Certainly, if ever old Jaap had cursed any particular little boy it
would have been Krelis Kess--who was quite the worst boy on the island,
and who usually was the leader of the troop that hung about the old
man's heels.
And even when Krelis got to be a big young fellow of twenty--old enough
to go on escapades in Amsterdam of which the rumour, coming back to
Marken, made all steady-going folk on the island look askance at
him--he still took an ugly pleasure, as occasion offered, in stirring
up old Jaap's wrath. If the old man chanced to pass by while he was
sitting of a Sunday afternoon in Jan de Jong's tavern, drinking more
gin-and-water than was good for him, it was one of his jokes to call
out through the open window "Mad old Jaap!" in the shrill voice of a
child; and to repeat his cry, with different inflections but always
in the same shrill tones, until the old man would go off into a fury
and shout his curse at the little boys who seemed to be so close
about him but who could not anywhere be seen. At that Krelis would
fall to laughing mightily, and so would the loose young fellows his
companions--who had found out that that would send his hand to his
pocket and give them free drinks all around.
Under such conditions it is not surprising that the wonder, and also
the regret, of these young scapegraces was very great when on a certain
Sunday afternoon in mid-spring time Krelis not only did not volunteer
his usual pleasantry at old Jaap's expense--as the old man came
shambling up the narrow street toward the tavern--but actually refused
to practise it when it was suggested to him. And the wonder grew to
be blank astonishment, a minute later, when he went to the window and
begged Herr Visser to come in and have a glass of schnapps with him!
To hear old Jaap called "Herr Visser" by anybody was enough to stretch
to the widest any pair of Marken ears; but to hear him addressed in
that stately fashion by Krelis Kess was enough to make any Marken man
believe that his ears had gone crazy!
At first the young scamps in the tavern were quite sure that Krelis
was about to play some new trick on old Jaap, and that this wonderful
politeness was the beginning of it. But the marvel increased when
the old man--who liked schnapps as well as anybody--joined the little
company of tosspots and was treated by Krelis with as much respect as
though he had been a burgomaster! And more than that, when the session
was ended--and old Jaap, to whom such treats came rarely, was so far
fuddled that he could not manage his legs easily--Krelis said that
nothing could be pleasanter than a walk across to the Kerkehof in the
cool of the evening, and so gave him a steadying arm home. As the two
set off together the young fellows left behind stared at each other in
sheer amazement; and such of the Marken folk as chanced to meet this
strangely assorted couple marching amicably arm in arm together were
inclined to disbelieve in their own eyes!
For a week, while they all were away at their fishing, there was a lull
in the excitement; but it was aroused again the next Sunday when Krelis
did not come as usual to the tavern--and went to a white heat when a
late arrival, a young fellow who lived in the Kerkehof, told that as he
came past Jaap Visser's house he had seen Krelis sitting on the bench
in front of it talking away with old Jaap and making eyes behind old
Jaap's back at Marretje. At first, being so entirely incredible, this
statement was scouted scornfully; but it aroused so lively a discussion
that presently the whole company left the tavern and went over in a
body to the Kerkehof bent upon disproving or verifying it--and there,
sure enough, were old Jaap and Krelis smoking their pipes together, and
Marretje along with them, on the bench in front of old Jaap's door!
Young Jan de Jong--the son of the tavern-keeper--expressed the feelings
of the company when he said, later, that as they stood there looking at
that strange sight you might have knocked down the whole of them with
the flirt of a skate's tail! But they did not stop long to look at it.
Krelis glared at them so savagely, and his big fists doubled up in so
threatening a fashion, that they took themselves off in a hurry--and
back to the tavern to talk it over, while they bathed their wonder in
very lightly watered gin.