A Day of Rest
The sight-seeing came to an end at last, and so did our boys’ visit to The Hague. They had spent three happy days and nights with the Van Gends, and, strange to say, had not once, in all that time, put on skates. The third day had indeed been one of rest. The noise and bustle of the city was hushed; sweet Sunday bells sent blessed, tranquil thoughts into their hearts. Ben felt, as he listened to their familiar music, that the Christian world is one, after all, however divided by sects and differences it may be. As the clock speaks everyone’s native language in whatever land it may strike the hour, so church bells are never foreign if our hearts but listen.
Led on by these clear voices, our party, with Mevrouw van Gend and her husband, trod the quiet but crowded streets, until they came to a fine old church in the southern part of the city.
The interior was large and, notwithstanding its great stained windows, seemed dimly lighted, though the walls were white and dashes of red and purple sunshine lay brightly upon pillar and pew.
Ben saw a few old women moving softly through the aisles, each bearing a high pile of foot stoves which she distributed among the congregation by skillfully slipping out the under one, until none were left. It puzzled him that mynheer should settle himself with the boys in a comfortable side pew, after seating his vrouw in the body of the church, which was filled with chairs exclusively appropriated to the women. But Ben was learning only a common custom of the country.
The pews of the nobility and the dignitaries of the city were circular in form, each surrounding a column. Elaborately carved, they formed a massive base to their great pillars standing out in bold relief against the blank, white walls beyond. These columns, lofty and well proportioned, were nicked and defaced from violence done to them long ago; yet it seemed quite fitting that, before they were lost in the deep arches overhead, their softened outlines should leaf out as they did into richness and beauty.
Soon Ben lowered his gaze to the marble floor. It was a pavement of gravestones. Nearly all the large slabs, of which it was composed, marked the resting places of the dead. An armorial design engraved upon each stone, with inscription and date, told whose form as sleeping beneath, and sometimes three of a family were lying one above the other in the same sepulcher.
He could not help but think of the solemn funeral procession winding by torchlight through those lofty aisles and bearing its silent burden toward a dark opening whence the slab had been lifted, in readiness for its coming. It was something to think that his sister Mabel, who died in her flower, was lying in a sunny churchyard where a brook rippled and sparkled in the daylight and waving trees whispered together all night long; where flowers might nestle close to the headstone, and moon and stars shed their peace upon it, and morning birds sing sweetly overhead.
Then he looked up from the pavement and rested his eyes upon the carved oaken pulpit, exquisitely beautiful in design and workmanship. He could not see the minister—though, not long before, he had watched him slowly ascending its winding stair—a mild-faced man wearing a ruff about his neck and a short cloak reaching nearly to the knee.
Meantime the great church had been silently filling. Its pews were somber with men and its center radiant with women in their fresh Sunday attire. Suddenly a soft rustling spread through the pulpit. All eyes were turned toward the minister now appearing above the pulpit.
Although the sermon was spoken slowly, Ben could understand little of what was said; but when the hymn came, he joined in with all his heart. A thousand voices lifted in love and praise offered a grander language than he could readily comprehend.
Once he was startled, during a pause in the service, by seeing a little bag suddenly shaken before him. It had a tinkling bell at its side and was attached to a long stick carried by one of the deacons of the church. Not relying solely upon the mute appeal of the poor boxes fastened to the columns near the entrance, this more direct method was resorted to, of awakening the sympathies of the charitable.
Fortunately Ben had provided himself with a few stivers, or the musical bag must have tinkled before him in vain.
More than once, a dark look rose on our English boy’s face that morning. He longed to stand up and harangue the people concerning a peculiarity that filled him with pain. Some of the men wore their hats during the service or took them off whenever the humor prompted, and many put theirs on in the church as soon as they arose to leave. No wonder Ben’s sense of propriety was wounded; and yet a higher sense would have been exercised had he tried to feel willing that Hollanders should follow the customs of their country. But his English heart said over and over again, “It is outrageous! It is sinful!”
There is an angel called Charity who would often save our hearts a great deal of trouble if we would but let her in.
Homeward Bound
On Monday morning, bright and early, our boys bade farewell to their kind entertainers and started on their homeward journey.
Peter lingered awhile at the lion-guarded door, for he and his sister had many parting words to say.
As Ben saw them bidding each other good-bye, he could not help feeling that kisses as well as clocks were wonderfully alike everywhere. The English kiss that his sister Jenny had given him when he left home had said the same thing to him that the Vrouw van Gend’s Dutch kiss said to Peter. Ludwig had taken his share of the farewell in the most matter-of-fact manner possible, and though he loved his sister well, had winced a little at her making such a child of him as to put an extra kiss “for mother” upon his forehead.
He was already upon the canal with Carl and Jacob. Were they thinking about sisters or kisses? Not a bit of it. They were so happy to be on skates once more, so impatient to dart at once into the very heart of Broek, that they spun and wheeled about like crazy fellows, relieving themselves, meantime, by muttering something about “Peter and donder” not worth translating.
Even Lambert and Ben, who had been waiting at the street corner, began to grow impatient.
The captain joined them at last and they were soon on the canal with the rest.
“Hurry up, Peter,” growled Ludwig. “We’re freezing by inches—there! I knew you’d be the last after all to get on your skates.”
“Did you?” said his brother, looking up with an air of deep interest. “Clever boy!”
Ludwig laughed but tried to look cross, as he said, “I’m in earnest. We must get home sometime this year.”
“Now, boys,” cried Peter, springing up as he fastened the last buckle. “There’s a clear way before us! We will imagine it’s the grand race. Ready! One, two, three, start!”
I assure you that very little was said for the first half hour. They were six Mercuries skimming the ice. In plain English, they were lightning. No—that is imaginary too. The fact is, one cannot decide what to say when half a dozen boys are whizzing past at such a rate. I can only tell you that each did his best, flying, with bent body and eager eyes, in and out among the placid skates on the canal, until the very guard shouted to them to “Hold up!” This only served to send them onward with a two-boy power that startled all beholders.
But the laws of inertia are stronger even than canal guards.
After a while Jacob slackened his speed, then Ludwig, then Lambert, then Carl.
They soon halted to take a long breath and finally found themselves standing in a group gazing after Peter and Ben, who were still racing in the distance as if their lives were at stake.
“It is very evident,” said Lambert at he and his three companions started up again, “that neither of them will give up until he can’t help it.”
“What foolishness,” growled Carl, “to tire themselves at the beginning of the journey! But they’re racing in earnest—that’s certain. Halloo! Peter’s flagging!”
“Not so!” cried Ludwig. “Catch him being beaten!”
“Ha! ha!” sneered Carl. “I tell you, boy, Benjamin is ahead.”
Now, if Ludwig disliked anything in this world, it was to be called a boy—probably because he was nothing else. He grew indignant at once.
“Humph, what are YOU, I wonder. There, sir! NOW look and see if Peter isn’t ahead!”
“I think he IS,” interposed Lambert, “but I can’t quite tell at this distance.”
“I think he isn’t!” retorted Carl.
Jacob was growing anxious—he always abhorred an argument—so he said in a coaxing tone, “Don’t quarrel—don’t quarrel!”
“Don’t quarrel!” mocked Carl, looking back at Jacob as he skated. “Who’s quarreling? Poot, you’re a goose!”
“I can’t help that,” was Jacob’s meek reply. “See! they are nearing the turn of the canal.”
“NOW we can see!” cried Ludwig in great excitement.
“Peter will make it first, I know.”
“He can’t—for Ben is ahead!” insisted Carl. “Gunst! That iceboat will run over him. No! He is clear! They’re a couple of geese, anyhow. Hurrah! they’re at the turn. Who’s ahead?”
“Peter!” cried Ludwig joyfully.
“Good for the captain!” shouted Lambert and Jacob.
And Carl condescended to mutter, “It IS Peter after all. I thought, all the time, that head fellow was Ben.”
This turn in the canal had evidently been their goal, for the two racers came to a sudden halt after passing it.
Carl said something about being “glad that they had sense enough to stop and rest,” and the four boys skated on in silence to overtake their companions.
All the while Carl was secretly wishing that he had kept on with Peter and Ben, as he felt sure he could easily have come out winner. He was a very rapid, though by no means a graceful, skater.
Ben was looking at Peter with mingled vexation, admiration, and surprise as the boys drew near.
They heard him saying in English, “You’re a perfect bird on the ice, Peter van Holp. The first fellow that ever beat me in a fair race, I can tell you!”
Peter, who understood the language better than he could speak it, returned a laughing bow at Ben’s compliment but made no further reply. Possibly he was scant of breath at the time.
“Now, Penchamin, vat you do mit yourself? Get so hot as a fire brick—dat ish no goot,” was Jacob’s plaintive comment.
“Nonsense!” answered Ben. “This frosty air will cool me soon enough. I am not tired.”
“You are beaten, though, my boy,” said Lambert in English, “and fairly too. How will it be, I wonder, on the day of the grand race?”
Ben flushed and gave a proud, defiant laugh, as if to say, “This was mere pastime. I’m DETERMINED to beat then, come what will!”
Boys and Girls
By the time the boys reached the village of Voorhout, which stands near the grand canal, about halfway between The Hague and Haarlem, they were forced to hold a council. The wind, though moderate at first, had grown stronger and stronger, until at last they could hardly skate against it. The weather vanes throughout the country had evidently entered into a conspiracy.
“No use trying to face such a blow as this,” said Ludwig. “It cuts its way down a man’s throat like a knife.”
“Keep your mouth shut, then,” grunted the affable Carl, who was as strong-chested as a young ox. “I’m for keeping on.”
“In this case,” interposed Peter, “we must consul the weakest of the party rather than the strongest.”
The captain’s principle was all right, but its application was not flattering to Master Ludwig. Shrugging his shoulders, he retorted, “Who’s weak? Not I, for one, but the wind’s stronger than any of us. I hope you’ll condescend to admit that!”
“Ha, ha!” laughed Van Mounen, who could barely keep his feet. “So it is.”
Just then the weather vanes telegraphed to each other by a peculiar twitch—and, in an instant, the gust came. It nearly threw the strong-chested Carl; it almost strangled Jacob and quite upset Ludwig.
“This settles the question,” shouted Peter. “Off with your skates! We’ll go into Voorhout.”
At Voorhout they found a little inn with a big yard. The yard was well stocked, and better than all, was provided with a complete set of skittles, so our boys soon turned the detention into a frolic. The wind was troublesome even in that sheltered quarter, but they were on good standing ground and did not mind it.
First a hearty dinner—then the game. With pins as long as their arms and balls as big as their heads, plenty of strength left for rolling, and a clean sweep of sixty yards for the strokes—no wonder they were happy.
That night Captain Peter and his men slept soundly. No prowling robber came to disturb them, and, as they were distributed in separate rooms, they did not even have a bolster battle in the morning.
Such a breakfast as they ate! The landlord looked frightened. When he had asked them where they “belonged,” he made up his mind that the Broek people starved their children. It was a shame. “Such fine young gentlemen too!”
Fortunately the wind had tired itself out and fallen asleep in the great sea cradle beyond the dunes. There were signs of snow; otherwise the weather was fine.
It was mere child’s play for the well-rested boys to skate to Leyden. Here they halted awhile, for Peter had an errand at the Golden Eagle.
He left the city with a lightened heart; Dr. Boekman had been at the hotel, read the note containing Hans’s message, and departed for Broek.
“I cannot say that it was your letter sent him off so soon,” explained the landlord. “Some rich lady in Broek was taken bad very sudden, and he was sent for in haste.”
Peter turned pale.
“What was the name?” he asked.
“Indeed, it went in one ear and out of the other, for all I hindered it. Plague on people who can’t see a traveler in comfortable lodgings, but they must whisk him off before one can breathe.”
“A lady in Broek, did you say?”
“Yes.” Very gruffly. “Any other business, young master?”
“No, mine host, except that I and my comrades here would like a bite of something and a drink of hot coffee.”
“Ah,” said the landlord sweetly, “a bite you shall have, and coffee, too, the finest in Leyden. Walk up to the stove, my masters—now I think again—that was a widow lady from Rotterdam, I think they said, visiting at one Van Stoepel’s if I mistake not.”
“Ah!” said Peter, greatly relieved. “They live in the white house by the Schlossen Mill. Now, mynheer, the coffee, please!”
What a goose I was, thought he, as the party left the Golden Eagle, to feel so sure that it was my mother. But she may be somebody’s mother, poor woman, for all that. Who can she be? I wonder.
There were not many upon the canal that day, between Leyden and Haarlem. However, as the boys neared Amsterdam, they found themselves once more in the midst of a moving throng. The big ysbreeker *{Icebreaker. A heavy machine armed with iron spikes for breaking the ice as it is dragged along. Some of the small ones are worked by men, but the large ones are drawn by horses, sixty or seventy of which are sometimes attached to one ysbreeker.} had been at work for the first time that season, but there was any amount of skating ground left yet.
“Three cheers for home!” cried Van Mounen as they came in sight of the great Western Dock (Westelijk Dok). “Hurrah! Hurrah!” shouted one and all. “Hurrah! Hurrah!”
This trick of cheering was an importation among our party. Lambert van Mounen had brought it from England. As they always gave it in English, it was considered quite an exploit and, when circumstances permitted, always enthusiastically performed, to the sore dismay of their quiet-loving countrymen.
Therefore, their arrival at Amsterdam created a great sensation, especially among the small boys on the wharf.
The Y was crossed. They were on the Broek canal.
Lambert’s home was reached first.
“Good-bye, boys!” he cried as he left them. “We’ve had the greatest frolic ever known in Holland.”
“So we have. Good-bye, Van Mounen!” answered the boys.
“Good-bye!”
Peter hailed him. “I say, Van Mounen, the classes begin tomorrow!”
“I know it. Our holiday is over. Good-bye, again.”
“Good-bye!”
Broek came in sight. Such meetings! Katrinka was upon the canal! Carl was delighted. Hilda was there! Peter felt rested in an instant. Rychie was there! Ludwig and Jacob nearly knocked each other over in their eagerness to shake hands with her.
Dutch girls are modest and generally quiet, but they have very glad eyes. For a few moments it was hard to decide whether Hilda, Rychie, or Katrinka felt the most happy.
Annie Bouman was also on the canal, looking even prettier than the other maidens in her graceful peasant’s costume. But she did not mingle with Rychie’s party; neither did she look unusually happy.
The one she liked most to see was not among the newcomers. Indeed, he was not upon the canal at all. She had not been near Broek before, since the Eve of Saint Nicholas, for she was staying with her sick grandmother in Amsterdam and had been granted a brief resting spell, as the grandmother called it, because she had been such a faithful little nurse night and day.
Annie had devoted her resting-spell to skating with all her might toward Broek and back again, in the hope of meeting her mother on the canal, or, it might be, Gretel Brinker. Not one of them had she seen, and she must hurry back without even catching a glimpse of her mother’s cottage, for the poor helpless grandmother, she knew, was by this time moaning for someone to turn her upon her cot.
Where can Gretel be? thought Annie as she flew over the ice; she can almost always steal a few moments from her work at this time of day. Poor Gretel! What a dreadful thing it must be to have a dull father! I should be woefully afraid of him, I know—so strong, and yet so strange!
Annie had not heard of his illness. Dame Brinker and her affairs received but little notice from the people of the place.
If Gretel had not been known as a goose girl, she might have had more friends among the peasantry of the neighborhood. As it was, Annie Bouman was the only one who did not feel ashamed to avow herself by word and deed the companion of Gretel and Hans.
When the neighbors’ children laughed at her for keeping such poor company, she would simply flush when Hans was ridiculed, or laugh in a careless, disdainful way, but to hear little Gretel abused always awakened her wrath.
“Goose girl, indeed!” she would say. “I can tell you that any of you are fitter for the work than she. My father often said last summer that it troubled him to see such a bright-eyed, patient little maiden tending geese. Humph! She would not harm them, as you would, Janzoon Kolp, and she would not tread upon them, as you might, Kate Wouters.”
This would be pretty sure to start a laugh at the clumsy, ill-natured Kate’s expense, and Annie would walk loftily away from the group of young gossips. Perhaps some memory of Gretel’s assailants crossed her mind as she skated rapidly toward Amsterdam, for her eyes sparkled ominously and she more than once gave her pretty head a defiant toss. When that mood passed, such a bright, rosy, affectionate look illuminated her face that more than one weary working man turned to gaze after her and to wish that he had a glad, contented lass like that for a daughter.
There were five joyous households in Broek that night.
The boys were back safe and sound, and they found all well at home. Even the sick lady at neighbor Van Stoepel’s was out of danger.
But the next morning! Ah, how stupidly school bells will ding-dong, ding-dong, when one is tired.
Ludwig was sure that he had never listened to anything so odious. Even Peter felt pathetic on the occasion. Carl said it was a shameful thing for a fellow to have to turn out when his bones were splitting. And Jacob soberly bade Ben “Goot-pye!” and walked off with his satchel as if it weighed a hundred pounds.
The Crisis
While the boys are nursing their fatigue, we will take a peep into the Brinker cottage.
Can it be that Gretel and her mother have not stirred since we saw them last? That the sick man upon the bed has not even turned over? It was four days ago, and there is the sad group just as it was before. No, not precisely the same, for Raff Brinker is paler; his fever is gone, though he knows nothing of what is passing. Then they were alone in the bare, clean room. Now there is another group in an opposite corner.
Dr. Boekman is there, talking in a low tone with a stout young man who listens intently. The stout young man is his student and assistant. Hans is there also. He stands near the window, respectfully waiting until he shall be accosted.
“You see, Vollenhoven,” said Dr. Boekman, “it is a clear case of—” And here the doctor went off into a queer jumble of Latin and Dutch that I cannot conveniently translate.
After a while, as Vollenhoven looked at him rather blankly, the learned man condescended to speak to him in simpler phrase.
“It is probably like Rip Donderdunck’s case,” he exclaimed in a low, mumbling tone. “He fell from the top of Voppelploot’s windmill. After the accident the man was stupid and finally became idiotic. In time he lay helpless like yon fellow on the bed, moaned, too, like him, and kept constantly lifting his hand to his head. My learned friend Von Choppem performed an operation upon this Donderdunck and discovered under the skull a small dark sac, which pressed upon the brain. This had been the cause of the trouble. My friend Von Choppem removed it—a splendid operation! You see, according to Celsius—” And here the doctor again went off into Latin.
“Did the man live?” asked the assistant respectfully.
Dr. Boekman scowled. “That is of no consequence. I believe he died, but why not fix your mind on the grand features of the case? Consider a moment how—” And he plunged into Latin mysteries more deeply than ever.
“But mynheer,” gently persisted the student, who knew that the doctor would not rise to the surface for hours unless pulled at once from his favorite depths. “Mynheer, you have other engagements today, three legs in Amsterdam, you remember, and an eye in Broek, and that tumor up the canal.”
“The tumor can wait,” said the doctor reflectively. “That is another beautiful case—a beautiful case! The woman has not lifted her head from her shoulder for two months—magnificent tumor, sir!”
The doctor by this time was speaking aloud. He had quite forgotten where he was.
Vollenhoven made another attempt.
“This poor fellow on the bed, mynheer. Do you think you can save him?”
“Ah, indeed, certainly,” stammered the doctor, suddenly perceiving that he had been talking rather off the point. “Certainly, that is—I hope so.”
“If anyone in Holland can, mynheer,” murmured the assistant with honest bluntness, “it is yourself.”
The doctor looked displeased, growled out a tender request for the student to talk less, and beckoned Hans to draw near.
This strange man had a great horror of speaking to women, especially on surgical matters. “One can never tell,” he said, “what moment the creatures will scream or faint.” Therefore he explained Raff Brinker’s case to Hans and told him what he believed should be done to save the patient.
Hans listened attentively, growing red and pale by turns and throwing quick, anxious glances toward the bed.
“It may KILL the father—did you say, mynheer?” he exclaimed at last in a trembling whisper.
“It may, my boy. But I have a strong belief that it will cure and not kill. Ah! If boys were not such dunces, I could lay the whole matter before you, but it would be of no use.”
Hans looked blank at this compliment.
“It would be of no use,” repeated Dr. Boekman indignantly. “A great operation is proposed, but one might as well do it with a hatchet. The only question asked is, ‘Will it kill?’”
“The question is EVERYTHING to us, mynheer,” said Hans with tearful dignity.
Dr. Boekman looked at him in sudden dismay.
“Ah! Exactly so. You are right, boy, I am a fool. Good boy. One does not wish one’s father killed—of course I am a fool.”
“Will he die, mynheer, if this sickness goes on?”
“Humph! This is no new illness. The same thing growing worse ever instant—pressure on the brain—will take him off soon like THAT,” said the doctor, snapping his fingers.
“And the operation MAY save him,” pursued Hans. “How soon, mynheer, can we know?”
Dr. Boekman grew impatient.
“In a day, perhaps, an hour. Talk with your mother, boy, and let her decide. My time is short.”
Hans approached his mother; at first, when she looked up at him, he could not utter a syllable; then, turning his eyes away, he said in a firm voice, “I must speak with the mother alone.”
Quick little Gretel, who could not quite understand what was passing, threw rather an indignant look at Hans and walked away.
“Come back, Gretel, and sit down,” said Hans, sorrowfully.
She obeyed.
Dame Brinker and her boy stood by the window while the doctor and his assistant, bending over the bedside, conversed together in a low tone. There was no danger of disturbing the patient. He appeared like one blind and deaf. Only his faint, piteous moans showed him to be a living man. Hans was talking earnestly, and in a low voice, for he did not wish his sister to hear.
With dry, parted lips, Dame Brinker leaned toward him, searching his face, as if suspecting a meaning beyond his words. Once she gave a quick, frightened sob that made Gretel start, but, after that, she listened calmly.
When Hans ceased to speak, his mother turned, gave one long, agonized look at her husband, lying there so pale and unconscious, and threw herself on her knees beside the bed.
Poor little Gretel! What did all this mean? She looked with questioning eyes at Hans; he was standing, but his head was bent as if in prayer—at the doctor. He was gently feeling her father’s head and looked like one examining some curious stone—at the assistant. The man coughed and turned away—at her mother. Ah, little Gretel, that was the best you could do—to kneel beside her and twine your warm, young arms about her neck, to weep and implore God to listen.
When the mother arose, Dr. Boekman, with a show of trouble in his eyes, asked gruffly, “Well, jufvrouw, shall it be done?”
“Will it pain him, mynheer?” she asked in a trembling voice.
“I cannot say. Probably not. Shall it be done?”
“It MAY cure him, you said, and—mynheer, did you tell my boy that—perhaps—perhaps...” She could not finish.
“Yes, jufvrouw, I said the patient might sink under the operation, but we hope it may prove otherwise.” He looked at his watch. The assistant moved impatiently toward the window. “Come, jufvrouw, time presses. Yes or no?”
Hans wound his arm about his mother. It was not his usual way. He even leaned his head against her shoulder.
“The meester awaits an answer,” he whispered.
Dame Brinker had long been head of her house in every sense. Many a time she had been very stern with Hans, ruling him with a strong hand and rejoicing in her motherly discipline. NOW she felt so weak, so helpless. It was something to feel that firm embrace. There was strength even in the touch of that yellow hair.
She turned to her boy imploringly.
“Oh, Hans! What shall I say?”
“Say what God tells thee, Mother,” answered Hans, bowing his head.
One quick, questioning prayer to Heaven rose from the mother’s heart.
The answer came.
She turned toward Dr. Boekman.
“It is right, mynheer. I consent.”
“Humph!” grunted the doctor, as if to say, “You’ve been long enough about it.” Then he conferred a moment with his assistant, who listened with great outward deference but was inwardly rejoicing at the grand joke he would have to tell his fellow students. He had actually seen a tear in “old Boekman’s” eye.
Meanwhile Gretel looked on in trembling silence, but when she saw the doctor open a leather case and take out one sharp, gleaming instrument after another, she sprang forward.
“Oh, Mother! The poor father meant no wrong. Are they going to MURDER him?”
“I do not know, child,” screamed Dame Brinker, looking fiercely at Gretel. “I do not know.”
“This will not do, jufvrouw,” said Dr. Boekman sternly, and at the same time he cast a quick, penetrating look at Hans. “You and the girl must leave the room. The boy may stay.”
Dame Brinker drew herself up in an instant. Her eyes flashed. Her whole countenance was changed. She looked like one who had never wept, never felt a moment’s weakness. Her voice was low but decided. “I stay with my husband, mynheer.”
Dr. Boekman looked astonished. His orders were seldom disregarded in this style. For an instant his eye met hers.
“You may remain, jufvrouw,” he said in an altered voice.
Gretel had already disappeared.
In one corner of the cottage was a small closet where her rough, boxlike bed was fastened against the wall. None would think of the trembling little creature crouching there in the dark.
Dr. Boekman took off his heavy coat, filled an earthen basin with water, and placed it near the bed. Then turning to Hans he asked, “Can I depend upon you, boy?”
“You can, mynheer.”
“I believe you. Stand at the head, here—your mother may sit at your right—so.” And he placed a chair near the cot.
“Remember, jufvrouw, there must be no cries, no fainting.”
Dame Brinker answered him with a look.
He was satisfied.
“Now, Vollenhoven.”
Oh, that case with the terrible instruments! The assistant lifted them. Gretel, who had been peering with brimming eyes through the crack of the closet door, could remain silent no longer.
She rushed frantically across the apartment, seized her hood, and ran from the cottage.
Gretel and Hilda
It was recess hour. At the first stroke of the schoolhouse bell, the canal seemed to give a tremendous shout and grow suddenly alive with boys and girls.
Dozens of gaily clad children were skating in and out among each other, and all their pent-up merriment of the morning was relieving itself in song and shout and laughter. There was nothing to check the flow of frolic. Not a thought of schoolbooks came out with them into the sunshine. Latin, arithmetic, grammar—all were locked up for an hour in the dingy schoolroom. The teacher might be a noun if he wished, and a proper one at that, but THEY meant to enjoy themselves. As long as the skating was as perfect as this, it made no difference whether Holland were on the North Pole or the equator; and, as for philosophy, how could they bother themselves with inertia and gravitation and such things when it was as much as they could do to keep from getting knocked over in the commotion.
In the height of the fun, one of the children called out, “What is that?”
“What? Where?” cried a dozen voices.
“Why, don’t you see? That dark thing over there by the idiot’s cottage.”
“I don’t see anything,” said one.
“I do,” shouted another. “It’s a dog.”
“Where’s any dog?” put in a squeaky voice that we have heard before. “It’s no such thing—it’s a heap of rags.”
“Pooh! Voost,” retorted another gruffly, “that’s about as near the fact as you ever get. It’s the goose girl, Gretel, looking for rats.”
“Well, what of it?” squeaked Voost. “Isn’t SHE a bundle of rags, I’d like to know?”
“Ha! ha! Pretty good for you, Voost! You’ll get a medal for wit yet, if you keep on.”
“You’d get something else, if her brother Hans were here. I’ll warrant you would!” said a muffled-up little fellow with a cold in his head.
As Hans was NOT there, Voost could afford to scout the insinuation.
“Who cares for HIM, little sneezer? I’d fight a dozen like him any day, and you in the bargain.”
“You would, would you? I’d like to catch you all at it,” and, by way of proving his words, the sneezer skated off at the top of his speed.
Just then a general chase after three of the biggest boys of the school was proposed—and friend and foe, frolicsome as ever, were soon united in a common cause.
Only one of all that happy throng remembered the dark little form by the idiot’s cottage. Poor, frightened little Gretel! She was not thinking of them, though their merry laughter floated lightly toward her, making her feel like one in a dream.
How loud the moans were behind the darkened window! What if those strange men were really killing her father!
The thought made her spring to her feet with a cry of horror.
“Ah, no!” She sobbed, sinking upon the frozen mound of earth where she had been sitting. Mother is there, and Hans. They will care for him. But how pale they were. And even Hans was crying!
Why did the cross old meester keep him and send me away? she thought. I could have clung to the mother and kissed her. That always makes her stroke my hair and speak gently, even after she has scolded me. How quiet it is now! Oh, if the father should die, and Hans, and the mother, what WOULD I do? And Gretel, shivering with cold, buried her face in her arms and cried as if her heart would break.
The poor child had been tasked beyond her strength during the past four days. Through all, she had been her mother’s willing little handmaiden, soothing, helping, and cheering the half-widowed woman by day and watching and praying beside her all the long night. She knew that something terrible and mysterious was taking place at this moment, something that had been too terrible and mysterious for even kind, good Hans to tell.
Then new thoughts came. Why had not Hans told her? It was a shame. It was HER father as well as his. She was no baby. She had once taken a sharp knife from the father’s hand. She had even drawn him away from the mother on that awful night when Hans, as big as he was, could not help her. Why, then, must she be treated like one who could do nothing? oh, how very still it was—how bitter, bitter cold! If Annie Bouman had only stayed home instead of going to Amsterdam, it wouldn’t be so lonely. How cold her feet were growing! Was it the moaning that made her feel as if she were floating in the air?
This would not do—the mother might need her help at any moment!
Rousing herself with an effort, Gretel sat upright, rubbing her eyes and wondering—wondering that the sky was so bright and blue, wondering at the stillness in the cottage, more than all, at the laughter rising and falling in the distance.
Soon she sank down again, the strange medley of thought growing more and more confused in her bewildered brain.
What a strange lip the meester had! How the stork’s nest upon the roof seemed to rustle and whisper down to her! How bright those knives were in the leather case—brighter perhaps than the silver skates. If she had but worn her new jacket, she would not shiver so. The new jacket was pretty—the only pretty thing she had ever worn. God had taken care of her father so long. He would do it still, if those two men would but go away. Ah, now the meesters were on the roof, they were clambering to the top—no—it was her mother and Hans—or the storks. It was so dark, who could tell? And the mound rocking, swinging in that strange way. How sweetly the birds were singing. They must be winter birds, for the air was thick with icicles—not one bird but twenty. Oh! hear them, Mother. Wake me, Mother, for the race. I am so tired with crying, and crying—
A firm hand was laid upon her shoulder.
“Get up, little girl!” cried a kind voice. “This will not do, for you to lie here and freeze.”
Gretel slowly raised her head. She was so sleepy that it seemed nothing strange to her that Hilda van Gleck should be leaning over her, looking with kind, beautiful eyes into her face. She had often dreamed it before.
But she had never dreamed that Hilda was shaking her roughly, almost dragging her by main force; never dreamed that she heard her saying, “Gretel! Gretel Brinker! You MUST wake!”
This was real. Gretel looked up. Still the lovely delicate young lady was shaking, rubbing, fairly pounding her. It must be a dream. No, there was the cottage—and the stork’s nest and the meester’s coach by the canal. She could see them now quite plainly. Her hands were tingling, her feet throbbing. Hilda was forcing her to walk.
At last Gretel began to feel like herself again.
“I have been asleep,” she faltered, rubbing her eyes with both hands and looking very much ashamed.
“Yes, indeed, entirely too much asleep”—laughed Hilda, whose lips were very pale—“but you are well enough now. Lean upon me, Gretel. There, keep moving, you will soon be warm enough to go by the fire. Now let me take you into the cottage.”
“Oh, no! no! no! jufvrouw, not in there! The meester is there. He sent me away!”
Hilda was puzzled, but she wisely forebore to ask at present for an explanation. “Very well, Gretel, try to walk faster. I saw you upon the mound, some time ago, but I thought you were playing. That is right, keep moving.”
All this time the kindhearted girl had been forcing Gretel to walk up and down, supporting her with one arm and, with the other, striving as well as she could to take off her own warm sacque.
Suddenly Gretel suspected her intention.
“Oh, jufvrouw! jufvrouw!” she cried imploringly. “PLEASE never think of such a thing as THAT. Oh! please keep it on, I am burning all over, jufvrouw! I really am burning. Not burning exactly, but pins and needles pricking all over me. Oh, jufvrouw, don’t!”
The poor child’s dismay was so genuine that Hilda hastened to reassure her.
“Very well, Gretel, move your arms then—so. Why, your cheeks are as pink as roses, already. I think the meester would let you in now, he certainly would. Is your father so very ill?”
“Ah, jufvrouw,” cried Gretel, weeping afresh, “he is dying, I think. There are two meesters in with him at this moment, and the mother has scarcely spoken today. Can you hear him moan, jufvrouw?” she added with sudden terror. “The air buzzes so I cannot hear. He may be dead! Oh, I do wish I could hear him!”
Hilda listened. The cottage was very near, but not a sound could be heard.
Something told her that Gretel was right. She ran to the window.
“You cannot see there, my lady,” sobbed Gretel eagerly. “The mother has oiled paper hanging inside. But at the other one, in the south end of the cottage, you can look in where the paper is torn.”
Hilda, in her anxiety, ran around, past the corner where the low roof was fringed with its loosened thatch.
A sudden thought checked her.
“It is not right for me to peep into another’s house in this way,” she said to herself. Then, softly calling to Gretel, she added in a whisper, “You may look—perhaps he is only sleeping.”
Gretel tried to walk briskly toward the spot, but her limbs were trembling. Hilda hastened to her support.
“You are sick, yourself, I fear,” she said kindly.
“No, not sick, jufvrouw, but my heart cries all the time now, even when my eyes are as dry as yours. Why, jufvrouw, your eyes are not dry! Are you crying for US? Oh, jufvrouw, if God sees you! Oh! I know father will get better now.” And the little creature, even while reaching to look through the tiny window, kissed Hilda’s hand again and again.
The sash was sadly patched and broken; a torn piece of paper hung halfway down across it. Gretel’s face was pressed to the window.
“Can you see anything?” whispered Hilda at last.
“Yes—the father lies very still, his head is bandaged, and all their eyes are fastened upon him. Oh, jufvrouw!” almost screamed Gretel, as she started back and, by a quick, dexterous movement shook off her heavy wooden shoes. “I MUST go in to my mother! Will you come with me?”
“Not now, the bell is ringing. I shall come again soon. Good-bye!”
Gretel scarcely heard the words. She remembered for many a day afterward the bright, pitying smile on Hilda’s face as she turned away.