At an early period in the history of Holland, a boy was born in
Haarlem, a town remarkable for its variety of fortune in war, but
happily still more so for its manufactures and inventions in peace.
His father was a _sluicer_,--that is, one whose employment it was to
open and shut the sluices, or large oak-gates, which, placed at
certain regular distances, close the entrance of the canals, and
secure Holland from the danger to which it seems exposed, of finding
itself under water, rather than above it. When water is wanted, the
sluicer raises the sluices more or less, as required, as a cook turns
the cock of a fountain, and closes them again carefully at night;
otherwise the water would flow into the canals, then overflow them,
and inundate the whole country; so that even the little children in
Holland are fully aware of the importance of a punctual discharge of
the sluicer's duties. The boy was about eight years old, when, one
day, he asked permission to take some cakes to a poor blind man, who
lived at the other side of the dyke. His father gave him leave, but
charged him not to stay too late. The child promised, and set off on
his little journey. The blind man thankfully partook of his young
friend's cakes; and the boy, mindful of his father's orders, did not
wait, as usual, to hear one of the old man's stories; but, as soon as
he had seen him eat one muffin, took leave of him to return home.
As he went along by the canals, then quite full,--for it was in
October, and the autumn rains had swelled the waters,--the boy now
stopped to pull the little blue flowers which his mother loved so
well; now, in childish gayety, hummed some merry song. The road
gradually became more solitary; and soon neither the joyous shout of
the villager, returning to his cottage-home, nor the rough voice of
the carter, grumbling at his lazy horses, was any longer to be heard.
The little fellow now perceived that the blue of the flowers in his
hand was scarcely distinguishable from the green of the surrounding
herbage, and he looked up in some dismay. The night was falling; not,
however, a dark winter night, but one of those beautiful, clear,
moonlight nights, in which every object is perceptible, though not as
distinctly as by day. The child thought of his father, of his
injunction, and was preparing to quit the ravine in which he was
almost buried, and to regain the beach, when suddenly a slight noise,
like the trickling of water upon pebbles, attracted his attention. He
was near one of the large sluices, and he now carefully examines it,
and soon discovers a hole in the wood, through which the water was
flowing. With the instant perception which every child in Holland
would have, the boy saw that the water must soon enlarge the hole
through which it was now only dropping, and that utter and general
ruin would be the consequence of the inundation of the country that
must follow. To see, to throw away the flowers, to climb from stone to
stone till he reached the hole, and to put his finger into it, was the
work of a moment; and, to his delight, he finds that he has succeeded
in stopping the flow of the water.
This was all very well for a little while, and the child thought only
of the success of his device. But the night was closing in, and with
the night came the cold. The little boy looked around in vain. No one
came. He shouted--he called loudly--no one answered. He resolved to
stay there all night; but, alas! the cold was becoming every moment
more biting, and the poor finger fixed in the hole began to feel
benumbed, and the numbness soon extended to the hand, and thence
throughout the whole arm. The pain became still greater, still harder
to bear; but still the boy moved not. Tears rolled down his cheeks as
he thought of his father, of his mother, of his little bed, where he
might now be sleeping so soundly; but still the little fellow stirred
not, for he knew that did he remove the small slender finger which he
had opposed to the escape of the water, not only would he himself be
drowned, but his father, his brothers, his neighbors--nay, the whole
village. We know not what faltering of purpose, what momentary
failures of courage, there might have been during that long and
terrible night; but certain it is, that, at day-break, he was found in
the same painful position by a clergyman returning from attendance on
a death-bed, who, as he advanced, thought he heard groans, and,
bending over the dyke, discovered a child seated on a stone, writhing
from pain, and with pale face and tearful eyes.
"Boy," he exclaimed, "what are you doing there?"
"I am hindering the water from running out," was the answer, in
perfect simplicity, of the child, who, during the whole night, had
been evincing such heroic fortitude and undaunted courage.
--Sharpe's Magazine.
* * * * *
I copy these verses for two reasons. They teach trust in God; and they
were written by a gentleman who, I am sure, remembers with pleasure
when he was a scholar in the Sunday School; the request of whose
superintendents induced me to make this miniature book.