HANS BRINKER OR THE SILVER SKATES
Chapters 1 to 10 Chapters 11 to 20 Chapters 21 to 30 Chapters 31 to 40 Chapters 41 to 48
31.
Boys and Girls
32. The Crisis
33. Gretel and Hilda
34. The Awakening
35. Bones and Tongues
36. A New Alarm
37.
The Father's Return
38.
The Thousand Guilders
39. Glimpses
40. Looking For Work
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.
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.
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.
An angel could not have entered the cottage more noiselessly. Gretel, not daring to look at anyone, slid softly to her mother's side.
The room was very still. She could hear the old doctor breathe. She could almost hear the sparks as they fell into the ashes on the hearth. The mother's hand was very cold, but a burning spot glowed on her cheek, and her eyes were like a deer's--so bright, so sad, so eager.
At last there was a movement upon the bed, very slight, but enough to cause them all to start. Dr. Boekman leaned eagerly forward.
Another movement. The large hands, so white and soft for a poor man's hand, twitched, then raised itself steadily toward the forehead.
It felt the bandage, not in a restless, crazy way but with a questioning movement that caused even Dr. Boekman to hold his breath.
"Steady! Steady!" said a voice that sounded very strange to Gretel. "Shift that mat higher, boys! Now throw on the clay. The waters are rising fast; no time to--"
Dame Brinker sprang forward like a young panther.
She seized his hands and, leaning over him, cried, "Raff! Raff, boy, speak to me!"
"Is it you, Meitje?" he asked faintly. "I have been asleep, hurt, I think. Where is little Hans?"
"Here I am, Father!" shouted Hans, half mad with joy. But the doctor held him back.
"He knows us!" screamed Dame Brinker. "Great God! He knows us! Gretel! Gretel! Come, see your father!"
In vain Dr. Boekman commanded "Silence!" and tried to force them from the bedside. He could not keep them off.
Hans and the mother laughed and cried together as they hung over the newly awakened man. Gretel made no sound but gazed at them all with glad, startled eyes. Her father was speaking in a faint voice.
"Is the baby asleep, Meitje?"
"The baby!" echoed Dame Brinker. "Oh, Gretel, that is you! And he calls Hans 'little Hans.' Ten years asleep! Oh, mynheer, you have saved us all. He has known nothing for ten years! Children, why don't you thank the meester?"
The good woman was beside herself with joy. Dr. Boekman said nothing, but as his eye met hers, he pointed upward. She understood. So did Hans and Gretel.
With one accord they knelt by the cot, side by side. Dame Brinker felt for her husband's hand even while she was praying. Dr. Boekman's head was bowed; the assistant stood by the hearth with his back toward them.
"Why do you pray?" murmured the father, looking feebly from the bed as they rose. "Is it God's day?"
It was not Sunday; but his vrouw bowed her head--she could not speak.
"Then we should have a chapter," said Raff Brinker, speaking slowly and with difficulty. "I do not know how it is. I am very, very weak. Mayhap the minister will read it to us."
Gretel lifted the big Dutch Bible from its carved shelf. Dr. Boekman, rather dismayed at being called a minister, coughed and handed the volume to his assistant.
"Read," he murmured. "These people must be kept quiet or the man will die yet."
When the chapter was finished, Dame Brinker motioned mysteriously to the rest by way of telling them that her husband was asleep.
"Now, jufvrouw," said the doctor in a subdued tone as he drew on his thick woolen mittens, "there must be perfect quiet. You understand. This is truly a most remarkable case. I shall come again tomorrow. Give the patient no food today," and, bowing hastily, he left the cottage, followed by his assistant.
His grand coach was not far away; the driver had kept the horses moving slowly up and down by the canal nearly all the time the doctor had been in the cottage.
Hans went out also.
"May God bless you, mynheer!" he said, blushing and trembling. "I can never repay you, but if--"
"Yes, you can," interrupted the doctor crossly. "You can use your wits when the patient wakes again. This clacking and sniveling is enough to kill a well man, let alone one lying on the edge of his grave. If you want your father to get well, keep 'em quiet."
So saying, Dr. Boekman, without another word, stalked off to meet his coach, leaving Hans standing there with eyes and mouth wide open.
Hilda was reprimanded severely that day for returning late to school after recess, and for imperfect recitations.
She had remained near the cottage until she heard Dame Brinker laugh, until she had heard Hans say, "Here I am, Father!" And then she had gone back to her lessons. What wonder that she missed them! How could she get a long string of Latin verbs by heart when her heart did not care a fig for them but would keep saying to itself, "Oh, I am so glad! I am so glad!"
Bones are strange things. One would suppose that they knew nothing at all about school affairs, but they do. Even Jacob Poot's bones, buried as they were in flesh, were sharp in the matter of study hours.
Early on the morning of his return they ached through and through, giving Jacob a twinge at every stroke of the school bell, as if to say, "Stop that clapper! There's trouble in it." After school, on the contrary, they were quiet and comfortable; in fact, seemed to be taking a nap among their cushions.
The other boys' bones behaved in a similar manner, but that is not so remarkable. Being nearer the daylight than Jacob's, they might be expected to be more learned in the ways of the world. Master Ludwig's, especially, were like beauty, only skin deep; they were the most knowing bones you ever heard of. Just put before him ever so quietly a grammar book with a long lessons marked in it, and immediately the sly bone over his eyes would set up such an aching! Request him to go to the garret for your foot stove, instantly the bones would remind him that he was "too tired." Ask him to go to the confectioner's, a mile away, and PRESTO! not a bone would remember that it had ever been used before.
Bearing all this in mind, you will not wonder when I tell you that our five boys were among the happiest of the happy throng pouring forth from the schoolhouse that day.
Peter was in excellent spirits. He had heard through Hilda of Dame Brinker's laugh and of Hans's joyous words, and he needed no further proof that Raff Brinker was a cured man. In fact, the news had gone forth in every direction, for miles around. Persons who had never before cared for the Brinkers, or even mentioned them, except with a contemptuous sneer or a shrug of pretended pity, now became singularly familiar with every point of their history. There was no end to the number of ridiculous stories that were flying about.
Hilda, in the excitement of the moment, had stopped to exchange a word with the doctor's coachman as he stood by the horses, pommelling his chest and clapping his hands. Her kind heart was overflowing. She could not help pausing to tell the cold, tired-looking man that she thought the doctor would be out soon; she even hinted to him that she suspected--only suspected--that a wonderful cure had been performed, an idiot brought to his senses. Nay, she was SURE of it, for she had heard his widow laugh--no, not his widow, of course, but his wife--for the man was as much alive as anybody, and, for all she knew, sitting up and talking like a lawyer.
All this was very indiscreet. Hilda, in an impenitent sort of way, felt it to be so.
But it is always so delightful to impart pleasant or surprising news!
She went tripping along by the canal, quite resolved to repeat the sin, ad infinitum, and tell nearly every girl and boy in the school.
Meantime Janzoon Kolp came skating by. Of course, in two seconds, he was striking slippery attitudes and shouting saucy things to the coachman, who stared at him in indolent disdain.
This, to Janzoon, was equivalent to an invitation to draw nearer. The coachman was now upon his box, gathering up the reins and grumbling at his horses.
Janzoon accosted him.
"I say. What's going on at the idiot's cottage? Is your boss in there?"
Coachman nodded mysteriously.
"Whew!" whistled Janzoon, drawing closer. "Old Brinker dead?"
The driver grew big with importance and silent in proportion.
"See here, old pincushion, I'd run home yonder and get you a chunk of gingerbread if I thought you could open your mouth."
Old pincushion was human--long hours of waiting had made him ravenously hungry. At Janzoon's hint, his countenance showed signs of a collapse.
"That's right, old fellow," pursued his tempter. "Hurry up! What news?--old Brinker dead?"
"No, CURED! Got his wits," said the coachman, shooting forth his words, one at a time, like so many bullets.
Like bullets (figuratively speaking) they hit Janzoon Kolp. He jumped as if he had been shot.
"Goede Gunst! You don't say so!"
The man pressed his lips together and looked significantly toward Master Kolp's shabby residence.
Just then Janzoon saw a group of boys in the distance. Hailing them in a rowdy style, common to boys of his stamp all over the world, weather in Africa, Japan, Amsterdam, or Paris, he scampered toward them, forgetting coachman, gingerbread, everything but the wonderful news.
Therefore, by sundown it was well known throughout the neighboring country that Dr. Boekman, chancing to stop at the cottage, had given the idiot Brinker a tremendous dose of medicine, as brown as gingerbread. It had taken six men to hold him while it was poured down. The idiot had immediately sprung to his feet, in full possession of all his faculties, knocked over the doctor or thrashed him (there was admitted to be a slight uncertainty as to which of these penalties was inflicted), then sat down and addressed him for all the world like a lawyer. After that he had turned and spoken beautifully to his wife and children. Dame Brinker had laughed herself into violent hysterics. Hans had said, "Here I am, Father, your own dear son!" And Gretel had said, "Here I am, Father, your own dear Gretel!" And the doctor had afterward been seen leaning back in his carriage looking just as white as a corpse.
When Dr. Boekman called the next day at the Brinker cottage, he could not help noticing the cheerful, comfortable aspect of the place. An atmosphere of happiness breathed upon him as he opened the door. Dame Brinker sat complacently knitting beside the bed, her husband was enjoying a tranquil slumber, and Gretel was noiselessly kneading rye bread on the table in the corner.
The doctor did not remain long. He asked a few simple questions, appeared satisfied with the answers, and after feeling his patient's pulse, said, "Ah, very weak yet, jufvrouw. Very weak, indeed. He must have nourishment. You may begin to feed the patient. Ahem! Not too much, but what you do give him let it be strong and of the best."
"Black bread, we have, mynheer, and porridge," replied Dame Brinker cheerily. "They have always agreed with him well."
"Tut, tut!" said the doctor, frowning. "Nothing of the kind. He must have the juice of fresh meat, white bread, dried and toasted, good Malaga wine, and--ahem! The man looks cold. Give him more covering, something light and warm. Where is the boy?"
"Hans, mynheer, has gone into Broek to look for work. He will be back soon. Will the meester please be seated?
Whether the hard polished stool offered by Dame Brinker did not look particularly tempting, or whether the dame herself frightened him, partly because she was a woman, and partly because an anxious, distressed look had suddenly appeared in her face, I cannot say. Certain it is that our eccentric doctor looked hurriedly about him, muttered something about "an extraordinary case," bowed, and disappeared before Dame Brinker had time to say another word.
Strange that the visit of their good benefactor should have left a cloud, yet so it was. Gretel frowned, an anxious, childish frown, and kneaded the bread dough violently without looking up. Dame Brinker hurried to her husband's bedside, leaned over him, and fell into silent but passionate weeping.
In a moment Hans entered.
"Why, Mother," he whispered in alarm, "what ails thee? Is the father worse?"
She turned her quivering face toward him, making no attempt to conceal her distress.
"Yes. He is starving--perishing. A meester said it."
Hans turned pale.
"What does this mean, Mother? We must feed him at once. Here, Gretel, give me the porridge."
"Nay!" cried his mother, distractedly, yet without raising her voice. "It may kill him. Our poor fare is too heavy for him. Oh, Hans, he will die--the father will DIE, if we use him this way. He must have meat and sweet wine and a dekbed. Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do?" she sobbed, wringing her hands. "There is not a stiver in the house."
Gretel pouted. It was the only way she could express sympathy just then. Her tears fell one by one into the dough.
"Did the meester say he MUST have these things, Mother?" asked Hans.
"Yes, he did."
"Well, Mother, don't cry, HE SHALL HAVE THEM. I shall bring meat and wine before night. Take the cover from my bed. I can sleep in the straw."
"Yes, Hans, but it is heavy, scant as it is. The meester said he must have something light and warm. He will perish. Our peat is giving out, Hans. The father has wasted it sorely, throwing it on when I was not looking, dear man."
"Never mind, Mother," whispered Hans cheerfully. "We can cut down the willow tree and burn it, if need be, but I'll bring home something tonight. There MUST be work in Amsterdam, though there's none in Broek. Never fear, Mother, the worst trouble of all is past. We can brave anything now that the father is himself again."
"Aye!" sobbed Dame Brinker, hastily drying her eyes. "That is true indeed."
"Of course it is. Look at him, Mother, how softly he sleeps. Do you think God would let him starve, just after giving him back to us? Why, Mother, I'm as SURE of getting all the father needs as if my pocket were bursting with gold. There, now, don't fret." And, hurriedly kissing her, Hans caught up his skates and slipped from the cottage.
Poor Hans! Disappointed in his morning's errand, half sickened with this new trouble, he wore a brave look and tried to whistle as he tramped resolutely off with the firm intention of mending matters.
Want had never before pressed so sorely upon the Brinker family. Their stock of peat was nearly exhausted, and all the flour in the cottage was in Gretel's dough. They had scarcely cared to eat during the past few days, scarcely realized their condition. Dame Brinker had felt so sure that she and the children could earn money before the worst came that she had given herself up to the joy of her husband's recovery. She had not even told Hans that the few pieces of silver in the old mitten were quite gone.
Hans reproached himself, now, that he had not hailed the doctor when he saw him enter his coach and drive rapidly away in the direction of Amsterdam.
Perhaps there is some mistake, he thought. The meester surely would have known that meat and sweet wine were not at our command; and yet the father looks very weak--he certainly does. I MUST get work. If Mynheer van Holp were back from Rotterdam, I could get plenty to do. But Master Peter told me to let him know if he could do aught to serve us. I shall go to him at once. Oh, if it were but summer!
All this time Hans was hastening toward the canal. Soon his skates were on, and he was skimming rapidly toward the residence of Mynheer van Holp.
"The father must have meat and wine at once," he muttered, "but how can I earn the money in time to buy them today? There is no other way but to go, as I PROMISED, to Master Peter. What would a gift of meat and wine be to him? When the father is once fed, I can rush down to Amsterdam and earn the morrow's supply."
Then came other thoughts--thoughts that made his heart thump heavily and his cheeks burn with a new shame. It is BEGGING, to say the least. Not one of the Brinkers has ever been a beggar. Shall I be the first? Shall my poor father just coming back into life learn that his family has asked for charity--he, always so wise and thrifty? "No," cried Hans aloud, "better a thousand times to part with the watch."
I can at least borrow money on it, in Amsterdam! he thought, turning around. That will be no disgrace. I can find work at once and get it back again. Nay, perhaps I can even SPEAK TO THE FATHER ABOUT IT!
This last thought made the lad dance for joy. Why not, indeed, speak to the father? He was a rational being now. He may wake, thought Hans, quite bright and rested--may tell us the watch is of no consequence, to sell it of course! And Hans almost flew over the ice.
A few moments more and the skates were again swinging from his arm. He was running toward the cottage.
His mother met him at the door.
"Oh, Hans!" she cried, her face radiant with joy, "the young lady has been here with her maid. She brought everything--meat, jelly, wine, and bread--a whole basketful! Then the meester sent a man from town with more wine and a fine bed and blankets for the father. Oh! he will get well now. God bless them!"
"God bless them!" echoed Hans, and for the first time that day his eyes filled with tears.
That evening Raff Brinker felt so much better that he insisted upon sitting up for a while on the rough high-backed chair by the fire. For a few moments there was quite a commotion in the little cottage. Hans was all-important on the occasion, for his father was a heavy man and needed something firm to lean upon. The dame, though none of your fragile ladies, was in such a state of alarm and excitement at the bold step they were taking in lifting him without the meester's orders that she came near pulling her husband over, even while she believed herself to be his main prop and support.
"Steady, vrouw, steady," panted Raff. "Have I grown old and feeble, or is it the fever makes me thus helpless?"
"Hear the man!"--Dame Brinker laughed--"talking like any other Christian! Why, you're only weak from the fever, Raff. Here's the chair, all fixed snug and warm. Now, sit thee down--hi-di-didy--there we are!"
With these words Dame Brinker let her half of the burden settle slowly into the chair. Hans prudently did the same.
Meanwhile Gretel flew about generally, bringing every possible thing to her mother to tuck behind the father's back and spread over his knees. Then she twitched the carved bench under his feet, and Hans kicked the fire to make it brighter.
The father was sitting up at last. What wonder that he looked about him like one bewildered. "Little Hans" had just been almost carrying him. "The baby" was over four feet long and was demurely brushing up the hearth with a bundle of willow wisps. Meitje, the vrouw, winsome and fair as ever, had gained at least fifty pounds in what seemed to him a few hours. She also had some new lines in her face that puzzled him. The only familiar things in the room were the pine table that he had made before he was married, the Bible upon the shelf, and the cupboard in the corner.
Ah! Raff Brinker, it was only natural that your eyes should fill with hot tears even while looking at the joyful faces of your loved ones. Ten years dropped from a man's life are no small loss; ten years of manhood, of household happiness and care; ten years of honest labor, of conscious enjoyment of sunshine and outdoor beauty, ten years of grateful life--one day looking forward to all this; the next, waking to find them passed and a blank. What wonder the scalding tears dropped one by one upon your cheek!
Tender little Gretel! The prayer of her life was answered through those tears. She LOVED her father silently at that moment. Hans and his mother glanced silently at each other when they saw her spring toward him and throw her arms about his neck.
"Father, DEAR Father," she whispered, pressing her cheek close to his, "don't cry. We are all here."
"God bless thee," sobbed Raff, kissing her again and again. "I had forgotten that!"
Soon he looked up again and spoke in a cheerful voice. "I should know her, vrouw," he said, holding the sweet young face between his hands and gazing at it as though he were watching it grow. "I should know her. The same blue eyes and the lips, and ah! me, the little song she could sing almost before she could stand. But that was long ago," he added, with a sigh, still looking at her dreamily. "Long ago; it's all gone now."
"Not so, indeed," cried Dame Brinker eagerly. "Do you think I would let her forget it? Gretel, child, sing the old song thou hast known so long!"
Raff Brinker's hand fell wearily and his eyes closed, but it was something to see the smile playing about his mouth as Gretel's voice floated about him like incense.
It was a simple air; she had never known the words.
With loving instinct she softened every note, until Raff almost fancied that his two-year-old baby was once more beside him.
As soon as the song was finished, Hans mounted a wooden stool and began to rummage in the cupboard.
"Have a care, Hans," said Dame Brinker, who through all her poverty was ever a tidy housewife. "Have a care, the wine is there at your right and the white bread beyond it."
"Never fear, Mother," answered Hans, reaching far back on an upper shelf. "I shall do no mischief."
Jumping down, he walked toward his father and placed an oblong block of pine wood in his hands. One of its ends was rounded off, and some deep cuts had been made on the top.
"Do you know what that is, Father?" asked Hans.
Raff Brinker's face brightened. "Indeed I do, boy! It is the boat I was making you yest--alack, not yesterday, but years ago."
"I have kept it ever since, Father. It can be finished when your hand grows strong again."
"Yes, but not for you, my lad. I must wait for the grandchildren. Why, you are nearly a man. Have you helped your mother through all these years?"
"Aye and bravely," put in Dame Brinker.
"Let me see," muttered the father, looking in a puzzled way at them all, "how long is it since the night when the waters were coming in? 'Tis the last I remember."
"We have told thee true, Raff. It was ten years last Pinxter week."
"Ten years--and I fell then, you say? Has the fever been on me ever since?"
Dame Brinker scarcely knew how to reply. Should she tell him all? Tell him that he had been an idiot, almost a lunatic? The doctor had charged her on no account to worry or excite his patient.
Hans and Gretel looked astonished.
"Like enough, Raff," she said, nodding her head and raising her eyebrows. "When a heavy man like thee falls on his head, it's hard to say what will come--but thou'rt well NOW, Raff. Thank the good Lord!"
The newly awakened man bowed his head.
"Aye, well enough, mine vrouw," he said after a moment's silence, "but my brain turns somehow like a spinning wheel. It will not be right till I get on the dikes again. When shall I be at work, think you?"
"Hear the man!" cried Dame Brinker, delighted, yet frightened, too, for that matter. "We must get him on the bed, Hans. Work indeed!"
They tried to raise him from the chair, but he was not ready yet.
"Be off with ye!" he said with something like his old smile (Gretel had never seen it before). "Does a man want to be lifted about like a log? I tell you before three suns I shall be on the dikes again. Ah! There'll be some stout fellows to greet me. Jan Kamphuisen and young Hoogsvliet. They have been good friends to thee, Hans, I'll warrant."
Hans looked at his mother. Young Hoogsvliet had been dead five years. Jan Kamphuisen was in the jail at Amsterdam.
"Aye, they'd have done their share no doubt," said Dame Brinker, parrying the inquiry, "had we asked them. But what with working and studying, Hans has been busy enough without seeking comrades."
"Working and studying," echoed Raff, in a musing tone. "Can the youngsters read and cipher, Meitje?"
"You should hear them!" she answered proudly. "They can run through a book while I mop the floor. Hans there is as happy over a page of big words as a rabbit in a cabbage patch; as for ciphering--"
"Here, lad, help a bit," interrupted Raff Brinker. "I must get me on the bed again."
None seeing the humble supper eaten in the Brinker cottage that night would have dreamed of the dainty repast hidden away nearby. Hans and Gretel looked rather wistfully toward the cupboard as they drank their cupful of water and ate their scanty share of black bread; but even in thought they did not rob their father.
"He relished his supper well," said Dame Brinker, nodding sidewise toward the bed, "and fell asleep the next moment. Ah, the dear man will be feeble for many a day. He wanted sore to sit up again, but while I made show of humoring him and getting ready, he dropped off. Remember that, my girl, when you have a man of your own (and many a day may it be before that comes to pass), remember that you can never rule by differing; 'humble wife is husband's boss.' Tut! tut! Never swallow such a mouthful as that again, child. Why, I could make a meal off two such pieces. What's in thee, Hans? One would think there were cobwebs on the walls."
"Oh, no, Mother, I was only thinking--"
"Thinking about what? Ah, no use asking," she added in a changed tone. "I was thinking of the same a while ago. Well, it's no blame if we DID look to hear something by this time about the thousand guilders but not a word--no--it's plain enough he knows naught about them."
Hans looked up anxiously, dreading lest his mother should grow agitated, as usual, when speaking of the lost money, but she was silently nibbling her bread and looking with a doleful stare toward the window.
"Thousand guilders," echoed a faint voice from the bed. "Ah, I am sure they have been of good use to you, vrouw, through the long years when your man was idle."
The poor woman started up. These words quite destroyed the hope that of late had been glowing within her.
"Are you awake, Raff?" she faltered.
"Yes, Meitje, and I feel much better. Our money was well saved, vrouw, I was saying. Did it last through all those ten years?"
"I--I--have not got it, Raff, I--" She was going to tell him the whole truth when Hans lifted his finger warningly and whispered, "Remember what the meester told us. The father must not be worried."
"Speak to him, child," she answered, trembling.
Hans hurried to the bedside.
"I am glad you are feeling better," he said, leaning over his father. "Another day will see you quite strong again."
"Aye, like enough. How long did the money last, Hans? I could not hear your mother. What did she say?"
"I said, Raff," stammered Dame Brinker in great distress, "that it was all gone."
"Well, well, wife, do not fret at that; one thousand guilders is not so very much for ten years and with children to bring up. . .but it has helped to make you all comfortable. Have you had much sickness to bear?"
"No, no," sobbed Dame Brinker, lifting her apron to her eyes.
"Tut, tut, woman, why do you cry?" said Raff kindly. "We will soon fill another pouch when I am on my feet again. Lucky I told you all about it before I fell."
"Told me what, man?"
"Why, that I buried the money. In my dream just now, it seemed that I had never said aught about it."
Dame Brinker started forward. Hans caught her arm.
"Hist! Mother," he whispered, hastily leading her away, "we must be very careful." Then, while she stood with clasped hands waiting in breathless anxiety, he once more approached the cot. Trembling with eagerness he said, "That was a troublesome dream. Do you remember WHEN you buried the money, Father?"
"Yes, my boy. It was just before daylight on the same day I was hurt. Jan Kamphuisen said something, the sundown before, that made me distrust his honesty. He was the only one living besides Mother who knew that we had saved a thousand guilders, so I rose up that night and buried the money--blockhead that I was ever to suspect an old friend!"
"I'll be bound, Father," pursued Hans in a laughing voice, motioning to his mother and Gretel to remain quiet, "that you've forgotten where you buried it."
"Ha! ha! Not I, indeed. But good night, my son, I can sleep again."
Hans would have walked away, but his mother's gestures were not to be disobeyed. So he said gently, "Good night, Father. Where did you say you buried the money? I was only a little one then."
"Close by the willow sapling behind the cottage," said Raff Brinker drowsily.
"Ah, yes. North side of the tree, wasn't it, Father?"
"No, the south side. Ah, you know the spot well enough, you rogue. Like enough you were there when your mother lifted it. Now, son, easy. Shift this pillow so. Good night."
"Good night, Father!" said Hans, ready to dance for joy.
The moon rose very late that night, shining in, full and clear, at the little window, but its beams did not disturb Raff Brinker. He slept soundly; so did Gretel. As for Hans and his mother, they had something else to do.
After making a few hurried preparations, they stole forth with bright, expectant faces, bearing a broken spade and a rusty implement that had done many a day's service when Raff was a hale worker on the dikes.
It was so light out of doors that they could see the willow tree distinctly. The frozen ground was hard as stone, but Hans and his mother were resolute. Their only dread was that they might disturb the sleepers in the cottage.
"This ysbreeker is just the thing, Mother," said Hans, striking many a vigorous blow, "but the ground has set so firm it'll be a fair match for it."
"Never fear, Hans," she answered, watching him eagerly. "Here, let me try awhile."
They soon succeeded in making an impression. One opening and the rest was not so difficult.
Still they worked on, taking turns and whispering cheerily to one another. Now and then Dame Brinker stepped noiselessly over the threshold and listened, to be certain that her husband slept.
"What grand news it will be for him," she said, laughing, "when he is strong enough to bear it. How I should like to put the pouch and the stocking, just as we find them, all full of money, near him this blessed night, for the dear man to see when he wakens."
"We must get them first, Mother," panted Hans, still tugging away at his work.
"There's no doubt of that. They can't slip away from us now," she answered, shivering with cold and excitement as she crouched beside the opening. "Like enough we'll find them stowed in the old earthen pot I lost long ago."
By this time Hans, too, began to tremble, but not with cold. He had penetrated a foot deep for quite a space on the south side of the tree. At any moment they might come upon the treasure. Meantime the stars winked and blinked at each other as if to say, "Queer country, this Holland! How much we do see, to be sure!"
"Strange that the dear father should have put it down so woeful deep," said Dame Brinker in rather a provoked tone. "Ah, the ground was soft enough then, I warrant. How wise of him to mistrust Jan Kamphuisen, and Jan in full credit at the time. Little I thought that handsome fellow with his gay ways would ever go to jail! Now, Hans, let me take a turn. It's lighter work, d'ye see, the deeper we go? I'd be loath to kill the tree, Hans. Will we harm it, do you think?"
"I cannot say," he answered gravely.
Hour after hour, mother and son worked on. The hole grew larger and deeper. Clouds began to gather in the sky, throwing elfish shadows as they passed. Not until moon and stars faded away and streaks of daylight began to appear did Meitje Brinker and Hans look hopelessly into each other's faces.
They had searched the ground thoroughly, desperately, all round the tree; south, north, east, west. THE HIDDEN MONEY WAS NOT THERE!
Annie Bouman had a healthy distaste for Janzoon Kolp. Janzoon Kolp, in his own rough way, adored Annie. Annie declared that she could not "to save her life" say one civil word to that odious boy. Janzoon believed her to be the sweetest, sauciest creature in the world. Annie laughed among her playmates at the comical flapping of Janzoon's tattered and dingy jacket; he sighed in solitude over the floating grace of her jaunty blue petticoat. She thanked her stars that her brothers were not like the Kolps, and he growled at his sister because she was not like the Boumans. His presence made her harsh and unfeeling, and the very sight of her made him gentle as a lamb. Of course they were thrown together very often. It is thus that in some mysterious way we are convinced of error and cured of prejudice. In this case, however, the scheme failed. Annie detested Janzoon more and more at each encounter; and Janzoon liked her better and better every day.
He killed a stork, the wicked old wretch! she would say to herself.
She knows I am strong and fearless, thought Janzoon.
How red and freckled and ugly he is! was Annie's secret comment when she looked at him.
How she stares and stares! thought Janzoon. Well, I am a fine, weather-beaten fellow, anyway.
"Janzoon Kolp, you impudent boy, go right away from me!" Annie often said. "I don't want any of your company."
Ha! Ha! laughed Janzoon to himself. Girls never say what they mean. I'll skate with her every chance I can get.
And so it came to pass that the pretty maid would not look up that morning when, skating homeward from Amsterdam, she became convinced that a great burly boy was coming down the canal toward her.
Humph! if I look at him, thought Annie, I'll--
"Good morrow, Annie Bouman," said a pleasant voice.
How a smile brightens a girl's face!
"Good morrow, Master Hans, I am right glad to meet you."
How a smile brightens a boy's face!
"Good morrow, again, Annie. There has been a great change at our house since you left."
"How so?" she exclaimed, opening her eyes very wide.
Hans, who had been in a great hurry and rather moody, grew talkative and quite at leisure in Annie's sunshine.
Turning about, and skating slowly with her toward Broek, he told the good news of his father. Annie was so true a friend that he told her even of their present distress, of how money was needed and how everything depended upon his obtaining work, and he could find nothing to do in the neighborhood.
All this was not said as a complaint but just because she was looking at him and really wished to know. He could not speak of last night's bitter disappointment, for that secret was not wholly his own.
"Good-bye, Annie!" he said at last. "The morning is going fast, and I must haste to Amsterdam and sell these skates. Mother must have money at once. Before nightfall I shall certainly find a job somewhere."
"Sell your new skates, Hans?" cried Annie. "You, the best skater around Broek! Why, the race is coming off in five days!"
"I know it," he answered resolutely. "Good-bye! I shall skate home again on the old wooden ones."
Such a bright glance! So different from Janzoon's ugly grin--and Hans was off like an arrow.
"Hans, come back!" she called.
Her voice changed the arrow into a top. Spinning around, he darted, in one long, leaning sweep, toward her.
"Then you really are going to sell your new skates if you can find a customer?"
"Well, Hans, if you ARE going to sell your skates," said Annie, quite confused, "I mean if you--well, I know somebody who would like to buy them, that's all."
"Not Janzoon Kolp?" asked Hans, flushing.
"Oh, no," she said, pouting, "he is not one of my friends."
"But you KNOW him," persisted Hans.
Annie laughed, "Yes, I know him, and it's all the worse for him that I do. Now, please, Hans, don't ever talk any more to me about Janzoon. I hate him!"
"Hate him! YOU hate anybody, Annie?"
She shook her head saucily. "Yes, and I'll hate you, too, if you persist in calling him one of my friends. You boys may like him because he caught the greased goose at the kermis last summer and climbed the pole with his great, ugly body tied up in a sack, but I don't care for such things. I've disliked him ever since I saw him try to push his little sister out of the merry-go-round at Amsterdam, and it's no secret up OUR way who killed the stork on your mother's roof. But we mustn't talk about such a bad, wicked fellow. Really, Hans, I know somebody who would be glad to buy your skates. You won't get half a price for them in Amsterdam. Please give them to me. I'll take you the money this very afternoon."
If Annie was charming even when she said HATE, there was no withstanding her when she said PLEASE; at least Hans found it to be so.
"Annie," he said, taking off the skates and rubbing them carefully with a snarl of twine before handing them to her, "I am sorry to be so particular, but if your friend should not want them, will you bring them back to me today? I must buy peat and meal for the mother early tomorrow morning."
"My friend WILL want them," Annie laughed, nodding gaily, and skated off at the top of her speed.
As Hans drew forth the wooden "runners" from his capricious pockets and fastened them on as best he could, he did not hear Annie murmur, "I wish I had not been so rude. Poor, brave Hans. What a noble boy he is!" And as Annie skated homeward, filled with pleasant thoughts, she did not hear Hans say, "I grumbled like a bear. But bless her! Some girls are like angels!"
Perhaps it was all for the best. One cannot be expected to know everything that is going on around the world.
Luxuries unfit us for returning to hardships easily endured before. The wooden runners squeaked more than ever. It was as much as Hans could do to get on with the clumsy old things; still, he did not regret that he had parted with his beautiful skates, but resolutely pushed back the boyish trouble that he had not been able to keep them just a little longer, at least until after the race.
Mother surely will not be angry with me, he thought, for selling them without her leave. She has had care enough already. It will be full time to speak of it when I take home the money.
Hans went up and down the streets of Amsterdam that day, looking for work. He succeeded in earning a few stivers by assisting a man who was driving a train of loaded mules into the city, but he could not secure steady employment anywhere. He would have been glad to obtain a situation as porter or errand boy, but though he passed on his way many a loitering shuffling urchin, laden with bundles, there was no place for him. Some shopkeepers had just supplied themselves; others needed a trimmer, more lightly built fellow (they meant better dressed but did not choose to say so); others told him to call again in a month or two, when the canals would probably be broken up; and many shook their heads at him without saying a word.
At the factories he met with no better luck. It seemed to him that in those great buildings, turning out respectively such tremendous quantities of woolen, cotton, and linen stuffs, such world-renowned dyes and paints, such precious diamonds cut from the rough, such supplies of meal, of bricks, of glass and china--that in at least one of these, a strong-armed boy, able and eager to work, could find something to do. But no--nearly the same answer met him everywhere. No need of more hands just now. If he had called before Saint Nicholas's Day they might have given him a job as they were hurried then; but at present they had more boys than they needed. Hans wished they could see, just for a moment, his mother and Gretel. He did not know how the anxiety of both looked out from his eyes, and how, more than once, the gruffest denials were uttered with an uncomfortable consciousness that the lad ought not be turned away. Certain fathers, when they went home that night, spoke more kindly than usual to their youngsters, from memory of a frank, young face saddened at their words, and before morning one man actually resolved that he would instruct his head man Blankert to set the boy from Broek at something if he should come in again.
But Hans knew nothing of all this. Toward sundown he started on his return to Broek, uncertain whether the strange, choking sensation in his throat arose from discouragement or resolution. There was certainly one more chance. Mynheer van Holp might have returned by this time. Master Peter, it was reported, had gone to Haarlem the night before to attend to something connected with the great skating race. Still, Hans would go and try.
Fortunately Peter had returned early that morning. He was at home when Hans reached there and was just about starting for the Brinker cottage.
"Ah, Hans!" he cried as the weary boy approached the door. "You are the very one I wished to see. "You are the very one I wished to see. Come in and warm yourself."
After tugging at his well-worn hat, which always WOULD stick to his head when he was embarrassed, Hans knelt down, not by way of making a new style of oriental salute, nor to worship the goddess of cleanliness who presided there, but because his heavy shoes would have filled the soul of a Broek housewife with horror. When their owner stepped softly into the house, they were left outside to act as sentinels until his return.
Hans left the Van Holp mansion with a lightened heart. Peter had brought word from Haarlem that young Brinker was to commence working upon the summer-house doors immediately. There was a comfortable workshop on the place and it was to be at his service until the carving was done.
Peter did not tell him that he had skated all the way to Haarlem for the purpose of arranging this plan with Mynheer van Holp. It was enough for him to see the glad, eager look rise on young Brinker's face.
"I THINK I can do it," said Hans, "though I have never learned the trade."
"I am SURE you can," responded Peter heartily. "You will find every tool you require in the workshop. It is nearly hidden yonder by that wall of twigs. In summer, when the hedge is green, one cannot see the shop from here at all. How is your father today?"
"Better, mynheer. He improves every hour."
"It is the most astonishing thing I ever heard of. That gruff old doctor is a great fellow after all."
"Ah, mynheer," said Hans warmly, "he is more than great. He is good. But for the meester's kind heart and great skill my poor father would yet be in the dark. I think, mynheer," he added with kindling eyes, "surgery is the very noblest science in the world!"
Peter shrugged his shoulders. "Very noble it may be, but not quite to my taste. This Dr. Boekman certainly has skill. As for his heart--defend me from such hearts as his!"
"Why do you say so, mynheer?" asked Hans.
Just then a lady slowly entered from an adjoining apartment. It was Mevrouw van Holp arrayed in the grandest of caps and the longest of satin aprons ruffled with lace. She nodded placidly as Hans stepped back from the fire, bowing as well as he knew how.
Peter at once drew a high-backed oaken chair toward the fire, and the lady seated herself. There was a block of cork on each side of the chimney place. One of these he placed under his mother's feet.
Hans turned to go.
"Wait a moment, if you please, young man," said the lady. "I accidentally overheard you and my son speaking, I think, of my friend Dr. Boekman. You are right, young man. Dr. Boekman has a very kind heart. You perceive, Peter, that we may be quite mistaken in judging a person solely by his manners, though a courteous deportment is by no means to be despised."
"I intended no disrespect, mother," said Peter, "but surely one has no right to go growling and snarling through the world as they say he does."
"They say. Ah, Peter, 'they' means everybody or nobody. Surgeon Boekman has had a great sorrow. Many years ago he lost his only child under very painful circumstances. A fine lad, except that he was a thought too hasty and high-spirited. Before then Gerard Boekman was one of the most agreeable gentlemen I ever knew."
So saying, Mevrouw van Holp, looking kindly upon the two boys, rose, and left the room with the same dignity with which she had entered.
Peter, only half convinced, muttered something about "the sin of allowing sorrow to turn all one's honey into gall" as he conducted his visitor to the narrow side door. Before they parted, he advised Hans to keep himself in good skating order, "for," he added, "now that your father is all right, you will be in fine spirits for the race. That will be the prettiest skating show ever seen in this part of the world. Everybody is talking of it; you are to try for the prize, remember."
"I shall not be in the race, mynheer," said Hans, looking down.
"Not in the race! Why not, indeed!" And immediately Peter's thoughts swept on a full tide of suspicion toward Carl Schummel.
"Because I cannot, mynheer," answered Hans as he bent to slip his feet into his big shoes.
Something in the boy's manner warned Peter that it would be no kindness to press the matter further. He bade Hans good-bye, and stood thoughtfully watching him as he walked away.
In a minute Peter called out, "Hans Brinker!"
"Yes, mynheer."
"I'll take back all I said about Dr. Boekman."
"Yes, mynheer."
Both were laughing. But Peter's smile changed to a look of puzzled surprise when he saw Hans kneel down by the canal and put on the wooden skates.
"Very queer," muttered Peter, shaking his head as he turned to go into the house. "Why in the world doesn't the boy wear his new ones?"