Hans and Gretel Find a Friend
At noon our young friends poured forth from the schoolhouse, intent upon having an hour’s practice 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 ragpickers! 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 for my age that other girls seem small to me, but that is nothing. Perhaps you will shoot up far above me yet, but 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 all 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, *{Miss; young lady (pronounced yuffrow). In studied or polite address it would be jongvrowe (pronounced youngfrow).} to think of it.”
“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. Anyone 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’s 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 *{A kwartje is a small silver coin worth one-quarter of a guilder, or ten cents in American currency.} left, and they would buy but one pair of skates, at the furthest.
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 van 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 whitewood in the house, fine as ivory; you shall have one tomorrow.” 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 outstripping 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 set it would bring him trouble. But the luck has come to us at last! Now, Hans, if the mother sends us to town tomorrow, you can buy the skates in the marketplace.”
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 or tears, or emotion of any kind, and most of all, he dreaded to see his sisters’ 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 so stingy as that; but I want YOU to have them, and then when I get bigger, they’ll do for me—oh—count the pieces, Hans. Did you ever 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 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 outdistance most of the boys on the canal. Then, too, Gretel’s argument was 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. Someday 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?” 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.
“Nonsense, Gretel. You could never get on with a big pair. You stumbled about with these, like a blind chicken, before I curved off the ends. No, you must have a pair to fit exactly, and you must practice every chance you can get, until the twentieth comes. My little Gretel shall win the silver skates.”
Gretel could not help laughing with delight at the very idea.
“Hans! Gretel!” called out a familiar voice.
“Coming, Mother!”
They hastened toward the cottage, Hans still shaking the pieces of silver in his hand.
On the following day there was not a prouder nor a happier boy in all Holland than Hans Brinker as he watched his sister, with many a dexterous sweep, flying in and out among the skaters who at sundown thronged the canal. A warm jacket had been given her by the kind-hearted Hilda, and the burst-out shoes had been cobbled into decency by Dame Brinker. As the little creature darted backward and forward, flushed with enjoyment and quite unconscious of the many wondering glances bent upon her, she felt that the shining runners beneath her feet had suddenly turned earth into fairyland while “Hans, dear, good Hans!” echoed itself over and over again in her grateful heart.
“By den donder!” exclaimed Peter van Holp to Carl Schummel, “but that little one in the red jacket and patched petticoat skates well. Gunst! She has toes on her heels and eyes in the back of her head! See her! It will be a joke if she gets in the race and beats Katrinka Flack, after all.”
“Hush! not so loud!” returned Carl, rather sneeringly. “That little lady in rags is the special pet of Hilda van Gleck. Those shining skates are her gift, if I make no mistake.”
“So! so!” exclaimed Peter with a radiant smile, for Hilda was his best friend. “She has been at her good work there too!” And Mynheer van Holp, after cutting a double figure eight on the ice, to say nothing of a huge P, then a jump and an H, glided onward until he found himself beside Hilda.
Hand in hand, they skated together, laughingly at first, then staidly talking in a low tone.
Strange to say, Peter van Holp soon arrived at a sudden conviction that his little sister needed a wooden chain just like Hilda’s.
Two days afterwards, on Saint Nicholas’s Eve, Hans, having burned three candle ends and cut his thumb into the bargain, stood in the marketplace at Amsterdam, buying another pair of skates.
Shadows in the Home
Good Dame Brinker! As soon as the scanty dinner had been cleared away that noon, she had arrayed herself in her holiday attire in honor of Saint Nicholas. It will brighten the children, she thought to herself, and she was not mistaken. This festival dress had been worn very seldom during the past ten years; before that time it had done good service and had flourished at many a dance and kermis, when she was known, far and wide, as the pretty Meitje Klenck. The children had sometimes been granted rare glimpses of it as it lay in state in the old oaken chest. Faded and threadbare as it was, it was gorgeous in their eyes, with its white linen tucker, now gathered to her plump throat and vanishing beneath the trim bodice of blue homespun, and its reddish-brown skirt bordered with black. The knitted woolen mitts and the dainty cap showing her hair, which generally was hidden, made her seem almost like a princess to Gretel, while Master Hans grew staid and well-behaved as he gazed.
Soon the little maid, while braiding her own golden tresses, fairly danced around her mother in an ecstasy of admiration.
“Oh, Mother, Mother, Mother, how pretty you are! Look, Hans! Isn’t it just like a picture?”
“Just like a picture,” assented Hans cheerfully. “JUST like a picture—only I don’t like those stocking things on the hands.”
“Not like the mitts, brother Hans! Why, they’re very important. See, they cover up all the red. Oh, Mother, how white your arm is where the mitt leaves off, whiter than mine, oh, ever so much whiter. I declare, Mother, the bodice is tight for you. You’re growing! You’re surely growing!”
Dame Brinker laughed.
“This was made long ago, lovey, when I wasn’t much thicker about the waist than a churn dasher. And how do you like the cap?” she asked, turning her head from side to side.
“Oh, EVER so much, Mother. It’s b-e-a-u-tiful! See, the father is looking!”
Was the father looking? Alas! only with a dull stare. His vrouw turned toward him with a start, something like a blush rising to her cheeks, a questioning sparkle in her eye. The bright look died away in an instant.
“No, no.” She sighed. “He sees nothing. Come, Hans”—and the smile crept faintly back again—“don’t stand gaping at me all day, and the new skates waiting for you at Amsterdam.”
“Ah, Mother,” he answered, “you need so many things. Why should I buy skates?”
“Nonsense, child. The money was given to you on purpose, or the work was—it’s all the same thing. Go while the sun is high.”
“Yes, and hurry back, Hans!” laughed Gretel. “We’ll race on the canal tonight, if the mother lets us.”
At the very threshold he turned to say, “Your spinning wheel wants a new treadle, Mother.”
“You can make it, Hans.”
“So I can. That will take no money. But you need feathers and wool and meal, and—”
“There, there! That will do. Your silver cannot buy everything. Ah! Hans, if our stolen money would but come back on this bright Saint Nicholas’s Eve, how glad we would be! Only last night I prayed to the good saint—”
“Mother!” interrupted Hans in dismay.
“Why not, Hans? Shame on you to reproach me for that! I’m as true a Protestant, in sooth, as any fine lady that walks into church, but it’s no wrong to turn sometimes to the good Saint Nicholas. Tut! It’s a likely story if one can’t do that, without one’s children flaring up at it—and he the boys’ and girls’ own saint. Hoot! Mayhap the colt is a steadier horse than the mare?”
Hans knew his mother too well to offer a word in opposition when her voice quickened and sharpened as it did now (it was often sharp and quick when she spoke of the missing money), so he said gently, “And what did you ask of good Saint Nicholas, Mother?”
“Why, never to give the thieves a wink of sleep till they brought it back, to be sure, if he has the power to do such things, or else to brighten our wits that we might find it ourselves. Not a sight have I had of it since the day before the dear father was hurt—as you well know, Hans.”
“That I do, Mother,” he answered sadly, “though you have almost pulled down the cottage in searching.”
“Aye, but it was of no use,” moaned the dame. “‘HIDERS make best finders.’”
Hans started. “Do you think the father could tell aught?”
“Aye, indeed,” said Dame Brinker, nodding her head. “I think so, but that is no sign. I never hold the same belief in the matter two days. Mayhap the father paid it off for the great silver watch we have been guarding since that day. But, no—I’ll never believe it.”
“The watch was not worth a quarter of the money, Mother.”
“No, indeed, and your father was a shrewd man up to the last moment. He was too steady and thrifty for silly doings.”
“Where did the watch come from, I wonder,” muttered Hans, half to himself.
Dame Brinker shook her head and looked sadly toward her husband, who sat staring blankly at the floor. Gretel stood near him, knitting.
“That we shall never know, Hans. I have shown it to the father many a time, but he does not know it from a potato. When he came in that dreadful night to supper, he handed the watch to me and told me to take good care of it until he asked for it again. Just as he opened his lips to say more, Broom Klatterboost came flying in with word that the dike was in danger. Ah! The waters were terrible that Pinxter-week! My man, alack, caught up his tools and ran out. That was the last I ever saw of him in his right mind. He was brought in again by midnight, nearly dead, with his poor head all bruised and cut. The fever passed off in time, but never the dullness—THAT grew worse every day. We shall never know.”
Hans had heard all this before. More than once he had seen his mother, in hours of sore need, take the watch from its hiding place, half resolved to sell it, but she had always conquered the temptation.
“No, Hans,” she would say, “we must be nearer starvation than this before we turn faithless to the father!”
A memory of some such scene crossed her son’s mind now, for, after giving a heavy sigh, and flipping a crumb of wax at Gretel across the table, he said, “Aye, Mother, you have done bravely to keep it—many a one would have tossed it off for gold long ago.”
“And more shame for them!” exclaimed the dame indignantly. “I would not do it. Besides, the gentry are so hard on us poor folks that if they saw such a thing in our hands, even if we told all, they might suspect the father of—”
Hans flushed angrily.
“They would not DARE to say such a thing, Mother! If they did, I’d...”
He clenched his fist and seemed to think that the rest of his sentence was too terrible to utter in her presence.
Dame Brinker smiled proudly through her tears at this interruption.
“Ah, Hans, thou’rt a true, brave lad. We will never part company with the watch. In his dying hour the dear father might wake and ask for it.”
“Might WAKE, Mother!” echoed Hans. “Wake—and know us?”
“Aye, child,” almost whispered his mother, “such things have been.”
By this time Hans had nearly forgotten his proposed errand to Amsterdam. His mother had seldom spoken so familiarly to him. He felt himself now to be not only her son, but her friend, her adviser:
“You are right, Mother. We must never give up the watch. For the father’s sake we will guard it always. The money, though, may come to light when we least expect it.”
“Never!” cried Dame Brinker, taking the last stitch from her needle with a jerk and laying the unfinished knitting heavily upon her lap. “There is no chance! One thousand guilders—and all gone in a day! One thousand guilders. Oh, what ever DID become of them? If they went in an evil way, the thief would have confessed it on his dying bed. He would not dare to die with such guilt on his soul!”
“He may not be dead yet,” said Hans soothingly. “Any day we may hear of him.”
“Ah, child,” she said in a changed tone, “what thief would ever have come HERE? It was always neat and clean, thank God, but not fine, for the father and I saved and saved that we might have something laid by. ‘Little and often soon fills the pouch.’ We found it so, in truth. Besides, the father had a goodly sum already, for service done to the Heernocht lands, at the time of the great inundation. Every week we had a guilder left over, sometimes more; for the father worked extra hours and could get high pay for his labor. Every Saturday night we put something by, except the time when you had the fever, Hans, and when Gretel came. At last the pouch grew so full that I mended an old stocking and commenced again. Now that I look back, it seems that the money was up to the heel in a few sunny weeks. There was great pay in those days if a man was quick at engineer work. The stocking went on filling with copper and silver—aye, and gold. You may well open your eyes, Gretel. I used to laugh and tell the father it was not for poverty I wore my old gown. And the stocking went on filling, so full that sometimes when I woke at night, I’d get up, soft and quiet, and go feel it in the moonlight. Then, on my knees, I would thank our Lord that my little ones could in time get good learning, and that the father might rest from labor in his old age. Sometimes, at supper, the father and I would talk about a new chimney and a good winter room for the cow, but my man had finer plans even than that. ‘A big sail,’ says he, ‘catches the wind—we can do what we will soon,’ and then we would sing together as I washed my dishes. Ah, ‘a smooth wind makes an easy rudder.’ Not a thing vexed me from morning till night. Every week the father would take out the stocking and drop in the money and laugh and kiss me as we tied it up together. Up with you, Hans! There you sit gaping, and the day a-wasting!” added Dame Brinker tartly, blushing to find that she had been speaking too freely to her boy. “It’s high time you were on your way.”
Hans had seated himself and was looking earnestly into her face. He arose and, in almost a whisper, asked, “Have you ever tried, Mother?”
She understood him.
“Yes, child, often. But the father only laughs, or he stares at me so strange that I am glad to ask no more. When you and Gretel had the fever last winter, and our bread was nearly gone, and I could earn nothing, for fear you would die while my face was turned, oh! I tried then! I smoothed his hair and whispered to him soft as a kitten, about the money—where it was, who had it? Alack! He would pick at my sleeve and whisper gibberish till my blood ran cold. At last, while Gretel lay whiter than snow, and you were raving on the bed, I screamed to him—it seemed as if he MUST hear me—‘Raff, where is our money? Do you know aught of the money, Raff? The money in the pouch and the stocking, in the big chest?’ But I might as well have talked to a stone. I might as—”
The mother’s voice sounded so strange, and her eye was so bright, that Hans, with a new anxiety, laid his hand upon her shoulder.
“Come, Mother,” he said, “let us try to forget this money. I am big and strong. Gretel, too, is very quick and willing. Soon all will be prosperous with us again. Why, Mother, Gretel and I would rather see thee bright and happy than to have all the silver in the world, wouldn’t we, Gretel?”
“The mother knows it,” said Gretel, sobbing.
Sunbeams
Dame Brinker was startled at her children’s emotion; glad, too, for it proved how loving and true they were.
Beautiful ladies in princely homes often smile suddenly and sweetly, gladdening the very air around them, but I doubt if their smile be more welcome in God’s sight than that which sprang forth to cheer the roughly clad boy and girl in the humble cottage. Dame Brinker felt that she had been selfish. Blushing and brightening, she hastily wiped her eyes and looked upon them as only a mother can.
“Hoity! Toity! Pretty talk we’re having, and Saint Nicholas’s Eve almost here! What wonder the yarn pricks my fingers! Come, Gretel, take this cent, *{The Dutch cent is worth less than half of an American cent.} and while Hans is trading for the skates you can buy a waffle in the marketplace.”
“Let me stay home with you, Mother,” said Gretel, looking up with eyes that sparkled through their tears. “Hans will buy me the cake.”
“As you will, child, and Hans—wait a moment. Three turns of this needle will finish this toe, and then you may have as good a pair of hose as ever were knitted (owning the yarn is a grain too sharp) to sell to the hosier on the Harengracht. *{A street in Amsterdam.} That will give us three quarter-guilders if you make good trade; and as it’s right hungry weather, you may buy four waffles. We’ll keep the Feast of Saint Nicholas after all.”
Gretel clapped her hands. “That will be fine! Annie Bouman told me what grand times they will have in the big houses tonight. But we will be merry too. Hans will have beautiful new skates—and then there’ll be the waffles! Oh! Don’t break them, brother Hans. Wrap them well, and button them under your jacket very carefully.”
“Certainly,” replied Hans, quite gruff with pleasure and importance.
“Oh! Mother!” cried Gretel in high glee, “soon you will be busied with the father, and now you are only knitting. Do tell us all about Saint Nicholas!”
Dame Brinker laughed to see Hans hang up his hat and prepare to listen. “Nonsense, children,” she said. “I have told it to you often.”
“Tell us again! Oh, DO tell us again!” cried Gretel, throwing herself upon the wonderful wooden bench that her brother had made on the mother’s last birthday. Hans, not wishing to appear childish, and yet quite willing to hear the story, stood carelessly swinging his skates against the fireplace.
“Well, children, you shall hear it, but we must never waste the daylight again in this way. Pick up your ball, Gretel, and let your sock grow as I talk. Opening your ears needn’t shut your fingers. Saint Nicholas, you must know, is a wonderful saint. He keeps his eye open for the good of sailors, but he cares most of all for boys and girls. Well, once upon a time, when he was living on the earth, a merchant of Asia sent his three sons to a great city, called Athens, to get learning.”
“Is Athens in Holland, Mother?” asked Gretel.
“I don’t know, child. Probably it is.”
“Oh, no, Mother,” said Hans respectfully. “I had that in my geography lessons long ago. Athens is in Greece.”
“Well,” resumed the mother, “what matter? Greece may belong to the king, for aught we know. Anyhow, this rich merchant sent his sons to Athens. While they were on their way, they stopped one night at a shabby inn, meaning to take up their journey in the morning. Well, they had very fine clothes—velvet and silk, it may be, such as rich folks’ children all over the world think nothing of wearing—and their belts, likewise, were full of money. What did the wicked landlord do but contrive a plan to kill the children and take their money and all their beautiful clothes himself. So that night, when all the world was asleep, he got up and killed the three young gentlemen.”
Gretel clasped her hands and shuddered, but Hans tried to look as if killing and murder were everyday matters to him.
“That was not the worst of it,” continued Dame Brinker, knitting slowly and trying to keep count of her stitches as she talked. “That was not near the worst of it. The dreadful landlord went and cut up the young gentlemen’s bodies into little pieces and threw them into a great tub of brine, intending to sell them for pickled pork!”
“Oh!” cried Gretel, horror-stricken, though she had often heard the story before. Hans was still unmoved and seemed to think that pickling was the best that could be done under the circumstances.
“Yes, he pickled them, and one might think that would have been the last of the young gentlemen. But no. That night Saint Nicholas had a wonderful vision, and in it he saw the landlord cutting up the merchant’s children. There was no need of his hurrying, you know, for he was a saint, but in the morning he went to the inn and charged the landlord with murder. Then the wicked landlord confessed it from beginning to end and fell down on his knees, begging forgiveness. He felt so sorry for what he had done that he asked the saint to bring the young masters to life.”
“And did the saint do it?” asked Gretel, delighted, well knowing what the answer would be.
“Of course he did. The pickled pieces flew together in an instant, and out jumped the young gentlemen from the brine tub. They cast themselves at the feet of Saint Nicholas, and he gave them his blessing, and—oh! mercy on us, Hans, it will be dark before you get back if you don’t start this minute!”
By this time Dame Brinker was almost out of breath and quite out of commas. She could not remember when she had seen the children idle away an hour of daylight in this manner, and the thought of such luxury quite appalled her. By way of compensation she now flew about the room in extreme haste. Tossing a block of peat upon the fire, blowing invisible fire from the table, and handing the finished hose to Hans, all in an instant...
“Comes, Hans,” she said as her boy lingered by the door. “What keeps thee?”
Hans kissed his mother’s plump cheek, rosy and fresh yet, in spite of all her troubles.
“My mother is the best in the world, and I would be right glad to have a pair of skates, but”—and as he buttoned his jacket he looked, in a troubled way, toward a strange figure crouching by the hearthstone—“if my money would bring a meester *{Doctor (dokter in Dutch), called meester by the lower class.} from Amsterdam to see the father, something might yet be done.”
“A meester would not come, Hans, for twice that money, and it would do no good if he did. Ah, how many guilders I once spent for that, but the dear, good father would not waken. It is God’s will. Go, Hans, and buy the skates.”
Hans started with a heavy heart, but since the heart was young and in a boy’s bosom, it set him whistling in less than five minutes. His mother had said “thee” to him, and that was quite enough to make even a dark day sunny. Hollanders do not address each other, in affectionate intercourse, as the French and Germans do. But Dame Brinker had embroidered for a Heidelberg family in her girlhood, and she had carried its thee and thou into her rude home, to be used in moments of extreme love and tenderness.
Therefore, “What keeps thee, Hans?” sang an echo song beneath the boy’s whistling and made him feel that his errand was blest.
Hans Has His Way
Broek, with its quiet, spotless streets, its frozen rivulets, its yellow brick pavements and bright wooden houses, was nearby. It was a village where neatness and show were in full blossom, but the inhabitants seemed to be either asleep or dead.
Not a footprint marred the sanded paths where pebbles and seashells lay in fanciful designs. Every window shutter was tightly closed as though air and sunshine were poison, and the massive front doors were never opened except on the occasion of a wedding, a christening, or a funeral.
Serene clouds of tobacco smoke were floating through hidden corners, and children, who otherwise might have awakened the place, were studying in out-of-the-way corners or skating upon the neighboring canal. A few peacocks and wolves stood in the gardens, but they had never enjoyed the luxury of flesh and blood. They were made out of boxwood hedges and seemed to be guarding the grounds with a sort of green ferocity. Certain lively automata, ducks, women, and sportsmen, were stowed away in summer houses, waiting for the spring-time when they could be wound up and rival their owners in animation; and the shining tiled roofs, mosaic courtyards, and polished house trimmings flashed up a silent homage to the sky, where never a speck of dust could dwell.
Hans glanced toward the village, as he shook his silver kwartjes and wondered whether it were really true, as he had often heard, that some of the people of Broek were so rich that they used kitchen utensils of solid gold.
He had seen Mevrouw van Stoop’s sweet cheeses in market, and he knew that the lofty dame earned many a bright silver guilder in selling them. But did she set the cream to rise in golden pans? Did she use a golden skimmer? When her cows were in winter quarters, were their tails really tied up with ribbons?
These thoughts ran through his mind as he turned his face toward Amsterdam, not five miles away, on the other side of the frozen Y. *{Pronounced eye, an arm of the Zuider Zee.} The ice upon the canal was perfect, but his wooden runners, so soon to be cast aside, squeaked a dismal farewell as he scraped and skimmed along.
When crossing the Y, whom should he see skating toward him but the great Dr. Boekman, the most famous physician and surgeon in Holland. Hans had never met him before, but he had seen his engraved likeness in many of the shop windows in Amsterdam. It was a face that one could never forget. Thin and lank, though a born Dutchman, with stern blue eyes, and queer compressed lips that seemed to say “No smiling permitted,” he certainly was not a very jolly or sociable-looking personage, nor one that a well-trained boy would care to accost unbidden.
But Hans WAS bidden, and that, too, by a voice he seldom disregarded—his own conscience.
“Here comes the greatest doctor in the world,” whispered the voice. “God has sent him. You have no right to buy skates when you might, with the same money, purchase such aid for your father!”
The wooden runners gave an exultant squeak. Hundreds of beautiful skates were gleaming and vanishing in the air above him. He felt the money tingle in his fingers. The old doctor looked fearfully grim and forbidding. Hans’s heart was in his throat, but he found voice enough to cry out, just as he was passing, “Mynheer Boekman!”
The great man halted and, sticking out his thin underlip, looked scowling about him.
Hans was in for it now.
“Mynheer,” he panted, drawing close to the fierce-looking doctor, “I knew you could be none other than the famous Boekman. I have to ask a great favor—”
“Hump!” muttered the doctor, preparing to skate past the intruder. “Get out of the way. I’ve no money—never give to beggars.”
“I am no beggar, mynheer,” retorted Hans proudly, at the same time producing his mite of silver with a grand air. “I wish to consult you about my father. He is a living man but sits like one dead. He cannot think. His words mean nothing, but he is not sick. He fell on the dikes.”
“Hey? What?” cried the doctor, beginning to listen.
Hans told the whole story in an incoherent way, dashing off a tear once or twice as he talked, and finally ending with an earnest “Oh, do see him, mynheer. His body is well—it is only his mind. I know that this money is not enough, but take it, mynheer. I will earn more, I know I will. Oh! I will toil for you all my life, if you will but cure my father!”
What was the matter with the old doctor? A brightness like sunlight beamed from his face. His eyes were kind and moist; the hand that had lately clutched his cane, as if preparing to strike, was laid gently upon Hans’s shoulder.
“Put up your money, boy, I do not want it. We will see your father. It’s hopeless, I fear. How long did you say?”
“Ten years, mynheer,” sobbed Hans, radiant with sudden hope.
“Ah! a bad case, but I shall see him. Let me think. Today I start for Leyden, to return in a week, then you may expect me. Where is it?”
“A mile south of Broek, mynheer, near the canal. It is only a poor, broken-down hut. Any of the children thereabout can point it out to your honor,” added Hans with a heavy sigh. “They are all half afraid of the place; they call it the idiot’s cottage.”
“That will do,” said the doctor, hurrying on with a bright backward nod at Hans. “I shall be there. A hopeless case,” he muttered to himself, “but the boy pleases me. His eye is like my poor Laurens’s. Confound it, shall I never forget that young scoundrel!” And, scowling more darkly than ever, the doctor pursued his silent way.
Again Hans was skating toward Amsterdam on the squeaking wooden runners; again his fingers tingled against the money in his pocket; again the boyish whistle rose unconsciously to his lips.
Shall I hurry home, he was thinking, to tell the good news, or shall I get the waffles and the new skates first? Whew! I think I’ll go on!
And so Hans bought the skates.
Introducing Jacob Poot and His Cousin
Hans and Gretel had a fine frolic early on that Saint Nicholas’s Eve. There was a bright moon, and their mother, though she believed herself to be without any hope of her husband’s improvement, had been made so happy at the prospect of the meester’s visit, that she yielded to the children’s entreaties for an hour’s skating before bedtime.
Hans was delighted with his new skates and, in his eagerness to show Gretel how perfectly they “worked,” did many things upon the ice that caused the little maid to clasp her hands in solemn admiration. They were not alone, though they seemed quite unheeded by the various groups assembled upon the canal.
The two Van Holps and Carl Schummel were there, testing their fleetness to the utmost. Out of four trials Peter van Holp had won three times. Consequently Carl, never very amiable, was in anything but a good humor. He had relieved himself by taunting young Schimmelpenninck, who, being smaller than the others, kept meekly near them without feeling exactly like one of the party, but now a new thought seized Carl, or rather he seized the new thought and made an onset upon his friends.
“I say, boys, let’s put a stop to those young ragpickers from the idiot’s cottage joining the race. Hilda must be crazy to think of it. Katrinka Flack and Rychie Korbes are furious at the very idea of racing with the girl; and for my part, I don’t blame them. As for the boy, if we’ve a spark of manhood in us, we will scorn the very idea of—”
“Certainly we will!” interposed Peter van Holp, purposely mistaking Carl’s meaning. “Who doubts it? No fellow with a spark of manhood in him would refuse to let in two good skaters just because they were poor!”
Carl wheeled about savagely. “Not so fast, master! And I’d thank you not to put words in other people’s mouths. You’d best not try it again.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed little Voostenwalbert Schimmelpenninck, delighted at the prospect of a fight, and sure that, if it should come to blows, his favorite Peter could beat a dozen excitable fellows like Carl.
Something in Peter’s eye made Carl glad to turn to a weaker offender. He wheeled furiously upon Voost.
“What are you shrieking about, you little weasel? You skinny herring you, you little monkey with a long name for a tail!”
Half a dozen bystanders and byskaters set up an applauding shout at this brave witticism; and Carl, feeling that he had fairly vanquished his foes, was restored to partial good humor. He, however, prudently resolved to defer plotting against Hans and Gretel until some time when Peter should not be present.
Just then, his friend, Jacob Poot, was seen approaching. They could not distinguish his features at first, but as he was the stoutest boy in the neighborhood, there could be no mistaking his form.
“Hello! Here comes Fatty!” exclaimed Carl. “And there’s someone with him, a slender fellow, a stranger.”
“Ha! ha! That’s like good bacon,” cried Ludwig. “A streak of lean and a streak of fat.”
“That’s Jacob’s English cousin,” put in Master Voost, delighted at being able to give the information. “That’s his English cousin, and, oh, he’s got such a funny little name—Ben Dobbs. He’s going to stay with him until after the grand race.”
All this time the boys had been spinning, turning, rolling, and doing other feats upon their skates, in a quiet way, as they talked, but now they stood still, bracing themselves against the frosty air as Jacob Poot and his friend drew near.
“This is my cousin, boys,” said Jacob, rather out of breath. “Benjamin Dobbs. He’s a John Bull and he’s going to be in the race.”
All crowded, boy-fashion, about the newcomers. Benjamin soon made up his mind that the Hollanders, notwithstanding their queer gibberish, were a fine set of fellows.
If the truth must be told, Jacob had announced his cousin as Penchamin Dopps, and called his a Shon Pull, but as I translate every word of the conversation of our young friends, it is no more than fair to mend their little attempts at English. Master Dobbs felt at first decidedly awkward among his cousin’s friends. Though most of them had studied English and French, they were shy about attempting to speak either, and he made very funny blunders when he tried to converse in Dutch. He had learned that vrouw meant wife; and ja, yes; and spoorweg, railway; kanaals, canals; stoomboot, steamboat; ophaalbruggen, drawbridges; buiten plasten, country seats; mynheer, mister; tweegevegt, duel or “two fights”; koper, copper; zadel, saddle; but he could not make a sentence out of these, nor use the long list of phrases he had learned in his “Dutch dialogues.” The topics of the latter were fine, but were never alluded to by the boys. Like the poor fellow who had learned in Ollendorf to ask in faultless German, “Have you seen my grandmother’s red cow?” and, when he reached Germany, discovered that he had no occasion to inquire after that interesting animal, Ben found that his book-Dutch did not avail him as much as he had hoped. He acquired a hearty contempt for Jan van Gorp, a Hollander who wrote a book in Latin to prove that Adam and Eve spoke Dutch, and he smiled a knowing smile when his uncle Poot assured him that Dutch “had great likeness mit Zinglish but it vash much petter languish, much petter.”
However, the fun of skating glides over all barriers of speech. Through this, Ben soon felt that he knew the boys well, and when Jacob (with a sprinkling of French and English for Ben’s benefit) told of a grand project they had planned, his cousin could now and then put in a ja, or a nod, in quite a familiar way.
The project WAS a grand one, and there was to be a fine opportunity for carrying it out; for, besides the allotted holiday of the Festival of Saint Nicholas, four extra days were to be allowed for a general cleaning of the schoolhouse.
Jacob and Ben had obtained permission to go on a long skating journey—no less a one than from Broek to The Hague, the capital of Holland, a distance of nearly fifty miles! *{Throughout this narrative distances are given according to our standard, the English statute mile of 5,280 feet. The Dutch mile is more than four times as long as ours.}
“And now, boys,” added Jacob, when he had told the plan, “who will go with us?”
“I will! I will!” cried the boys eagerly.
“And so will I,” ventured little Voostenwalbert.
“Ha! ha!” laughed Jacob, holding his fat sides and shaking his puffy cheeks. “YOU go? Such a little fellow as you? Why, youngster, you haven’t left off your pads yet!”
Now, in Holland very young children wear a thin, padded cushion around their heads, surmounted with a framework of whalebone and ribbon, to protect them in case of a fall; and it is the dividing line between babyhood and childhood when they leave it off. Voost had arrived at this dignity several years before; consequently Jacob’s insult was rather to great for endurance.
“Look out what you say!” he squeaked. “Lucky for you when you can leave off YOUR pads—you’re padded all over!”
“Ha! ha!” roared all the boys except Master Dobbs, who could not understand. “Ha! ha!”—and the good-natured Jacob laughed more than any.
“It ish my fat—yaw—he say I bees pad mit fat!” he explained to Ben.
So a vote was passed unanimously in favor of allowing the now popular Voost to join the party, if his parents would consent.
“Good night!” sang out the happy youngster, skating homeward with all his might.
“Good night!”
“We can stop at Haarlem, Jacob, and show your cousin the big organ,” said Peter van Holp eagerly, “and at Leyden, too, where there’s no end to the sights; and spend a day and night at the Hague, for my married sister, who lives there, will be delighted to see us; and the next morning we can start for home.”
“All right!” responded Jacob, who was not much of a talker.
Ludwig had been regarding his brother with enthusiastic admiration.
“Hurrah for you, Pete! It takes you to make plans! Mother’ll be as full of it as we are when we tell her we can take her love direct to sister Van Gend. My, but it’s cold,” he added. “Cold enough to take a fellow’s head off his shoulders. We’d better go home.”
“What if it is cold, old Tender-skin?” cried Carl, who was busily practicing a step he called the “double edge.” “Great skating we should have by this time, if it was as warm as it was last December. Don’t you know that if it wasn’t an extra cold winter, and an early one into the bargain, we couldn’t go?”
“I know it’s an extra cold night anyhow,” said Ludwig. “Whew! I’m going home!”
Peter van Holp took out a bulgy gold watch and, holding it toward the moonlight as well as his benumbed fingers would permit, called out, “Halloo! It’s nearly eight o’clock! Saint Nicholas is about by this time, and I, for one, want to see the little ones stare. Good night!”
“Good night!” cried one and all, and off they started, shouting, singing, and laughing as they flew along.
Where were Gretel and Hans?
Ah, how suddenly joy sometimes comes to an end!
They had skated about an hour, keeping aloof from the others, quite contented with each other, and Gretel had exclaimed, “Ah, Hans, how beautiful! How fine! To think that we both have skates! I tell you, the stork brought us good luck!”—when they heard something!
It was a scream—a very faint scream! No one else upon the canal observed it, but Hans knew its meaning too well. Gretel saw him turn white in the moonlight as he busily tore off his skates.
“The father!” he cried. “He has frightened our mother!” And Gretel ran after him toward the house as rapidly as she could.