VIII
INTRODUCING JACOB POOT AND HIS COUSIN
Hans and Gretel had a fine frolic early on that Saint Nicholas' Eve.There was a bright moon; and their mother, though she believed herselfto be without any hope of her husband's improvement, had been made sohappy at the prospect of the meester's visit, that she had yielded tothe children's entreaties for an hour's skating before bedtime.
Hans was delighted with his new skates, and in his eagerness to showGretel how perfectly they "worked" did many things upon the ice, thatcaused the little maid to clasp her hands in solemn admiration. Theywere not alone, though they seemed quite unheeded by the various groupsassembled upon the canal.
The two Van Holps, and Carl Schummel were there, testing their fleetnessto the utmost. Out of four trials Peter van Holp had beaten three times.Consequently Carl, never very amiable, was in anything but a good humor.He had relieved himself by taunting young Schimmelpenninck who, beingsmaller than the others, kept meekly near them, without feeling exactlylike one of the party; but now a new thought seized Carl, or rather heseized the new thought and made an onset upon his friends.
"I say, boys, let's put a stop to those young rag-pickers from theidiot's cottage joining the race. Hilda must be crazy to think of it.Katrinka Flack and Rychie Korbes are furious at the very idea of racingwith the girl; and for my part, I don't blame them. As for the boy, ifwe've a spark of manhood in us we will scorn the very idea of----"
"Certainly we will!" interposed Peter van Holp, purposely mistakingCarl's meaning, "who doubts it? No fellow with a spark of manhood in himwould refuse to let in two good skaters just because they were poor!"
Carl wheeled about savagely:
"Not so fast, master! and I'd thank you not to put words in otherpeople's mouths. You'd best not try it again."
"Ha! ha!" laughed little Voostenwalbert Schimmelpenninck, delighted atthe prospect of a fight, and sure that, if it should come to blows, hisfavorite Peter could beat a dozen excitable fellows like Carl.
Something in Peter's eye made Carl glad to turn to a weaker offender. Hewheeled furiously upon Voost.
"What are you shrieking about, you little weasel! You skinny herringyou, you little monkey with a long name for a tail!"
Half a dozen bystanders and by-skaters set up an applauding shout atthis brave witticism; and Carl, feeling that he had fairly vanquishedhis foes, was restored to partial good humor. He, however, prudentlyresolved to defer plotting against Hans and Gretel until some time whenPeter should not be present.
Just then, his friend, Jacob Poot, was seen approaching. They could notdistinguish his features at first; but as he was the stoutest boy in theneighborhood there could be no mistaking his form.
"Hola! here comes Fatty!" exclaimed Carl, "and there's some one withhim, a slender fellow, a stranger."
"Ha! ha! that's like good bacon," cried Ludwig; "a streak of lean and astreak of fat."
"That's Jacob's English cousin," put in Master Voost, delighted at beingable to give the information, "that's his English cousin, and, oh! he'sgot such a funny little name,--BEN DOBBS. He's going to stay with himuntil after the grand race."
All this time the boys had been spinning, turning, "rolling" and doingother feats upon their skates, in a quiet way, as they talked; but nowthey stood still, bracing themselves against the frosty air as JacobPoot and his friend drew near.
"This is my cousin, boys," said Jacob, rather out of breath--"BenjaminDobbs. He's a John Bull and he's going to be in the race."
All crowded, boy-fashion, about the newcomers. Benjamin soon made up hismind that the Hollanders, notwithstanding their queer gibberish, were afine set of fellows.
If the truth must be told, Jacob had announced his cousin as "PenchaminDopps," and called him a "Shon Pull," but as I translate every word ofthe conversation of our young friends, it is no more than fair to mendtheir little attempts at English. Master Dobbs felt at first decidedlyawkward among his cousin's friends. Though most of them had studiedEnglish and French, they were shy about attempting to speak either, andhe made very funny blunders when he tried to converse in Dutch. He hadlearned that _vrouw_ means wife, and _ja_, yes; and _spoorweg_, railway;_kanaals_, canals; _stoomboot_, steamboat; _ophaalbruggen_, drawbridges;_buiten plasten_, country seats; _mynheer_, "mister;" _tweegevegt_, duelor _two-fights_; _koper_, copper; _zadel_, saddle; but he could notmake a sentence out of these, nor use the long list of phrases he hadlearned in his "Dutch dialogues." The topics of the latter were fine,but were never alluded to by the boys. Like the poor fellow who hadlearned in Ollendorf to ask in faultless German "have you seen mygrandmother's red cow?" and when he reached Germany discovered that hehad no occasion to inquire after that interesting animal, Ben found thathis book-Dutch did not avail him as much as he had hoped. He acquired ahearty contempt for Jan van Gorp, a Hollander who wrote a book in Latinto prove that Adam and Eve spoke Dutch; and he smiled a knowing smilewhen his uncle Poot assured him that Dutch "had great likeness mitZinglish but it vash much petter languish, much petter."
However, the fun of skating glides over all barriers of speech. Throughthis, Ben soon felt that he knew the boys well; and when Jacob (with asprinkling of French and English for Ben's benefit) told of a grandproject they had planned, his cousin could now and then put in a "ja,"or a nod, in quite a familiar way.
The project _was_ a grand one, and there was to be a fine opportunityfor carrying it out; for, besides the allotted holiday of the Festivalof Saint Nicholas, four extra days were to be allowed for a generalcleaning of the schoolhouse.
Jacob and Ben had obtained permission to go on a long skatingjourney--no less a one than from Broek to the Hague, the capital ofHolland, a distance of nearly fifty miles![15]
[Footnote 15: Throughout this narrative distances are given according toour standard, the English statute mile of 5280 ft. The Dutch mile ismore than four times as long as ours.]
"And now, boys," added Jacob, when he had told the plan, "who will gowith us?"
"I will! I will!" cried the boys eagerly.
"And so will I!" ventured little Voostenwalbert.
"Ha! ha!" laughed Jacob, holding his fat sides, and shaking his puffycheeks, "_you_ go? Such a little fellow as you? Why, youngster, youhaven't left off your pads yet!"
Now in Holland very young children wear a thin, padded cushion aroundtheir heads, surmounted with a framework of whalebone and ribbon, toprotect them in case of a fall; and it is the dividing line betweenbabyhood and childhood when they leave it off. Voost had arrived at thisdignity several years before; consequently Jacob's insult was rather toogreat for endurance.
"Look out what you say!" he squeaked. "Lucky for you when you can leaveoff _your_ pads--you're padded all over!"
"Ha! ha!" roared all the boys except Master Dobbs, who could notunderstand. "Ha! ha!"--and the good-natured Jacob laughed more than any.
"It ish my fat--yaw--he say I bees pad mit fat!" he explained to Ben.
So a vote was passed unanimously in favor of allowing the now popularVoost to join the party, if his parents would consent.
"Good-night!" sang out the happy youngster, skating homeward with allhis might.
"Good-night!"
"We can stop at Haarlem, Jacob, and show your cousin the big organ,"said Peter van Holp, eagerly, "and at Leyden, too, where there's no endto the sights; and spend a day and night at the Hague, for my marriedsister, who lives there, will be delighted to see us; and the nextmorning we can start for home."
"All right!" responded Jacob, who was not much of a talker.
Ludwig had been regarding his brother with enthusiastic admiration.
"Hurrah for you, Pete! It takes you to make plans! Mother'll be as fullof it as we are when we tell her we can take her love direct to sisterVan Gend. My! but it's cold," he added, "cold enough to take a fellow'shead off his shoulders. We'd better go home."
"What if it is cold, old Tender-skin?" cried Carl, who was busilypracticing a step which he called the "doubl
e edge." "Great skating weshould have by this time, if it was as warm as it was last December.Don't you know if it wasn't an extra cold winter, and an early one intothe bargain, we couldn't go?"
"I know it's an extra cold night anyhow," said Ludwig. "Whew! I'm goinghome!"
Peter van Holp took out a bulgy gold watch, and holding it toward themoonlight as well as his benumbed fingers would permit, called out:
"Hollo! it's nearly eight o'clock! Saint Nicholas is about by this time,and I, for one, want to see the little ones stare. Good-night!"
"Good-night!" cried one and all,--and off they started, shouting,singing, and laughing as they flew along.
Where were Gretel and Hans?
Ah! how suddenly joy sometimes comes to an end!
They had skated about an hour, keeping aloof from the others--quitecontented with each other, and Gretel had exclaimed, "Ah, Hans, howbeautiful! how fine! to think that we both have skates! I tell you thestork brought us good luck!"--when they heard something!
It was a scream--a very faint scream! No one else upon the canalobserved it, but Hans knew its meaning too well. Gretel saw him turnwhite in the moonlight as he hastily tore off his skates.
"The father!" he cried, "he has frightened our mother!" and Gretel ranafter him toward the house as rapidly as she could.