ALARM 249
XXXVII. THE FATHER'S RETURN 254
XXXVIII. THE THOUSAND GUILDERS 259
XXXIX. GLIMPSES 265
XL. LOOKING FOR WORK 269
XLI. THE FAIRY GODMOTHER 275
XLII. THE MYSTERIOUS WATCH 281
XLIII. A DISCOVERY 290
XLIV. THE RACE 299
XLV. JOY IN THE COTTAGE 316
XLVI. MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF THOMAS HIGGS 325
XLVII. BROAD SUNSHINE 328
XLVIII. CONCLUSION 334
ILLUSTRATIONS
Gretel on her stilts _Frontispiece_
Hans was clever at carving in wood _Facing p._ 30
The door slowly opened " 70
The ice seemed fairly alive " 136
There was a movement upon the bed " 242
"Good-night," they cried " 280
Skating slowly the boys and girls moved forward " 314
[Illustration: _Gretel on her stilts_
(_See page 29_)]
HANS BRINKER
Or, The Silver Skates
I
HANS AND GRETEL
On a bright December morning long ago, two thinly clad children were
kneeling upon the bank of a frozen canal in Holland.
The sun had not yet appeared, but the gray sky was parted near the
horizon, and its edges shone crimson with the coming day. Most of the
good Hollanders were enjoying a placid morning nap; even Mynheer von
Stoppelnoze, that worthy old Dutchman, was still slumbering "in
beautiful repose."
Now and then some peasant woman, poising a well filled basket upon her
head, came skimming over the glassy surface of the canal; or a lusty
boy, skating to his day's work in the town, cast a good-natured grimace
toward the shivering pair as he flew along.
Meanwhile, with many a vigorous puff and pull, the brother and sister,
for such they were, seemed to be fastening something upon their
feet--not skates, certainly, but clumsy pieces of wood narrowed and
smoothed at their lower edge, and pierced with holes, through which were
threaded strings of rawhide.
These queer looking affairs had been made by the boy Hans. His mother
was a poor peasant-woman, too poor to even think of such a thing as
buying skates for her little ones. Rough as these were, they had
afforded the children many a happy hour upon the ice; and now as with
cold, red fingers our young Hollanders tugged at the strings--their
solemn faces bending closely over their knees--no vision of impossible
iron runners came to dull the satisfaction glowing within.
In a moment the boy arose, and with a pompous swing of the arms, and a
careless "come on, Gretel," glided easily across the canal.
"Ah, Hans," called his sister plaintively, "this foot is not well yet.
The strings hurt me on last Market day; and now I cannot bear them tied
in the same place."
"Tie them higher up, then," answered Hans, as without looking at her he
performed a wonderful cat's-cradle step on the ice.
"How can I? The string is too short."
Giving vent to a good-natured Dutch whistle, the English of which was
that girls were troublesome creatures, he steered toward her.
"You are foolish to wear such shoes, Gretel, when you have a stout
leather pair. Your klompen[1] would be better than these."
[Footnote 1: Wooden Shoes.]
"Why, Hans! Do you forget? The father threw my beautiful new shoes in
the fire. Before I knew what he had done they were all curled up in the
midst of the burning peat. I can skate with these, but not with my
wooden ones.--Be careful now----"
Hans had taken a string from his pocket. Humming a tune as he knelt
beside her, he proceeded to fasten Gretel's skate with all the force of
his strong young arm.
"Oh! oh!" she cried, in real pain.
With an impatient jerk Hans unwound the string. He would have cast it
upon the ground in true big-brother style, had he not just then spied a
tear trickling down his sister's cheek.
"I'll fix it--never fear," he said, with sudden tenderness, "but we must
be quick; the mother will need us soon."
Then he glanced inquiringly about him, first at the ground, next at some
bare willow branches above his head, and finally at the sky now gorgeous
with streaks of blue, crimson and gold.
Finding nothing in any of these localities to meet his need, his eye
suddenly brightened as, with the air of a fellow who knew what he was
about, he took off his cap and removing the tattered lining, adjusted it
in a smooth pad over the top of Gretel's worn-out shoe.
"Now," he cried triumphantly, at the same time arranging the strings as
briskly as his benumbed fingers would allow, "can you bear some
pulling?"
Gretel drew up her lips as if to say "hurt away," but made no further
response.
In another moment they were laughing together, as hand in hand they flew
along the canal, never thinking whether the ice would bear or not, for
in Holland, ice is generally an all-Winter affair. It settles itself
upon the water in a determined kind of way, and so far from growing thin
and uncertain every time the sun is a little severe upon it, it gathers
its forces day by day and flashes defiance to every beam.
Presently, squeak! squeak! sounded something beneath Hans' feet. Next
his strokes grew shorter, ending ofttimes with a jerk, and finally, he
lay sprawling upon the ice, kicking against the air with many a
fantastic flourish.
"Ha! Ha!" laughed Gretel, "that was a fine tumble!" But a tender heart
was beating under her coarse blue jacket and, even as she laughed, she
came, with a graceful sweep, close to her prostrate brother.
"Are you hurt, Hans? oh, you are laughing! catch me now"--and she darted
away shivering no longer, but with cheeks all aglow, and eyes sparkling
with fun.
Hans sprang to his feet and started in brisk pursuit, but it was no easy
thing to catch Gretel. Before she had traveled very far, her skates,
too, began to squeak.
Believing that discretion was the better part of valor she turned
suddenly and skated into her pursuer's arms.
"Ha! ha! I've caught you!" cried Hans.
"Ha! ha! I caught _you_," she retorted, struggling to free herself.
Just then a clear, quick voice was heard calling "Hans! Gretel!"
"It's the mother," said Hans, looking solemn in an instant.
By this time the canal was gilded with sunlight. The pure morning air
was very delightful, and skaters were gradually increasing in numbers.
It was hard to obey the summons. But Gretel and Hans were good children;
without a thought of yielding to the temptation to linger, they pulled
off their skates, leaving half the knots still tied. Hans, with his
great square shoulders, and bushy yellow hair, towered high above his
blue-eyed little sister as they trudged homeward. He was fifteen years
old and Gretel was only twelve. He was a solid, hearty-looking boy, with
honest eyes and a brow that seemed to bear a sign "goodness within" just
as the little Dutch zomerhuis[2] wears a motto over its portal. Gretel
was lithe and quick; her eyes had a dancing light in them, and while you
looked at her cheek the color paled and deepened just as it does upon a
bed of pink and white blossoms when the wind is blowing.
[Footnote 2: Summer-house.]
As soon as the children turned from the canal they could see their
parents' cottage. Their mother's tall form, arrayed in jacket and
petticoat and close-fitting cap, stood, like a picture, in the crooked
frame of the doorway. Had the cottage been a mile away, it would still
have seemed near. In that flat country every object stands out plainly
in the distance; the chickens show as distinctly as the windmills.
Indeed, were it not for the dykes and the high banks of the canals, one
could stand almost anywhere in middle Holland without seeing a mound or
a ridge between the eye and the "jumping-off place."
None had better cause to know the nature of these same dykes than Dame
Brinker and the panting youngsters now running at her call. But before
stating why, let me ask you to take a rocking-chair trip with me to that
far country where you may see, perhaps for the first time, some curious
things that Hans and Gretel saw every day.
II
HOLLAND
Holland is one of the queerest countries under the sun. It should be
called Odd-land or Contrary-land, for in nearly everything it is
different from other parts of the world. In the first place, a large
portion of the country is lower than the level of the sea. Great dykes
or bulwarks have been erected at a heavy cost of money and labor, to
keep the ocean where it belongs. On certain parts of the coast it
sometimes leans with all its weight against the land, and it is as much
as the poor country can do to stand the pressure. Sometimes the dykes
give way, or spring a leak, and the most disastrous results ensue. They
are high and wide, and the tops of some of them are covered with
buildings and trees. They have even fine public roads upon them, from
which horses may look down upon wayside cottages. Often the keels of
floating ships are higher than the roofs of the dwellings. The stork
clattering to her young on the house-peak may feel that her nest is
lifted far out of danger, but the croaking frog in neighboring bulrushes
is nearer the stars than she. Water-bugs dart backward and forward above
the heads of the chimney swallows; and willow trees seem drooping with
shame, because they cannot reach as high as the reeds near by.
Ditches, canals, ponds, rivers and lakes are everywhere to be seen.
High, but not dry, they shine in the sunlight, catching nearly all the
bustle and the business, quite scorning the tame fields stretching
damply beside them. One is tempted to ask, "Which is Holland--the shores
or the water?" The very verdure that should be confined to the land has
made a mistake and settled upon the fish-ponds. In fact the entire
country is a kind of saturated sponge or, as the English poet, Butler,
called it,
"A land that rides at anchor, and is moor'd,
In which they do not live, but go aboard."
Persons are born, live and die, and even have their gardens on
canal-boats. Farmhouses, with roofs like great slouched hats pulled over
their eyes, stand on wooden legs with a tucked-up sort of air, as if to
say "we intend to keep dry if we can." Even the horses wear a wide stool
on each hoof to lift them out of the mire. In short, the landscape
everywhere suggests a paradise for ducks. It is a glorious country in
summer for barefooted girls and boys. Such wadings! such mimic ship
sailing! Such rowing, fishing and swimming! Only think of a chain of
puddles where one can launch chip boats all day long, and never make a
return trip! But enough. A full recital would set all young America
rushing in a body toward the Zuider Zee.
Dutch cities seem at first sight to be a bewildering jungle of houses,
bridges, churches and ships, sprouting into masts, steeples and trees.
In some cities vessels are hitched like horses to their owners'
door-posts and receive their freight from the upper windows. Mothers
scream to Lodewyk and Kassy not to swing on the garden gate for fear
they may be drowned! Water-roads are more frequent there than
common-roads and rail-ways; water-fences in the form of lazy green
ditches, enclose pleasure-ground, polder and garden.
Sometimes fine green hedges are seen; but wooden fences such as we have
in America are rarely met with in Holland. As for stone fences, a
Dutchman would lift his hands with astonishment at the very idea. There
is no stone there, excepting those great masses of rock, that have been
brought from other lands to strengthen and protect the coast. All the
small stones or pebbles, if there ever were any, seem to be imprisoned
in pavements or quite melted away. Boys with strong, quick arms may grow
from pinafores to full beards without ever finding one to start the
water-rings or set the rabbits flying. The water-roads are nothing less
than canals intersecting the country in every direction. These are of
all sizes, from the great North Holland Ship Canal, which is the wonder
of the world, to those which a boy can leap. Water-omnibuses, called
_trekschuiten_,[3] constantly ply up and down these roads for the
conveyance of passengers; and water drays, called _pakschuyten_,[3] are
used for carrying fuel, and merchandise. Instead of green country lanes,
green canals stretch from field to barn and from barn to garden; and the
farms or _polders_, as they are termed, are merely great lakes pumped
dry. Some of the busiest streets are water, while many of the country
roads are paved with brick. The city boats with their rounded sterns,
gilded prows and gaily painted sides, are unlike any others under the
sun; and a Dutch wagon with its funny little crooked pole, is a perfect
mystery of mysteries.
[Footnote 3: Canal-boats. Some of the first named are over thirty feet
long. They look like green houses lodged on barges, and are drawn by
horses walking along the bank of the canal. The trekschuiten are divided
into two compartments, first and second class, and when not too crowded
the passengers make themselves quite at home in them; the men smoke, the
women knit or sew, while children play upon the small outer deck. Many
of the canal-boats have white, yellow, or chocolate-colored sails. This
last color is caused by a preparation of tan which is put on to preserve
them.]
"One thing is clear," cries Master Brightside, "the inhabitants need
never be thirsty." But no, Odd-land is true to itself still.
Notwithstanding the sea pushing to get in, and the lakes struggling to
get out, and the overflowing canals, rivers and ditches, in many
districts there is no water fit to swallow; our poor Hollanders must go
dry, or drink wine and beer, or send far into the inland to Utrecht, and
other favored localities, for that precious fluid older than Adam yet
young as the morning dew. Sometimes, indeed, the inhabitants can swallow
a shower when they are provided with any means of catching it; but
generally they are like the Albatross-haunted sailors in Coleridge's
famous poem of "The Ancient Mariner"--they see
"Water, water everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink!"
Great flapping windmills all over the country make it look as if flocks
of huge sea-birds were just settling upon it. Everywhere one sees the
funniest trees, bobbed into fantastical shapes, with their trunks
painted a dazzling white, yellow or red. Horses are often yoked three
abreast. Men, women and children go clattering about in wooden shoes
with loose heels; peasant girls who cannot get beaux for love, hire them
for money to escort them to the Kermis;[4] and husbands and wives
lovingly _harness_ themselves side by side on the bank of the canal and
drag their pakschuyts to market.
[Footnote 4: Fair.]
Another peculiar feature of Holland is the _dune_ or sand-hill. These
are numerous along certain portions of the coast. Before they were sown
with coarse reed-grass and other plants, to hold them down, they used to
send great storms of sand over the inland. So, to add to the oddities,
farmers sometimes dig down under the surface to find their soil, and on
windy days _dry_ showers (of sand) often fall upon fields that have
grown wet under a week of sunshine.
In short, almost the only familiar thing we Yankees can meet with in
Holland is a harvest-song which is quite popular there, though no
linguist could translate it. Even then we must shut our eyes and listen
only to the tune which I leave you to guess.
"Yanker didee dudel down
Didee dudel lawnter;
Yankee viver, voover, vown,
Botermelk und Tawnter!"
On the other hand, many of the oddities of Holland serve only to prove
the thrift and perseverance of the people. There is not a richer, or
more carefully tilled garden-spot in the whole world than this leaky,
springy little country. There is not a braver, more heroic race than its
quiet, passive-looking inhabitants. Few nations have equaled it in
important discoveries and inventions; none has excelled it in commerce,
navigation, learning and science,--or set as noble examples in the
promotion of education, and public charities; and none in proportion to
its extent has expended more money and labor upon public works.
Holland has its shining annals of noble and illustrious men and women;
its grand, historic records of patience, resistance and victory; its
religious freedom, its enlightened enterprise, its art, its music and
its literature. It has truly been called, "the battle-field of Europe,"
as truly may we consider it the Asylum of the world, for the oppressed
of every nation have there found shelter and encouragement. If we
Americans, who after all, are homeopathic preparations of Holland stock,
can laugh at the Dutch, and call them human beavers, and hint that their
country may float off any day at high tide, we can also feel proud, and
say they have proved themselves heroes, and that their country will
_not_ float off while there is a Dutchman left to grapple it.
There are said to be at least ninety-nine hundred large windmills in
Holland, with sails ranging from eighty to one hundred and twenty feet
long. They are employed in sawing timber, beating hemp, grinding, and
many other kinds of work; but their principal use is for pumping water
from the lowlands into the canals, and for guarding against the inland
freshets that so often deluge the country. Their yearly cost is said to
be nearly ten millions of dollars. The large ones are of great power.
Their huge, circular tower, rising sometimes from the midst of factory
buildings, is surmounted with a smaller one tapering into a cap-like
roof. This upper tower is encircled at its base with a balcony, high
above which juts the axis turned by its four prodigious, ladder-backed
sails.
Many of the windmills are primitive affairs, seeming sadly in need of
Yankee "improvements"; but some of the new ones are admirable. They are
so constructed that, by some ingenious contrivance, they present their
fans, or wings, to the wind in precisely the right direction to work
with the requisite power. In other words, the miller may take a nap and
feel quite sure that his mill will study the wind, and make the most of
it, until he wakens. Should there be but a slight current of air, every
sail will spread itself to catch the faintest breath; but if a heavy
"blow" should come, they will shrink at its touch, like great mimosa
leaves, and only give it half a chance to move them.
One of the old prisons of Amsterdam, called the Rasphouse, because the
thieves and vagrants who were confined there were employed in rasping
log-wood, had a cell for the punishment of lazy prisoners. In one corner
of this cell was a pump and, in another, an opening through which a
steady stream of water was admitted. The prisoner could take his choice,
either to stand still and be drowned, or to work for dear life at the
pump and keep the flood down until his jailer chose to relieve him. Now
it seems to me that, throughout Holland, Nature has introduced this
little diversion on a grand scale. The Dutch have always been forced to
pump for their very existence and probably must continue to do so to the
end of time.
Every year millions of dollars are spent in repairing dykes, and
regulating water levels. If these important duties were neglected the
country would be uninhabitable. Already dreadful consequences, as I have
said, have followed the bursting of these dykes. Hundreds of villages
and towns have from time to time been buried beneath the rush of waters,
and nearly a million of persons have been destroyed. One of the most
fearful inundations ever known occurred in the autumn of the year 1570.
Twenty-eight terrible floods had before that time overwhelmed portions
of Holland, but this was the most terrible of all. The unhappy country
had long been suffering under Spanish tyranny; now, it seemed, the
crowning point was given to its troubles. When we read Motley's history
of the Rise of the Dutch Republic we learn to revere the brave people
who have endured, suffered and dared so much.
Mr. Motley in his thrilling account of the great inundation tells us how
a long continued and violent gale had been sweeping the Atlantic waters
into the North Sea, piling them against the coasts of the Dutch
provinces; how the dykes, tasked beyond their strength, burst in all
directions; how even the Hand-bos, a bulwark formed of oaken piles,
braced with iron, moored with heavy anchors and secured by gravel and
granite, was snapped to pieces like packthread; how fishing boats and
bulky vessels floating up into the country became entangled among the
trees, or beat in the roofs and walls of dwellings, and how at last all
Friesland was converted into an angry sea. "Multitudes of men, women,
children, of horses, oxen, sheep, and every domestic animal, were
struggling in the waves in every direction. Every boat and every article
which could serve as a boat, were eagerly seized upon. Every house was
inundated, even the graveyards gave up their dead. The living infant in
his cradle, and the long-buried corpse in his coffin, floated side by
side. The ancient flood seemed about to be renewed. Everywhere, upon the
tops of trees, upon the steeples of churches, human beings were
clustered, praying to God for mercy, and to their fellowmen for
assistance. As the storm at last was subsiding, boats began to ply in
every direction, saving those who were struggling in the water, picking
fugitives from roofs and tree tops, and collecting the bodies of those
already drowned." No less than one hundred thousand human beings had
perished in a few hours. Thousands upon thousands of dumb creatures lay
dead upon the waters; and the damage done to property of every
description was beyond calculation.
Robles, the Spanish Governor, was foremost in noble efforts to save life
and lessen the horrors of the catastrophe. He had formerly been hated by
the Dutch because of his Spanish or Portuguese blood, but by his
goodness and activity in their hour of disaster, he won all hearts to
gratitude. He soon introduced an improved method of constructing the
dykes, and passed a law that they should in future be kept up by the
owners of the soil. There were fewer heavy floods from this time, though
within less than three hundred years six fearful inundations swept over
the land.
In the Spring there is always great danger of inland freshets,
especially in times of thaw, because the rivers, choked with blocks of
ice, overflow before they can discharge their rapidly rising waters into
the ocean. Added to this, the sea chafing and pressing against the
dykes, it is no wonder that Holland is often in a state of alarm. The
greatest care is taken to prevent accidents. Engineers and workmen are
stationed all along in threatened places and a close watch is kept up
night and day. When a general signal of danger is given, the inhabitants
all rush to the rescue, eager to combine against their common foe. As,
everywhere else, straw is supposed to be of all things the most helpless
in the water, of course in Holland it must be rendered the mainstay
against a rushing tide. Huge straw mats are pressed against the
embankments, fortified with clay and heavy stone, and once adjusted, the
ocean dashes against them in vain.
Raff Brinker, the father of Gretel and Hans, had for years been employed
upon the dykes. It was at the time of a threatened inundation, when in
the midst of a terrible storm, in darkness and sleet, the men were
laboring at a weak spot near the Veermyk sluice, that he fell from the
scaffolding, and was taken home insensible. From that hour he never
worked again; though he lived on, mind and memory were gone.
Gretel could not remember him otherwise than as the strange, silent man,
whose eyes followed her vacantly whichever way she turned; but Hans had
recollections of a hearty, cheerful-voiced father who was never tired of
bearing him upon his shoulder, and whose careless song still seemed
echoing near when he lay awake at night and listened.
III
THE SILVER SKATES
Dame Brinker earned a scanty support for her family by raising
vegetables, spinning and knitting. Once she had worked on board the
barges plying up and down the canal, and had occasionally been harnessed
with other women to the towing rope of a pakschuyt plying between Broek
and Amsterdam. But when Hans had grown strong and large, he had insisted
upon doing all such drudgery in her place. Besides, her husband had
become so very helpless of late, that he required her constant care.
Although not having as much intelligence as a little child, he was yet
strong of arm and very hearty, and Dame Brinker had sometimes great
trouble in controlling him.
"Ah! children, he was so good and steady," she would sometimes say, "and
as wise as a lawyer. Even the Burgomaster would stop to ask him a
question, and now alack! he don't know his wife and little ones. You
remember the father, Hans, when he was himself--a great brave man--don't
you?"
"Yes, indeed, mother, he knew everything, and could do anything under
the sun--and how he would sing! why, you used to laugh and say it was
enough to set the windmills dancing."
"So I did. Bless me! how the boy remembers! Gretel, child, take that
knitting needle from your father, quick; he'll get it in his eyes may
be; and put the shoe on him. His poor feet are like ice half the time,
but I can't keep 'em covered all I can do----" and then half wailing,
half humming, Dame Brinker would sit down, and fill the low cottage with
the whirr of her spinning wheel.
Nearly all the outdoor work, as well as the household labor, was
performed by Hans and Gretel. At certain seasons of the year the
children went out day after day to gather peat, which they would stow
away in square, brick-like pieces, for fuel. At other times, when
home-work permitted, Hans rode the towing-horses on the canals, earning
a few stivers[5] a day; and Gretel tended geese for the neighboring
farmers.
[Footnote 5: A stiver is worth about two cents of our money.]
Hans was clever at carving in wood, and both he and Gretel were good
gardeners. Gretel could sing and sew and run on great, high, home-made
stilts better than any girl for miles around. She could learn a ballad
in five minutes, and find, in its season, any weed or flower you could
name; but she dreaded books, and often the very sight of the
figuring-board in the old schoolhouse would set her eyes swimming. Hans,
on the contrary, was slow and steady. The harder the task, whether in
study or daily labor, the better he liked it. Boys who sneered at him
out of school, on account of his patched clothes and scant leather
breeches, were forced to yield him the post of honor in nearly every
class. It was not long before he was the only youngster in the school
who had not stood at least _once_ in the corner of horrors, where hung a
dreaded whip, and over it this motto:
"Leer, leer! jou luigaart, of dit endje touw zal je le
ren!"[6]
[Footnote 6: (Learn! learn! you idler, or this rope's end shall teach
you.)]
It was only in winter that Gretel and Hans could be spared to attend
school; and for the past month they had been kept at home because their
mother needed their services. Raff Brinker required constant attention,
and there was black bread to be made, and the house to be kept clean,
and stockings and other things to be knitted and sold in the
market-place.
While they were busily assisting their mother on this cold December
morning, a merry troop of girls and boys came skimming down the canal.
There were fine skaters among them, and as the bright medley of costumes
flitted by, it looked from a distance as though the ice had suddenly
thawed, and some gay tulip-bed were floating along on the current.
There was the rich burgomaster's daughter Hilda van Gleck, with her
costly furs and loose-fitting velvet sack; and, near by, a pretty
peasant girl, Annie Bouman, jauntily attired in a coarse scarlet jacket
and a blue skirt just short enough to display the gray homespun hose to
advantage. Then there was the proud Rychie Korbes, whose father, Mynheer
van Korbes, was one of the leading men of Amsterdam; and, flocking
closely around her, Carl Schummel, Peter and Ludwig[7] van Holp, Jacob
Poot, and a very small boy rejoicing in the tremendous name of
Voostenwalbert Schimmelpenninck. There were nearly twenty other boys and
girls in the party, and one and all seemed full of excitement and
frolic.
[Footnote 7: Ludwig, Gretel, and Carl were named after German friends.
The Dutch form would be Lodewyk, Grietje and Karel.]
[Illustration: _Hans was clever at carving in wood_]
Up and down the canal, within the space of a half mile they skated,
exerting their racing powers to the utmost. Often the swiftest among
them was seen to dodge from under the very nose of some pompous
law-giver or doctor, who with folded arms was skating leisurely toward
the town; or a chain of girls would suddenly break at the approach of a
fat old burgomaster who, with gold-headed cane poised in air, was
puffing his way to Amsterdam. Equipped in skates wonderful to behold,
from their superb strappings, and dazzling runners curving over the
instep and topped with gilt balls, he would open his fat eyes a little
if one of the maidens chanced to drop him a courtesy, but would not dare
to bow in return for fear of losing his balance.
Not only pleasure-seekers and stately men of note were upon the canal.
There were work-people, with weary eyes, hastening to their shops and
factories; market-women with loads upon their heads; peddlers bending
with their packs; barge-men with shaggy hair and bleared faces, jostling
roughly on their way; kind-eyed clergymen speeding perhaps to the
bedsides of the dying; and, after a while, groups of children, with
satchels slung over their shoulders, whizzing past, toward the distant
school. One and all wore skates excepting, indeed, a muffled-up farmer
whose queer cart bumped along on the margin of the canal.
Before long our merry boys and girls were almost lost in the confusion
of bright colors, the ceaseless motion, and the gleaming of skates
flashing back the sunlight. We might have known no more of them had not
the whole party suddenly come to a standstill and, grouping themselves
out of the way of the passers-by, all talked at once to a pretty little
maiden, whom they had drawn from the tide of people flowing toward the
town.
"Oh Katrinka!" they cried, in a breath, "have you heard of it? The
race--We want you to join!"
"What race?" asked Katrinka, laughing--"Don't all talk at once, please,
I can't understand."
Every one panted and looked at Rychie Korbes, who was their acknowledged
spokeswoman.
"Why," said Rychie, "we are to have a grand skating match on the
twentieth, on Meurouw[8] van Gleck's birthday. It's all Hilda's work.
They are going to give a splendid prize to the best skater."
[Footnote 8: Mrs. or Madame (pronounced Meffrow).]
"Yes," chimed in half a dozen voices, "a beautiful pair of silver
skates--perfectly magnificent! with, oh! such straps and silver bells
and buckles!"
"_Who_ said they had bells?" put in the small voice of the boy with the
big name.
"_I_ say so, Master Voost," replied Rychie.
"So they have,"--"No, I'm sure they haven't,"--"_Oh_, how can you say
so?"--"It's an arrow"--"And Mynheer van Korbes told _my_ mother they had
bells,"--came from sundry of the excited group; but Mynheer
Voostenwalbert Schimmelpenninck essayed to settle the matter with a
decisive--
"Well, you don't any of you know a single thing about it; they haven't a
sign of a bell on them, they----"
"Oh! oh!" and the chorus of conflicting opinion broke forth again.
"The girls' pair are to have bells," interposed Hilda, quietly, "but
there is to be another pair for the boys with an arrow engraved upon the
sides."
"_There!_ I told you so!" cried nearly all the youngsters in a breath.
Katrinka looked at them with bewildered eyes.
"Who is to try?" she asked.
"All of us," answered Rychie. "It will be such fun! And you must, too,
Katrinka. But it's school time now, we will talk it all over at noon.
Oh! you will join of course."
Katrinka, without replying, made a graceful pirouette, and laughing out
a coquettish--"Don't you hear the last bell? Catch me!"--darted off
toward the schoolhouse, standing half a mile away, on the canal.
All started, pell-mell, at this challenge, but they tried in vain to
catch the bright-eyed, laughing creature who, with golden hair streaming
in the sunlight, cast back many a sparkling glance of triumph as she
floated onward.
Beautiful Katrinka! Flushed with youth and health, all life and mirth
and motion, what wonder thine image, ever floating in advance, sped
through one boy's dreams that night! What wonder that it seemed his
darkest hour when, years afterward, thy presence floated away from him
forever.
IV
HANS AND GRETEL FIND A FRIEND
At noon our young friends poured forth from the schoolhouse intent upon
having an hour's practicing upon the canal.
They had skated but a few moments when Carl Schummel said mockingly to
Hilda:
"There's a pretty pair just coming upon the ice! The little rag-pickers!
Their skates must have been a present from the king direct."
"They are patient creatures," said Hilda, gently. "It must have been
hard to learn to skate upon such queer affairs. They are very poor
peasants, you see. The boy has probably made the skates himself."
Carl was somewhat abashed.
"Patient they may be, but as for skating, they start off pretty well
only to finish with a jerk. They could move well to your new _staccato_
piece I think."
Hilda laughed pleasantly and left him. After joining a small detachment
of the racers, and sailing past every one of them, she halted beside
Gretel who, with eager eyes, had been watching the sport.
"What is your name, little girl?"
"Gretel, my lady," answered the child, somewhat awed by Hilda's rank,
though they were nearly of the same age, "and my brother is called
Hans."
"Hans is a stout fellow," said Hilda, cheerily, "and seems to have a
warm stove somewhere within him, but _you_ look cold. You should wear
more clothing, little one."
Gretel, who had nothing else to wear, tried to laugh as she answered:
"I am not so very little. I am past twelve years old."
"Oh, I beg your pardon. You see I am nearly fourteen, and so large of my
age that other girls seem small to me, but that is nothing. Perhaps you
will shoot up far above me yet; not unless you dress more warmly,
though--shivering girls never grow."
Hans flushed as he saw tears rising in Gretel's eyes.
"My sister has not complained of the cold; but this is bitter weather
they say----" and he looked sadly upon Gretel.
"It is nothing," said Gretel. "I am often warm--too warm when I am
skating. You are good, jufvrouw,[9] to think of it."
[Footnote 9: Miss--Young lady (pronounced yuffrow). In studied or polite
address it would be jongvrowe (pronounced youngfrow).]
"No, no," answered Hilda, quite angry at herself. "I am careless, cruel;
but I meant no harm. I wanted to ask you--I mean--if----" and here
Hilda, coming to the point of her errand, faltered before the poorly
clad but noble-looking children she wished to serve.
"What is it, young lady?" exclaimed Hans eagerly. "If there is any
service I can do? any----"
"Oh! no, no," laughed Hilda, shaking off her embarrassment, "I only
wished to speak to you about the grand race. Why do you not join it? You
both can skate well, and the ranks are free. Any one may enter for the
prize."
Gretel looked wistfully at Hans, who tugging at his cap, answered
respectfully.
"Ah, jufvrouw, even if we could enter, we could skate only a few
strokes with the rest. Our skates are hard wood you see," (holding up
the sole of his foot), "but they soon become damp, and then they stick
and trip us."
Gretel's eyes twinkled with fun as she thought of Hans' mishap in the
morning, but she blushed as she faltered out timidly:
"Oh no, we can't join; but may we be there, my lady, on the great day to
look on?"
"Certainly," answered Hilda, looking kindly into the two earnest faces,
and wishing from her heart that she had not spent so much of her monthly
allowance for lace and finery. She had but eight kwartjes[10] left, and
they would buy but one pair of skates, at the furthest.
[Footnote 10: A kwartje is a small silver coin worth one quarter of a
guilder, or 10 cents in American currency.]
Looking down with a sigh at the two pairs of feet so very different in
size, she asked:
"Which of you is the better skater?"
"Gretel," replied Hans, promptly.
"Hans," answered Gretel, in the same breath.
Hilda smiled.
"I cannot buy you each a pair of skates, or even one good pair; but here
are eight kwartjes. Decide between you which stands the best chance of
winning the race, and buy the skates accordingly. I wish I had enough to
buy better ones--good-bye!" and, with a nod and a smile, Hilda, after
handing the money to the electrified Hans, glided swiftly away to rejoin
her companions.
"Jufvrouw! jufvrouw von Gleck!" called Hans in a loud tone, stumbling
after her as well as he could, for one of his skate-strings was untied.
Hilda turned, and with one hand raised to shield her eyes from the sun,
seemed to him to be floating through the air, nearer and nearer.
"We cannot take this money," panted Hans, "though we know your goodness
in giving it."
"Why not indeed?" asked Hilda flushing.
"Because," replied Hans, bowing like a clown, but looking with the eye
of a prince at the queenly girl, "we have not earned it."
Hilda was quick-witted. She had noticed a pretty wooden chain upon
Gretel's neck.
"Carve me a chain, Hans, like the one your sister wears."
"That I will, lady, with all my heart; we have white wood in the house,
fine as ivory; you shall have one to-morrow," and Hans hastily tried to
return the money.
"No, no," said Hilda decidedly. "That sum will be but a poor price for
the chain," and off she darted, out-stripping the fleetest among the
skaters.
Hans sent a long, bewildered gaze after her; it was useless he felt to
make any further resistance.
"It is right," he muttered, half to himself, half to his faithful
shadow, Gretel, "I must work hard every minute, and sit up half the
night if the mother will let me burn a candle; but the chain shall be
finished. We may keep the money, Gretel."
"What a good little lady!" cried Gretel clapping her hands with delight,
"oh! Hans, was it for nothing the stork settled on our roof last summer?
Do you remember how the mother said it would bring us luck and how she
cried when Janzoon Kolp shot him? And she said it would bring him
trouble. But the luck has come to us at last! Now, Hans, if mother sends
us to town to-morrow you can buy the skates in the market-place."
Hans shook his head. "The young lady would have given us the money to
buy skates, but if I _earn_ it, Gretel, it shall be spent for wool. You
must have a warm jacket."
"Oh!" cried Gretel, in real dismay, "not buy the skates! Why, I am not
often cold! Mother says the blood runs up and down in poor children's
veins humming 'I must keep 'em warm! I must keep 'em warm.'
"Oh, Hans," she continued with something like a sob, "don't say you
won't buy the skates, it makes me feel just like crying--besides, I want
to be cold--I mean I'm real, awful warm--so now!"
Hans looked up hurriedly. He had a true Dutch horror of tears, or
emotion of any kind, and, most of all, he dreaded to see his sister's
blue eyes overflowing.
"Now mind," cried Gretel, seeing her advantage, "I'll feel awful if you
give up the skates. _I_ don't want them. I'm not such a stingy as that;
but I want _you_ to have them, and then when I get bigger they'll do for
me--oh-h--count the pieces, Hans. Did ever you see so many!"
Hans turned the money thoughtfully in his palm. Never in all his life
had he longed so intensely for a pair of skates, for he had known of the
race and had, boy-like, fairly ached for a chance to test his powers
with the other children. He felt confident that with a good pair of
steel runners, he could readily distance most of the boys on the canal.
Then, too, Gretel's argument was so plausible. On the other hand, he
knew that she, with her strong but lithe little frame, needed but a
week's practice on good runners, to make her a better skater than
Rychie Korbes or even Katrinka Flack. As soon as this last thought
flashed upon him his resolve was made. If Gretel would not have the
jacket, she should have the skates.
"No, Gretel," he answered at last, "I can wait. Some day I may have
money enough saved to buy a fine pair. You shall have these."
Gretel's eyes sparkled; but in another instant she insisted, rather
faintly:
"The young lady gave the money to _you_, Hans. I'd be real bad to take
it."
Hans shook his head, resolutely, as he trudged on, causing his sister to
half skip and half walk in her effort to keep beside him; by this time
they had taken off their wooden "rockers," and were hastening home to
tell their mother the good news.
"Oh! _I_ know!" cried Gretel, in a sprightly tone. "You can do this. You
can get a pair a little too small for you, and too big for me, and we
can take turns and use them. Won't that be fine?" and Gretel clapped her
hands again.
Poor Hans! This was a strong temptation, but he pushed it away from him,
brave-hearted fellow that he was.