We all know how, before the Christmas tree began to flourish in the home life of our country, a certain “right jolly old elf,” with “eight tiny reindeer,” used to drive his sleigh-load of toys up to our housetops, and then bounded down the chimney to fill the stockings so hopefully hung by the fireplace. His friends called his Santa Claus, and those who were most intimate ventured to say “Old Nick.” It was said that he originally came from Holland. Doubtless he did, but, if so, he certainly, like many other foreigners, changed his ways very much after landing upon our shores. In Holland, Saint Nicholas is a veritable saint and often appears in full costume, with his embroidered robes, glittering with gems and gold, his miter, his crosier, and his jeweled gloves. Here Santa Claus comes rollicking along, on the twenty-fifth of December, our holy Christmas morn. But in Holland, Saint Nicholas visits earth on the fifth, a time especially appropriated to him. Early on the morning of the sixth, he distributes his candies, toys, and treasures, then vanishes for a year.
Christmas Day is devoted by the Hollanders to church rites and pleasant family visiting. It is on Saint Nicholas’s Eve that their young people become half wild with joy and expectation. To some of them it is a sorry time, for the saint is very candid, and if any of them have been bad during the past year, he is quite sure to tell them so. Sometimes he gives a birch rod under his arm and advises the parents to give them scoldings in place of confections, and floggings instead of toys.
It was well that the boys hastened to their abodes on that bright winter evening, for in less than an hour afterward, the saint made his appearance in half the homes of Holland. He visited the king’s palace and in the selfsame moment appeared in Annie Bouman’s comfortable home. Probably one of our silver half-dollars would have purchased all that his saintship left at the peasant Bouman’s; but a half-dollar’s worth will sometimes do for the poor what hundreds of dollars may fail to do for the rich; it makes them happy and grateful, fills them with new peace and love.
Hilda van Gleck’s little brothers and sisters were in a high state of excitement that night. They had been admitted into the grand parlor; they were dressed in their best and had been given two cakes apiece at supper. Hilda was as joyous as any. Why not? Saint Nicholas would never cross a girl of fourteen from his list, just because she was tall and looked almost like a woman. On the contrary, he would probably exert himself to do honor to such an august-looking damsel. Who could tell? So she sported and laughed and danced as gaily as the youngest and was the soul of all their merry games. Her father, mother, and grandmother looked on approvingly; so did her grandfather, before he spread his large red handkerchief over his face, leaving only the top of his skullcap visible. This kerchief was his ensign of sleep.
Earlier in the evening all had joined in the fun. In the general hilarity there had seemed to be a difference only in bulk between grandfather and the baby. Indeed, a shade of solemn expectation, now and then flitting across the faces of the younger members, had made them seem rather more thoughtful than their elders.
Now the spirit of fun reigned supreme. The very flames danced and capered in the polished grate. A pair of prim candles that had been staring at the astral lamp began to wink at other candles far away in the mirrors. There was a long bell rope suspended from the ceiling in the corner, made of glass beads netted over a cord nearly as thick as your wrist. It is generally hung in the shadow and made no sign, but tonight it twinkled from end to end. Its handle of crimson glass sent reckless dashes of red at the papered wall, turning its dainty blue stripes into purple. Passersby halted to catch the merry laughter floating, through curtain and sash, into the street, then skipped on their way with a startled consciousness that the village was wide-awake. At last matters grew so uproarious that the grandsire’s red kerchief came down from his face with a jerk. What decent old gentleman could sleep in such a racket! Mynheer van Gleck regarded his children with astonishment. The baby even showed symptoms of hysterics. It was high time to attend to business. Madame suggested that if they wished to see the good Saint Nicholas, they should sing the same loving invitation that had brought him the year before.
The baby stared and thrust his fist into his mouth as mynheer put him down upon the floor. Soon he sat erect and looked with a sweet scowl at the company. With his lace and embroideries and his crown of blue ribbon and whalebone (for he was not quite past the tumbling age), he looked like the king of the babies.
The other children, each holding a pretty willow basket, formed a ring at once, and moved slowly around the little fellow, lifting their eyes, for the saint to whom they were about to address themselves was yet in mysterious quarters.
Madame commenced playing softly upon the piano. Soon the voices rose—gentle, youthful voices—rendered all the sweeter for their tremor:
During the chorus sundry glances, half in eagerness, half in dread, had been cast toward the polished folding doors. Now a loud knocking was heard. The circle was broken in an instant. Some of the little ones, with a strange mixture of fear and delight, pressed against their mother’s knee. Grandfather bent forward with his chin resting upon his hand; Grandmother lifted her spectacles; Mynheer van Gleck, seated by the fireplace, slowly drew his meerschaum from his mouth while Hilda and the other children settled themselves beside him in an expectant group.
The knocking was heard again.
“Come in,” said madame softly.
The door slowly opened, and Saint Nicholas, in full array, stood before them.
You could have heard a pin drop.
Soon he spoke. What a mysterious majesty in his voice! What kindliness in his tones!
“Karel van Gleck, I am pleased to greet thee, and thy honored vrouw Kathrine, and thy son and his good vrouw Annie!
“Children, I greet ye all! Hendrick, Hilda, Broom, Katy, Huygens, and Lucretia! And thy cousins, Wolfert, Diedrich, Mayken, Voost, and Katrina! Good children ye have been, in the main, since I last accosted ye. Diedrich was rude at the Haarlem fair last fall, but he has tried to atone for it since. Mayken has failed of late in her lessons, and too many sweets and trifles have gone to her lips, and too few stivers to her charity box. Diedrich, I trust, will be a polite, manly boy for the future, and Mayken will endeavor to shine as a student. Let her remember, too, that economy and thrift are needed in the foundation of a worthy and generous life. Little Katy has been cruel to the cat more than once. Saint Nicholas can hear the cat cry when its tail is pulled. I will forgive her if she will remember from this hour that the smallest dumb creatures have feelings and must not be abused.”
As Katy burst into a frightened cry, the saint graciously remained silent until she was soothed.
“Master Broom,” he resumed, “I warn thee that the boys who are in the habit of putting snuff upon the foot stove of the schoolmistress may one day be discovered and receive a flogging—”
Master Broom colored and stared in great astonishment.
“But thou art such an excellent scholar, I shall make thee no further reproof.”
“Thou, Hendrick, didst distinguish thyself in the archery match last spring, and hit the Doel *{Bull’s-eye.} though the bird was swung before it to unsteady thine eye. I give thee credit for excelling in manly sport and exercise, though I must not unduly countenance thy boat racing, since it leaves thee little time for thy proper studies.
“Lucretia and Hilda shall have a blessed sleep tonight. The consciousness of kindness to the poor, devotion in their souls, and cheerful, hearty obedience to household rule will render them happy.
“With one and all I avow myself well content. Goodness, industry, benevolence, and thrift have prevailed in your midst. Therefore, my blessing upon you—and may the new year find all treading the paths of obedience, wisdom, and love. Tomorrow you shall find more substantial proofs that I have been in your midst. Farewell!”
With these words came a great shower of sugarplums, upon a linen sheet spread out in front of the doors. A general scramble followed. The children fairly tumbled over each other in their eagerness to fill their baskets. Madame cautiously held the baby down in their midst, till the chubby little fists were filled. Then the bravest of the youngsters sprang up and burst open the closed doors. In vain they peered into the mysterious apartment. Saint Nicholas was nowhere to be seen.
Soon there was a general rush to another room, where stood a table, covered with the finest and whitest of linen damask. Each child, in a flutter of excitement, laid a shoe upon it. The door was then carefully locked, and its key hidden in the mother’s bedroom. Next followed goodnight kisses, a grand family procession to the upper floor, merry farewells at bedroom doors, and silence, at last, reigned in the Van Gleck mansion.
Early the next morning the door was solemnly unlocked and opened in the presence of the assembled household, when lo! a sight appeared, proving Saint Nicholas to be a saint of his word!
Every shoe was filled to overflowing, and beside each stood many a colored pile. The table was heavy with its load of presents—candies, toys, trinkets, books, and other articles. Everyone had gifts, from the grandfather down to the baby.
Little Katy clapped her hands with glee and vowed inwardly that the cat should never know another moment’s grief.
Hendrick capered about the room, flourishing a superb bow and arrows over his head. Hilda laughed with delight as she opened a crimson box and drew forth its glittering contents. The rest chuckled and said “Oh!” and “Ah!” over their treasures, very much as we did here in America on last Christmas Day.
With her glittering necklace in her hands, and a pile of books in her arms, Hilda stole towards her parents and held up her beaming face for a kiss. There was such an earnest, tender look in her bright eyes that her mother breathed a blessing as she leaned over her.
“I am delighted with this book. Thank you, Father,” she said, touching the top one with her chin. “I shall read it all day long.”
“Aye, sweetheart,” said mynheer, “you cannot do better. There is no one like Father Cats. If my daughter learns his ‘Moral Emblems’ by heart, the mother and I may keep silent. The work you have there is the Emblems—his best work. You will find it enriched with rare engravings from Van de Venne.”
Considering that the back of the book was turned away, mynheer certainly showed a surprising familiarity with an unopened volume, presented by Saint Nicholas. It was strange, too, that the saint should have found certain things made by the elder children and had actually placed them upon the table, labeled with parents’ and grandparents’ names. But all were too much absorbed in happiness to notice slight inconsistencies. Hilda saw, on her father’s face, the rapt expression he always wore when he spoke of Jakob Cats, so he put her armful of books upon the table and resigned herself to listen.
“Old Father Cats, my child, was a great poet, not a writer of plays like the Englishman, Shakespeare, who lived in his time. I have read them in the German and very good they are—very, very good—but not like Father Cats. Cats sees no daggers in the air; he has no white women falling in love with dusky Moors; no young fools sighing to be a lady’s glove; no crazy princes mistaking respectable old gentlemen for rats. No, no. He writes only sense. It is great wisdom in little bundles, a bundle for every day of your life. You can guide a state with Cats’s poems, and you can put a little baby to sleep with his pretty songs. He was one of the greatest men of Holland. When I take you to The Hague, I will show you the Kloosterkerk where he lies buried. THERE was a man for you to study, my sons! He was good through and through. What did he say?
“Did patience mean folding his hands? No, he was a lawyer, statesman, ambassador, farmer, philosopher, historian, and poet. He was keeper of the Great Seal of Holland! He was a—Bah! there is too much noise here, I cannot talk.” And mynheer, looking with great astonishment into the bowl of his meerschaum, for it had gone out, nodded to his vrouw and left the apartment in great haste.
The fact is, his discourse had been accompanied throughout with a subdued chorus of barking dogs, squeaking cats, and bleating lambs, to say nothing of a noisy ivory cricket that the baby was whirling with infinite delight. At the last, little Huygens, taking advantage of the increasing loudness of mynheer’s tones, had ventured a blast on his new trumpet, and Wolfert had hastily attempted an accompaniment on the drum. This had brought matters to a crisis, and it was good for the little creatures that it had. The saint had left no ticket for them to attend a lecture on Jakob Cats. It was not an appointed part of the ceremonies. Therefore when the youngsters saw that the mother looked neither frightened nor offended, they gathered new courage. The grand chorus rose triumphant, and frolic and joy reigned supreme.
Good Saint Nicholas! For the sake of the young Hollanders, I, for one, am willing to acknowledge him and defend his reality against all unbelievers.
Carl Schummel was quite busy during that day, assuring little children, confidentially, that not Saint Nicholas but their own fathers and mothers had produced the oracle and loaded the tables. But WE know better than that.
And yet if this were a saint, why did he not visit the Brinker cottage that night? Why was that one home, so dark and sorrowful, passed by?
“Are we all here?” cried Peter, in high glee, as the party assembled upon the canal early the next morning, equipped for their skating journey. “Let me see. As Jacob has made me captain, I must call the roll. Carl Schummel, you here?”
“Ya!”
“Jacob Poot!”
“Ya!”
“Benjamin Dobbs!”
“Ya-a!”
“Lambert van Mounen!”
“Ya!”
“That’s lucky! Couldn’t get on without YOU, as you’re the only one who can speak English. Ludwig van Holp!”
“Ya!”
“Voostenwalbert Schimmelpenninck!”
No answer.
“Ah, the little rogue has been kept at home! Now, boys, it’s just eight o’clock—glorious weather, and the Y is as firm as a rock. We’ll be at Amsterdam in thirty minutes. One, two, three START!”
True enough, in less than half an hour they had crossed a dike of solid masonry and were in the very heart of the great metropolis of the Netherlands—a walled city of ninety-five islands and nearly two hundred bridges. Although Ben had been there twice since his arrival in Holland, he saw much to excite wonder, but his Dutch comrades, having lived nearby all their lives, considered it the most matter-of-course place in the world. Everything interested Ben: the tall houses with their forked chimneys and gable ends facing the street; the merchants’ ware rooms, perched high up under the roofs of their dwellings, with long, armlike cranes hoisting and lowering goods past the household windows; the grand public buildings erected upon wooden piles driven deep into the marshy ground; the narrow streets; the canals crossing the city everywhere; the bridges; the locks; the various costumes; and, strangest of all, shops and dwellings crouching close to the fronts of the churches, sending their long, disproportionate chimneys far upward along the sacred walls.
If he looked up, he saw tall, leaning houses, seeming to pierce the sky with their shining roofs. If he looked down, there was the queer street, without crossing or curb—nothing to separate the cobblestone pavement from the footpath of brick—and if he rested his eyes halfway, he saw complicated little mirrors (spionnen) fastened upon the outside of nearly every window, so arranged that the inmates of the houses could observe all that was going on in the street or inspect whoever might be knocking at the door, without being seen themselves.
Sometimes a dogcart, heaped with wooden ware, passed him; then a donkey bearing a pair of panniers filled with crockery or glass; then a sled driven over the bare cobblestones (the runners kept greased with a dripping oil rag so that it might run easily); and then, perhaps, a showy but clumsy family carriage, drawn by the brownest of Flanders horses, swinging the whitest of snowy tails.
The city was in full festival array. Every shop was gorgeous in honor of Saint Nicholas. Captain Peter was forced, more than once, to order his men away from the tempting show windows, where everything that is, has been, or can be, thought of in the way of toys was displayed. Holland is famous for this branch of manufacture. Every possible thing is copied in miniature for the benefit of the little ones; the intricate mechanical toys that a Dutch youngster tumbles about in stolid unconcern would create a stir in our patent office. Ben laughed outright at some of the mimic fishing boats. They were so heavy and stumpy, so like the queer craft that he had seen about Rotterdam. The tiny trekschuiten, however, only a foot or two long, and fitted out, complete, made his heart ache. He so longed to buy one at once for his little brother in England. He had no money to spare, for with true Dutch prudence, the party had agreed to take with them merely the sum required for each boy’s expenses and to consign the purse to Peter for safekeeping. Consequently Master Ben concluded to devote all his energies to sight-seeing and to think as seldom as possible of little Robby.
He made a hasty call at the Marine school and envied the sailor students their full-rigged brig and their sleeping berths swung over their trunks or lockers; he peeped into the Jews’ Quarter of the city, where the rich diamond cutters and squalid old-clothesmen dwell, and wisely resolved to keep away from it; he also enjoyed hasty glimpses of the four principal avenues of Amsterdam—the Prinsengracht, Keizersgracht, Herengracht, and Singel. These are semicircular in form, and the first three average more than two miles in length. A canal runs through the center of each, with a well-paved road on either side, lined with stately buildings. Rows of naked elms, bordering the canal, cast a network of shadows over its frozen surface, and everything was so clean and bright that Ben told Lambert it seemed to him like petrified neatness.
Fortunately the weather was cold enough to put a stop to the usual street flooding and window-washing, or our young excursionists might have been drenched more than once. Sweeping, mopping, and scrubbing form a passion with Dutch housewives, and to soil their spotless mansions is considered scarcely less than a crime. Everywhere a hearty contempt is felt for those who neglect to rub the soles of their shoes to a polish before crossing the doorsill; and in certain places visitors are expected to remove their heavy shoes before entering.
Sir William Temple, in his memoirs of “What Passed in Christendom from 1672 to 1679,” tells a story of a pompous magistrate going to visit a lady of Amsterdam. A stout Holland lass opened the door, and told him in a breath that the lady was at home and that his shoes were not very clean. Without another word she took the astonished man up by both arms, threw him across her back, carried him through two rooms, set him down at the bottom of the stairs, seized a pair of slippers that stood there, and put them upon his feet. Then, and not until then, she spoke, telling him that his mistress was on the floor above, and that he might go up.
While Ben was skating with his friends upon the crowded canals of the city, he found it difficult to believe that the sleepy Dutchmen he saw around him, smoking their pipes so leisurely and looking as though their hats might be knocked off their heads without their making any resistance, were capable of those outbreaks that had taken place in Holland—that they were really fellow countrymen of the brave, devoted heroes of whom he had read in Dutch history.
As his party skimmed lightly along he told Van Mounen of a burial riot which in 1696 had occurred in that very city, where the women and children turned out, as well as the men, and formed mock funeral processions through the town, to show the burgomasters that certain new regulations, with regard to burying the dead would not be acceded to—how at last they grew so unmanageable and threatened so much damage to the city that the burgomasters were glad to recall the offensive law.
“There’s the corner,” said Jacob, pointing to some large buildings, where, about fifteen years ago, the great corn houses sank down in the mud. They were strong affairs and set up on good piles, but they had over seven million pounds of corn in them, and that was too much.”
It was a long story for Jacob to tell, and he stopped to rest.
“How do you know there were seven million pounds in them?” asked Carl sharply. “You were in your swaddling clothes then.”
“My father knows all about it” was Jacob’s suggestive reply. Rousing himself with an effort, he continued, “Ben likes pictures. Show him some.”
“All right,” said the captain.
“If we had time, Benjamin,” said Lambert van Mounen in English, “I should like to take you to the City Hall, or Stadhuis. There are building piles for you! It is built on nearly fourteen thousand of them, driven seventy feet into the ground. But what I wish you to see there is the big picture of Van Speyk blowing up his ship—great picture.”
“Van WHO?” asked Ben.
“Van Speyk. Don’t you remember? He was in the height of an engagement with the Belgians, and when he found that they had the better of him and would capture his ship, he blew it up, and himself, too, rather than yield to the enemy.”
“Wasn’t that Van Tromp?”
“Oh, no. Van Tromp was another brave fellow. They’ve a monument to him down at Delftshaven—the place where the Pilgrims took ship for America.”
“Well, what about Van Tromp? He was a great Dutch admiral, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he was in more than thirty sea fights. He beat the Spanish fleet and an English one, and then fastened a broom to his masthead to show that he had swept the English from the sea. Takes the Dutch to beat, my boy!”
“Hold up!” cried Ben. “Broom or no broom, the English conquered him at last. I remember all about it now. He was killed somewhere on the Dutch coast in an engagement in which the English fleet was victorious. Too bad,” he added maliciously, “wasn’t it?”
“Ahem! Where are we?” exclaimed Lambert, changing the subject. “Halloo! The others are way ahead of us—all but Jacob. Whew! How fat he is! He’ll break down before we’re halfway.”
Ben, of course, enjoyed skating beside Lambert, who, though a staunch Hollander, had been educated near London and could speak English as fluently as Dutch, but he was not sorry when Captain van Holp called out, “Skates off! There’s the museum!”
It was open, and there was no charge on that day for admission. In they went, shuffling, as boys will when they have a chance, just to hear the sound of their shoes on the polished floor.
This museum is in fact a picture gallery where some of the finest works of the Dutch masters are to be seen, besides nearly two hundred portfolios of rare engravings.
Ben noticed, at once, that some of the pictures were hung on panels fastened to the wall with hinges. These could be swung forward like a window shutter, thus enabling the subject to be seen in the best light. The plan served them well in viewing a small group by Gerard Douw, called the “Evening School,” enabling them to observe its exquisite finish and the wonderful way in which the picture seemed to be lit through its own windows. Peter pointed out the beauties of another picture by Douw, called “The Hermit,” and he also told them some interesting anecdotes of the artist, who was born at Leyden in 1613.
“Three days painting a broom handle!” echoed Carl in astonishment, while the captain was giving some instances of Douw’s extreme slowness of execution.
“Yes, sir, three days. And it is said that he spent five in finishing one hand in a lady’s portrait. You see how very bright and minute everything is in this picture. His unfinished works were kept carefully covered and his painting materials were put away in airtight boxes as soon as he had finished using them for the day. According to all accounts, the studio itself must have been as close as a bandbox. The artist always entered it on tiptoe, besides sitting still, before he commenced work, until the slight dust caused by his entrance had settled. I have read somewhere that his paintings are improved by being viewed through a magnifying glass. He strained his eyes so badly with the extra finishing, that he was forced to wear spectacles before he was thirty. At forty he could scarcely see to paint, and he couldn’t find a pair of glasses anywhere that would help his sight. At last, a poor old German woman asked him to try hers. They suited him exactly, and enabled him to go on painting as well as ever.”
“Humph!” exclaimed Ludwig indignantly. “That was high! What did SHE do without them, I wonder?”
“Oh,” said Peter, laughing, “likely she had another pair. At any rate she insisted upon his taking them. He was so grateful that he painted a picture of the spectacles for her, case and all, and she sold it to a burgomaster for a yearly allowance that made her comfortable for the rest of her days.”
“Boys!” called Lambert in a loud whisper, “come look at this ‘Bear Hunt.’”
It was a fine painting by Paul Potter, a Dutch artist of the seventeenth century, who produced excellent works before he was sixteen years old. The boys admired it because the subject pleased them. They passed carelessly by the masterpieces of Rembrandt and Van der Helst, and went into raptures over an ugly picture by Van der Venne, representing a sea fight between the Dutch and English. They also stood spellbound before a painting of two little urchins, one of whom was taking soup and the other eating an egg. The principal merit in this work was that the young egg-eater had kindly slobbered his face with the yolk for their entertainment.
An excellent representation of the “Feast of Saint Nicholas” next had the honor of attracting them.
“Look, Van Mounen,” said Ben to Lambert. “Could anything be better than this youngster’s face? He looks as if he KNOWS he deserves a whipping, but hopes Saint Nicholas may not have found him out. That’s the kind of painting I like; something that tells a story.”
“Come, boys!” cried the captain. “Ten o’clock, time we were off!”
They hastened to the canal.
“Skates on! Are you ready? One, two—halloo! Where’s Poot?”
Sure enough, where WAS Poot?
A square opening had just been cut in the ice not ten yards off. Peter observed it and, without a word, skated rapidly toward it.
All the others followed, of course.
Peter looked in. They all looked in; then stared anxiously at each other.
“Poot!” screamed Peter, peering into the hole again. All was still. The black water gave no sign; it was already glazing on top.
Van Mounen turned mysteriously to Ben. “DIDN’T HE HAVE A FIT ONCE?”
“My goodness! yes!” answered Ben in a great fright.
“Then, depend upon it, he’s been taken with one in the museum!”
The boys caught his meaning. Every skate was off in a twinkling. Peter had the presence of mind to scoop up a capful of water from the hole, and off they scampered to the rescue.
Alas! They did indeed find poor Jacob in a fit, but it was a fit of sleepiness. There he lay in a recess of the gallery, snoring like a trooper! The chorus of laughter that followed this discovery brought an angry official to the spot.
“What now! None of this racket! Here, you beer barrel, wake up!” And Master Jacob received a very unceremonious shaking.
As soon as Peter saw that Jacob’s condition was not serious, he hastened to the street to empty his unfortunate cap. While he was stuffing in his handkerchief to prevent the already frozen crown from touching his head, the rest of the boys came down, dragging the bewildered and indignant Jacob in their midst.
“The order to start was again given. Master Poot was wide-awake at last. The ice was a little rough and broken just there, but every boy was in high spirits.
“Shall we go on by the canal or the river?” asked Peter.
“Oh, the river, by all means,” said Carl. “It will be such fun; they say it is perfect skating all the way, but it’s much farther.”
Jacob Poot instantly became interested.
“I vote for the canal!” he cried.
“Well, the canal it shall be,” responded the captain, “if all are agreed.”
“Agreed!” they echoed, in rather a disappointed tone, and Captain Peter led the way.
“All right, come on. We can reach Haarlem in an hour!”
While skating along at full speed, they heard the cars from Amsterdam coming close behind them.
“Halloo!” cried Ludwig, glancing toward the rail track, “who can’t beat a locomotive? Let’s give it a race!”
The whistle screamed at the very idea—so did the boys—and at it they went.
For an instant the boys were ahead, hurrahing with all their might—only for an instant, but even THAT was something.
This excitement over, they began to travel more leisurely and indulge in conversation and frolic. Sometimes they stopped to exchange a word with the guards who were stationed at certain distances along the canal. These men, in winter, attend to keeping the surface free from obstruction and garbage. After a snowstorm they are expected to sweep the feathery covering away before it hardens into a marble pretty to look at but very unwelcome to skaters. Now and then the boys so far forgot their dignity as to clamber among the icebound canal boats crowded together in a widened harbor off the canal, but the watchful guards would soon spy them out and order them down with a growl.
Nothing could be straighter than the canal upon which our party were skating, and nothing straighter than the long rows of willow trees that stood, bare and wispy, along the bank. On the opposite side, lifted high above the surrounding country, lay the carriage road on top of the great dike built to keep the Haarlem Lake within bounds; stretching out far in the distance, until it became lost in a point, was the glassy canal with its many skaters, its brown-winged iceboats, its push-chairs, and its queer little sleds, light as cork, flying over the ice by means of iron-pronged sticks in the hands of the riders. Ben was in ecstasy with the scene.
Ludwig van Holp had been thinking how strange it was that the English boy should know so much of Holland. According to Lambert’s account, he knew more about it than the Dutch did. This did not quite please our young Hollander. Suddenly he thought of something that he believed would make the “Shon Pull” open his eyes; he drew near Lambert with a triumphant “Tell him about the tulips!”
Ben caught the word tulpen.
“Oh, yes!” said he eagerly, in English, “the Tulip Mania—are you speaking of that? I have often heard it mentioned but know very little about it. It reached its height in Amsterdam, didn’t it?”
Ludwig moaned; the words were hard to understand, but there was no mistaking the enlightened expression on Ben’s face. Lambert, happily, was quite unconscious of his young countryman’s distress as he replied, “Yes, here and in Haarlem, principally; but the excitement ran high all over Holland, and in England too for that matter.”
“Hardly in England, I think,” said Ben, “but I am not sure, as I was not thereat the time.”
“Ha! ha! that’s true, unless you are over two hundred years old. Well, I tell you, sir, there never was anything like it before nor since. Why, persons were so crazy after tulip bulbs in those days that they paid their weight in gold for them.”
“What, the weight of a man!” cried Ben, showing such astonishment in his eyes that Ludwig fairly capered.
“No, no, the weight of a BULB. The first tulip was sent here from Constantinople about the year 1560. It was so much admired that the rich people of Amsterdam sent to Turkey for more. From that time they grew to be the rage, and it lasted for years. Single roots brought from one to four thousand florins; and one bulb, the Semper Augustus, brought fifty-five hundred.”
“That’s more than four hundred guineas of our money,” interposed Ben.
“Yes, and I know I’m right, for I read it in a translation from Beckman, only day before yesterday. Well, sir, it was great. Everyone speculated in tulips, even bargemen and rag women and chimney sweeps. The richest merchants were not ashamed to share the excitement. People bought bulbs and sold them again at a tremendous profit without ever seeing them. It grew into a kind of gambling. Some became rich by it in a few days, and some lost everything they had. Land, houses, cattle, and even clothing went for tulips when people had no ready money. Ladies sold their jewels and finery to enable them to join in the fun. Nothing else was thought of. At last the States-General interfered. People began to see what dunces they were making of themselves, and down went the price of tulips. Old tulip debts couldn’t be collected. Creditors went to law, and the law turned its back upon them; debts made in gambling were not binding, it said. Then there was a time! Thousands of rich speculators were reduced to beggary in an hour. As old Beckman says, ‘The bubble was burst at last.’”
“Yes, and a big bubble it was,” said Ben, who had listened with great interest. “By the way, did you know that the name tulip came from a Turkish word, signifying turban?”
“I had forgotten that,” answered Lambert, “but it’s a capital idea. Just fancy a party of Turks in full headgear squatted upon a lawn—perfect tulip bed! Ha! ha! Capital idea!”
“There,” groaned Ludwig to himself, “he’s been telling Lambert something wonderful about tulips—I knew it!”
“The fact is,” continued Lambert, “you can conjure up quite a human picture of a tulip bed in bloom, especially when it is nodding and bobbing in the wind. Did you ever notice it?”
“Not I. It strikes me, Van Mounen, that you Hollanders are prodigiously fond of the flower to this day.”
“Certainly. You can’t have a garden without them; prettiest flower that grows, I think. My uncle has a magnificent bed of the finest varieties at his summer house on the other side of Amsterdam.”
“I thought your uncle lived in the city?”
“So he does; but his summer house, or pavilion, is a few miles off. He has another one built out over the river. We passed near it when we entered the city. Everybody in Amsterdam has a pavilion somewhere, if he can.”
“Do they ever live there?” asked Ben.
“Bless you, no! They are small affairs, suitable only to spend a few hours in on summer afternoons. There are some beautiful ones on the southern end of the Haarlem Lake—now that they’ve commenced to drain it into polders, it will spoil THAT fun. By the way, we’ve passed some red-roofed ones since we left home. You noticed them, I suppose, with their little bridges and ponds and gardens, and their mottoes over the doorway.”
Ben nodded.
“They make but little show, now,” continued Lambert, “but in warm weather they are delightful. After the willows sprout, uncle goes to his summer house every afternoon. He dozes and smokes; aunt knits, with her feet perched upon a foot stove, never mind how hot the day; my cousin Rika and the other girls fish in the lake from the windows or chat with their friends rowing by; and the youngsters tumble about or hang upon the little bridges over the ditch. Then they have coffee and cakes, beside a great bunch of water lilies on the table. It’s very fine, I can tell you; only (between ourselves), though I was born here, I shall never fancy the odor of stagnant water that hangs about most of the summer houses. Nearly every one you see is built over a ditch. Probably I feel it more, from having lived so long in England.”
“Perhaps I shall notice it too,” said Ben, “if a thaw comes. The early winter has covered up the fragrant waters for my benefit—much obliged to it. Holland without this glorious skating wouldn’t be the same thing at all.”
“How very different you are from the Poots!” exclaimed Lambert, who had been listening in a sort of brown study. “And yet you are cousins—I cannot understand it.”
“We ARE cousins, or rather we have always considered ourselves such, but the relationship is not very close. Our grandmothers were half-sisters. MY side of the family is entirely English, while he is entirely Dutch. Old Great-grandfather Poot married twice, you see, and I am a descendant of his English wife. I like Jacob, though, better than half of my English cousins put together. He is the truest-hearted, best-natured boy I ever knew. Strange as you may think it, my father became accidentally acquainted with Jacob’s father while on a business visit to Rotterdam. They soon talked over their relationship—in French, by the way—and they have corresponded in the language ever since. Queer things come about in this world. My sister Jenny would open her eyes at some of Aunt Poot’s ways. Aunt is a thorough lady, but so different from mother—and the house, too, and furniture, and way of living, everything is different.”
“Of course,” assented Lambert, complacently, as if to say You could scarcely expect such general perfection anywhere else than in Holland. “But you will have all the more to tell Jenny when you go back.”
“Yes, indeed. I can say one thing—if cleanliness is, as they claim, next to godliness, Broek is safe. It is the cleanest place I ever saw in my life. Why, my Aunt Poot, rich as she is, scrubs half the time, and her house looks as if it were varnished all over. I wrote to mother yesterday that I could see my double always with me, feet to feet, in the polished floor of the dining room.”
“Your DOUBLE! That word puzzles me; what do you mean?”
“Oh, my reflection, my apparition. Ben Dobbs number two.”
“Ah, I see,” exclaimed Van Mounen. “Have you ever been in your Aunt Poot’s grand parlor?”
Ben laughed. “Only once, and that was on the day of my arrival. Jacob says I shall have no chance of entering it again until the time of his sister Kanau’s wedding, the week after Christmas. Father has consented that I shall remain to witness the great event. Every Saturday Aunt Poot and her fat Kate go into that parlor and sweep and polish and scrub; then it is darkened and closed until Saturday comes again; not a soul enters it in the meantime; but the schoonmaken, as she calls it, must be done just the same.”
“That is nothing. Every parlor in Broek meets with the same treatment,” said Lambert. “What do you think of those moving figures in her neighbor’s garden?”
“Oh, they’re well enough; the swans must seem really alive gliding about the pond in summer; but that nodding mandarin in the corner, under the chestnut trees, is ridiculous, only fit for children to laugh at. And then the stiff garden patches, and the trees all trimmed and painted. Excuse me, Van Mounen, but I shall never learn to admire Dutch taste.”
“It will take time,” answered Lambert condescendingly, “but you are sure to agree with it at last. I saw much to admire in England, and I hope I shall be sent back with you to study at Oxford, but, take everything together, I like Holland best.”
“Of course you do,” said Ben in a tone of hearty approval. “You wouldn’t be a good Hollander if you didn’t. Nothing like loving one’s country. It is strange, though, to have such a warm feeling for such a cold place. If we were not exercising all the time, we should freeze outright.”
Lambert laughed.
“That’s your English blood, Benjamin. I’M not cold. And look at the skaters here on the canal—they’re red as roses and happy as lords. Halloo, good Captain van Holp,” called out Lambert in Dutch, “what say you to stopping at yonder farmhouse and warming our toes?”
“Who is cold?” asked Peter, turning around.
“Benjamin Dobbs.”
“Benjamin Dobbs shall be warmed,” and the party was brought to a halt.