“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.