A SMALL HERO.
“Did you ever hear how a small boy--a very small boy indeed--saved
Holland?” began Mr. Percival, after reflecting a moment.
“O no, sir. Is it a true story?”
“Absolutely true, with the exception, perhaps, of the name.”
“We never heard of him, anyway.”
“If you were a set of Dutch young people, you would have! The boy Hans,
that did this brave deed, was a far finer fellow than Casabianca, who
‘stood on the burning deck,’ and supposed his father wanted him to
burn to death for nothing but sheer obedience. For Hans accomplished
something by his grand courage and endurance; he saved a whole nation!”
“Do tell us about him. Kittie, throw on another piece of bark, and
don’t let that cunning little Maltee tumble into the fire!”
“Well, Holland, you see, is a queer place. Hundreds of years ago people
came upon a great swampy piece of land, running far out into the sea,
and said, ‘Now if we could only keep out the ocean in some way, this
would be a nice place to live in. We could have towns and cities all
along the coast, and we could build ships to sail around the world, and
at last we should become so powerful that any nation would be glad to
call us friends.’
“Accordingly they set their wits to work to devise some plan for
holding back the salt tides, which rose and fell as they pleased all
through the borders of this country. Then they began to build huge
mounds of earth, or ‘dykes,’ along the shore; and they kept on building
until they had a strong earthen wall nearly or quite around their land.
Randolph, do you know any similar place in the Western Continent?”
“In some parts of Nova Scotia, I believe, sir.”
“And along the Mississippi,” added Tom.
“Right, both of you. The result was that the sea could no longer
flood the fields, but threw its great waves and white foam against
the outside of the dykes as if it were always trying to push its way
in. As soon as people were sure their farms would not be washed away
and their cattle drowned, they built towns, which grew and prospered
amazingly. There was so little high land that there were but few
streams powerful enough to turn mill-wheels, so they made wind-mills to
grind their wheat and corn. Finally the country was named ‘Holland,’
and, as the first dyke-builders had expected, great nations were glad
to win their good-will.
“Not many years ago there lived in Holland a small boy, rather strong
for his age and size, whom we will call Hans Van Groot. His home was
near the sea; and after he had attended to all his duties about home,
he liked nothing better than to take a walk with his father along the
top of the dyke, and watch the white cows, as he called the foamy
waves, come rushing up to the shore, shaking their heads and bellowing
at him.
“‘No, no!’ he would cry out, laughing gleefully, ‘you can’t get in, you
can’t get in! The fence is too strong for you!’
[Illustration: “THE WAVES WERE RUNNING ENORMOUSLY LARGE.”]
“He might well say so; for this was a peculiarly dangerous point on the
coast, and the people knew that if the ocean should break the dyke all
Holland would be in peril, and thousands of lives, as well as no end of
valuable property, would be lost. So they had made the sea-wall doubly
thick and high for several miles in each direction.”
“I’ve seen the waves dash up that way on Star Island, at the Shoals,”
said Bess. “They are awful, after a storm.”
“On one of these quiet evening walks Hans’ father had been talking to
him about little faults.
“‘If you do wrong once, my boy,’ he said, ‘no matter how little a wrong
it is, there will some other bad thing be pretty apt to follow it;
and so all the good in you may be swept away, bit by bit, until it is
almost impossible to stop it.’
“‘But it could be stopped very easily at first, father, you mean?’
“‘Yes, Hans; just as you could stop with one finger a tiny leak in this
dyke, which before morning would be a roaring flood so strong that no
human power could hold it back. And Holland would be lost.’
“Hans pondered over this a great deal, in his quiet way, as he went to
bed that night and drove the cattle back and forth from their pasture
during the next few days. He was thinking of it as he walked along the
sea-shore about a week later. His father was not with him this time,
having gone to a city several miles away to spend the night with a sick
friend.”
As Mr. Percival reached this point in his story, a gust of wind arose
that made the old house creak and tremble in every joint; floods of
rain dashed against the little window, and the smoke at intervals
puffed from the fireplace out into the room.
“There had been a long storm, and to-night the waves were running
enormously large--larger than Hans had ever seen them. It was flood
tide; and as they rolled up, one by one, like long green hills, they
would topple over and break with a sound like thunder, so near that
the spray flew all over Hans and soaked him through before he had been
there two minutes. He was plodding along, with head bent down against
the wind, when all at once his heart stood still, and he could almost
feel his hair start up in terror at what he saw. If you had seen it,
perhaps you wouldn’t have noticed it; but he knew what it meant. It was
a very, very small stream of water trickling out through the soil and
gravel on the _inside_ of the dyke. Hans knew it was the sea, which had
at last found its way through. ‘Before morning,’ his father had said!
Hans thought one moment of the awful scene that was coming, and the
picture of his own home, surrounded by the terrible waves, rose before
him.
“He threw himself flat upon the dyke, and thrusting the forefinger of
his right hand into the hole, shrieked for help.
“It was about sunset, and the good Dutch country people were all at
home for the night. The nearest house was half a mile away.”
“Why didn’t he put a rock or a stick of wood in?” demanded Kittie
eagerly.
“There was no wood handy, I suppose; and even if there had been, the
water would have soon forced it out of the hole. A pebble would have
been useless for the same reason. No, the boy must hold the ocean with
his one little hand--the wind pushing, the moon pulling against him.
“‘Help! help! The dyke is breaking!’
“Nobody came. The night-fogs began to creep up from the sea, the wind
shifted back to the old stormy quarter and blew hard toward the land.
The tide was still rising, and the ‘white cows’ outside bellowed more
and more terribly. The stars went out, one by one.
“‘Help!’ Hans felt his finger, his hand, his whole arm, beginning to
ache from the strained position, but he did not dare to change. Would
nobody come?
“Blacker and blacker grew the night. The awful booming of the sea
drowned entirely the now feeble cry of the boy. The leak was stopped:
but could he bear it much longer? The pain shot up and down his arm and
shoulder like fire-flashes, until he groaned and cried aloud. He said
his prayers, partly for somebody to come and partly for strength to
hold out till they did.
“The temptation came to him powerfully to take out his aching hand and
run away. Nobody would know of it; and the pain was so keen! But he
said his little Dutch prayers the harder, and--held on.
* * * * *
“In the early gray of the morning a party of men came clambering along
the dyke, shouting and swinging lanterns. At last one of them--can
you guess which?--espied what looked like a heap of rags lying on the
ground.
“‘It’s his clothes!’ he cried, in a trembling voice. Then, ‘It’s
Hans himself, thank God! thank God!’
[Illustration: “CALLING ANXIOUSLY FOR HIM.”]
“He had ‘held on,’ you see, until he fainted with pain and exhaustion.
Wet through, cold as ice, his whole hand and arm swelled terribly, he
still held on, unconsciously, with his finger in the leak.
“So Hans prevented the destruction of the great dyke. He lost his own
right hand in doing it, to be sure; but in losing that he had saved
Holland.”
“One more! One more!” chorused the children, as their uncle concluded.
“That was so short!”
“Well,” said he, good-naturedly, “throw on a few more ‘silver rags’,
Tom; there’s just time for a very short one before dinner. Do you
remember that little Fred Colebrook who came here for a few minutes,
the day the Indians were tried?”
“The one with the curly hair? Yes, sir. He’s visiting at Mr.
Thompson’s, isn’t he?”
“Yes; his home is in a queer place--at least, what was his home till
last year, when his folks moved to the city.
“It was a little valley, with huge mountains on every side, so steep
and so close together that you would think there was no way to get
through to the world outside. Some of the mountains were covered with
pine and spruce trees, clinging to their sides like the shaggy fur of
a Newfoundland dog; others were bare from top to bottom, with bits of
red stone tumbling over their ugly-looking ledges almost every day.
The valley itself was pretty enough, with its tiny green meadow, and
a brook which laughed and played in the sunshine all day long. It was
rather a lonesome place, to be sure, but Fred did not mind that; for
did he not have his father, and his mother, and the workingman for
company; besides the old red cow, the horses, and five small gray
kittens? These kittens were Fred’s special pets. He was never tired
of feeling their soft fur and cool little feet against his cheek, and
hearing their sleepy _purr-r-purr-r_. Sometimes he would carry one of
them slyly up to the sober cow, feeding quietly in front of the house,
and place the kitten on her back. It was hard to tell which was more
astonished, the kitten or the cow. At any rate, they both would jump,
with such funny looks of surprise, and the kitten would run away as
fast as ever she could, to tell her adventure to the other four.
“One warm afternoon in June, Fred was sitting on the piazza watching
the kittens, as they tumbled about after their own tails, scampered
across the green, or hunted grasshoppers from spot to spot. The breeze
blew softly, and there was no sound in the air but the rush of the
brook, just below the hill.
“The kittens raced about harder than ever. One of them in particular,
whose name was Mischief, was more active than all the rest. She would
jump up into the air, turn somersaults, and finally took several steps
on her hind paws in her eagerness to catch a bright red butterfly, just
over her head. All this amused Fred greatly as he sat there in the warm
sunlight, with his head leaning against the door-post. But Mischief
still kept on, becoming more and more daring. She seemed to have fairly
learned to keep her balance on two feet, with the aid of her bushy
tail, for she ran about, to and fro, with her fore-paws stretched out
after the butterfly, like a child. Once or twice she laughed aloud. It
did not seem so strange, when she was standing up in that fashion, nor
was Fred at all surprised to notice that she seemed much larger than
ever before.
“‘Of course,’ he thought, ‘one is taller standing up than when one
is on one’s hands and knees.’ The other kittens had by this time
disappeared entirely from sight, leaving only Mischief, who now walked
about more slowly, and, having caught the butterfly, came sauntering up
to where Fred was sitting.
“‘Mischief,’ he began severely, ‘you’ve no right to treat that poor
butterfly’--Here he stopped, rather puzzled; what she held in her hand
was certainly no butterfly; it was a fan, covered with soft black and
scarlet feathers, and richly ornamented with gems.
“‘Well,’ said the kitten, carelessly, ‘go on. You were saying it was
nothing but-a-fly, I think;’ and she stooped slightly to arrange the
folds of her dress. This was of delicate gray velvet, fitting closely
to her pretty figure and trailing on the grass behind her. Indeed, Fred
now saw that she was not a kitten at all, but a dainty little lady,
about as high as his shoulder. She watched him with an amused smile,
and continued to fan herself. ‘I had such a run for this fan,’ she went
on, as if to put the boy at his ease; ‘the wind blew it quite out of my
hand, and--dear me, there it goes again!’
“As she was speaking, the fan made a queer sort of flutter in her
hands, and floated off into the sunshine. She sprang lightly into the
air, whirled around after it until Fred’s head was giddy, then walked
back quietly and stood before him again, fanning herself slowly, as if
nothing had happened.
“Fred felt that to be polite he ought to say something.
“‘I don’t understand, Miss ---- Miss ----’ he paused doubtfully.
“‘That’s right; Mischief,’ she said promptly. ‘You needn’t trouble
yourself to name me over again.’
“‘But you’re not Mischief,’ persisted Fred. ‘At least not the one I
know. She’s a kitten.’
“‘Well, what am I, pray?’ Fred rubbed his eyes; there she stood,
looking almost exactly as she had a minute before; yet that was
certainly a fuzzy gray tail resting on the grass, and these were
certainly his kitten’s paws and round eyes. She was purring softly.
“‘Now, Mischief,’ he cried out eagerly, ‘you’ve been playing tricks,
and I’m going to stroke you the wrong way, to pay up for it.’
“The kitten stopped purring. ‘Don’t,’ she said, sharply; ‘you’ll
crumple my dress! There,’ she added, in a gentler tone, seeing his
dismay, ‘you didn’t mean any harm. Be a good boy and I’ll let you take
a walk with me.’ She threw away her fan, and held out her little gloved
hand to him, as she spoke, for she was a lady again beyond all doubt.
Fred took her hand with some hesitation, and off they started together.
As they walked along, side by side, Mischief kept up such a steady,
soft little flow of talk that Fred could not tell it from purring half
the time. At last they reached the foot of one of the high mountains,
and Mischief began to scramble up, pulling him along as she did so.
“‘But I--never--was here before,’ he tried to say, as his little guide
leaped from rock to stump, catching them gracefully, and swinging him
up after her. Mischief never stopped, however, until they reached the
very tip-top. Then they sat down to rest on a mossy rock. The view was
glorious; Fred could see his house, nestling in the valley far, far
below him, and looking no bigger than a pin in a green pincushion.
“‘Speaking of pins,’ said Mischief, as if she read his thoughts, ‘how
many pine needles are there in a bunch? I suppose you learned that at
school.’
“‘No,’ said Fred, ‘we had how many shillings there are in a guinea,
and how many rods make a furlong, and--’ Here Mischief appeared so
intensely interested that he was quite confused, and stopped short.
“‘Go on,’ she cried, impatiently; ‘how do you make your fur long?’
“Fred was dreadfully puzzled. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘I don’t think you
quite understood me.’
“‘Well, never mind. How about the needles?’
“‘I never learned that table.’
“‘Humph! I thought everybody knew there were three in a bunch on a
pitch pine, and five in a bunch on a white pine. It’s in the catechism.’
“‘No, it’s not,’ said Fred, decidedly.
“‘It ought to be, then, which is precisely the same thing with us
kittens.’
“‘It isn’t with folks,’ said Fred.
“‘Well, let me see if you know anything at all. Do you see that black
cloud coming up over the hills?’
“‘Yes’m.’
“‘Probably it will rain to-night, will it not?’
“‘Yes’m,’ replied Fred again, meekly.
“‘Why should it?’
“Fred looked at the cloud blankly; he really had never thought of this
before.
“‘Of course you don’t know,’ said Mischief, after waiting a moment for
him to answer. ‘It’s because every drop of water in that cloud has
thin, gauzy wings of fog, and when they happen to come across a cold
breeze--as they often do in these high mountains--they shiver and fold
up their wings so they can’t fly any more, and down they come in what
you call a rain storm. I knew that before I had my eyes open. Now,’ she
continued, ‘I’m going to try you just once more, and then we must be
going. Did you ever see a kitten walk on tip-toes?’
“‘Never,’ said Fred. ‘Except,’ he added slyly, ‘when they jump after
butterflies.’
“Mischief laughed outright. ‘Dear me, you funny boy,’ she said, ‘where
_have_ you been to school? Why, _all_ kittens walk on tip-toes, from
morning till night. That little crook that looks like a knee is really
a kitten’s heel. Horses walk the same way, only they have just one
toe to walk on, and that longer then your arm. You ask that little
gray-bearded man with the blue spectacles, that comes here once in a
while, and he will tell you that many thousand years ago horses had as
many toes as kittens, but they are such great, awkward things that all
their other toes have been taken away from them. A cow has--’
“‘I know!’ cried Fred. ‘She has a cloven hoof, without any toes at all.’
“‘You’re all wrong, as usual,’ said Mischief briskly; ‘what you call
hoof is her two toes. Though why she should be allowed to keep more
than a horse, I never could see. Great red thing!’ Just then, a big
drop of rain came down, spat! on Mischief’s nose. She rubbed it off
hastily with her nice little mouse-gray gloves, and looked about her
with a frightened air. ‘It never will do for me to be caught in a
shower,’ she said, ‘or my gloves and dress will be spotted. They’ve
been in the family a long time and were imported from Malta.’ Another
drop struck her face, tickling her so that she sneezed violently.
“‘Come!’ she cried, and started off at a full run, down the
mountain-side, pulling Fred after her as before. ‘Hurry, hurry,’ she
screamed; ‘faster, faster!’
“Fred now saw, to his horror, that instead of descending the side on
which they had come up, she was making straight toward the slope where
the rocks were bare and red.
“‘Stop, stop, Mischief!’ he cried breathlessly, ‘we shall go over the
cliff!’
“Before the words were fairly out of his mouth they were on the
crumbling edge of a precipice. In that instant Fred could see the road
and the brook a thousand feet below them.
“He braced his feet against the stones and tried to snatch his hand
away, but Mischief held it more tightly than ever. With one wild bound
they were over the brink, out in the empty air, falling down, down--
“Come, come, Fred, you’ll be wet through!”
“Fred looked about him in amazement. He was sitting on the piazza, and
there was Mischief in his lap. She was shaking off the rain-drops as
they fell thickly upon her soft fur, and was struggling to get away
from his hand, which was tightly clasped about one of her fore-paws.
His other hand was held by his mother, who stood over him, laughing
and talking at the same time. ‘Why, Fred, have you been here all the
afternoon? I guess the kitten has had a nice nap; and just see how it
rains!’
“‘Mischief,’ began Fred solemnly, letting go her paw, ‘what have you
been--?’ but Mischief had already jumped and run off to the barn, to
find her brothers and sisters.”