III
THE SILVER SKATES
Dame Brinker earned a scanty support for her family by raisingvegetables, spinning and knitting. Once she had worked on board thebarges plying up and down the canal, and had occasionally been harnessedwith other women to the towing rope of a pakschuyt plying between Broekand Amsterdam. But when Hans had grown strong and large, he had insistedupon doing all such drudgery in her place. Besides, her husband hadbecome so very helpless of late, that he required her constant care.Although not having as much intelligence as a little child, he was yetstrong of arm and very hearty, and Dame Brinker had sometimes greattrouble in controlling him.
"Ah! children, he was so good and steady," she would sometimes say, "andas wise as a lawyer. Even the Burgomaster would stop to ask him aquestion, and now alack! he don't know his wife and little ones. Youremember the father, Hans, when he was himself--a great brave man--don'tyou?"
"Yes, indeed, mother, he knew everything, and could do anything underthe sun--and how he would sing! why, you used to laugh and say it wasenough to set the windmills dancing."
"So I did. Bless me! how the boy remembers! Gretel, child, take thatknitting needle from your father, quick; he'll get it in his eyes maybe; and put the shoe on him. His poor feet are like ice half the time,but I can't keep 'em covered all I can do----" and then half wailing,half humming, Dame Brinker would sit down, and fill the low cottage withthe whirr of her spinning wheel.
Nearly all the outdoor work, as well as the household labor, wasperformed by Hans and Gretel. At certain seasons of the year thechildren went out day after day to gather peat, which they would stowaway in square, brick-like pieces, for fuel. At other times, whenhome-work permitted, Hans rode the towing-horses on the canals, earninga few stivers[5] a day; and Gretel tended geese for the neighboringfarmers.
[Footnote 5: A stiver is worth about two cents of our money.]
Hans was clever at carving in wood, and both he and Gretel were goodgardeners. Gretel could sing and sew and run on great, high, home-madestilts better than any girl for miles around. She could learn a balladin five minutes, and find, in its season, any weed or flower you couldname; but she dreaded books, and often the very sight of thefiguring-board in the old schoolhouse would set her eyes swimming. Hans,on the contrary, was slow and steady. The harder the task, whether instudy or daily labor, the better he liked it. Boys who sneered at himout of school, on account of his patched clothes and scant leatherbreeches, were forced to yield him the post of honor in nearly everyclass. It was not long before he was the only youngster in the schoolwho had not stood at least _once_ in the corner of horrors, where hung adreaded whip, and over it this motto:
"Leer, leer! jou luigaart, of dit endje touw zal je le ren!"[6]
[Footnote 6: (Learn! learn! you idler, or this rope's end shall teachyou.)]
It was only in winter that Gretel and Hans could be spared to attendschool; and for the past month they had been kept at home because theirmother needed their services. Raff Brinker required constant attention,and there was black bread to be made, and the house to be kept clean,and stockings and other things to be knitted and sold in themarket-place.
While they were busily assisting their mother on this cold Decembermorning, a merry troop of girls and boys came skimming down the canal.There were fine skaters among them, and as the bright medley of costumesflitted by, it looked from a distance as though the ice had suddenlythawed, and some gay tulip-bed were floating along on the current.
There was the rich burgomaster's daughter Hilda van Gleck, with hercostly furs and loose-fitting velvet sack; and, near by, a prettypeasant girl, Annie Bouman, jauntily attired in a coarse scarlet jacketand a blue skirt just short enough to display the gray homespun hose toadvantage. Then there was the proud Rychie Korbes, whose father, Mynheervan Korbes, was one of the leading men of Amsterdam; and, flockingclosely around her, Carl Schummel, Peter and Ludwig[7] van Holp, JacobPoot, and a very small boy rejoicing in the tremendous name ofVoostenwalbert Schimmelpenninck. There were nearly twenty other boys andgirls in the party, and one and all seemed full of excitement andfrolic.
[Footnote 7: Ludwig, Gretel, and Carl were named after German friends.The Dutch form would be Lodewyk, Grietje and Karel.]
_Hans was clever at carving in wood_]
Up and down the canal, within the space of a half mile they skated,exerting their racing powers to the utmost. Often the swiftest amongthem was seen to dodge from under the very nose of some pompouslaw-giver or doctor, who with folded arms was skating leisurely towardthe town; or a chain of girls would suddenly break at the approach of afat old burgomaster who, with gold-headed cane poised in air, waspuffing his way to Amsterdam. Equipped in skates wonderful to behold,from their superb strappings, and dazzling runners curving over theinstep and topped with gilt balls, he would open his fat eyes a littleif one of the maidens chanced to drop him a courtesy, but would not dareto bow in return for fear of losing his balance.
Not only pleasure-seekers and stately men of note were upon the canal.There were work-people, with weary eyes, hastening to their shops andfactories; market-women with loads upon their heads; peddlers bendingwith their packs; barge-men with shaggy hair and bleared faces, jostlingroughly on their way; kind-eyed clergymen speeding perhaps to thebedsides of the dying; and, after a while, groups of children, withsatchels slung over their shoulders, whizzing past, toward the distantschool. One and all wore skates excepting, indeed, a muffled-up farmerwhose queer cart bumped along on the margin of the canal.
Before long our merry boys and girls were almost lost in the confusionof bright colors, the ceaseless motion, and the gleaming of skatesflashing back the sunlight. We might have known no more of them had notthe whole party suddenly come to a standstill and, grouping themselvesout of the way of the passers-by, all talked at once to a pretty littlemaiden, whom they had drawn from the tide of people flowing toward thetown.
"Oh Katrinka!" they cried, in a breath, "have you heard of it? Therace--We want you to join!"
"What race?" asked Katrinka, laughing--"Don't all talk at once, please,I can't understand."
Every one panted and looked at Rychie Korbes, who was their acknowledgedspokeswoman.
"Why," said Rychie, "we are to have a grand skating match on thetwentieth, on Meurouw[8] van Gleck's birthday. It's all Hilda's work.They are going to give a splendid prize to the best skater."
[Footnote 8: Mrs. or Madame (pronounced Meffrow).]
"Yes," chimed in half a dozen voices, "a beautiful pair of silverskates--perfectly magnificent! with, oh! such straps and silver bellsand buckles!"
"_Who_ said they had bells?" put in the small voice of the boy with thebig name.
"_I_ say so, Master Voost," replied Rychie.
"So they have,"--"No, I'm sure they haven't,"--"_Oh_, how can you sayso?"--"It's an arrow"--"And Mynheer van Korbes told _my_ mother they hadbells,"--came from sundry of the excited group; but MynheerVoostenwalbert Schimmelpenninck essayed to settle the matter with adecisive--
"Well, you don't any of you know a single thing about it; they haven't asign of a bell on them, they----"
"Oh! oh!" and the chorus of conflicting opinion broke forth again.
"The girls' pair are to have bells," interposed Hilda, quietly, "butthere is to be another pair for the boys with an arrow engraved upon thesides."
"_There!_ I told you so!" cried nearly all the youngsters in a breath.
Katrinka looked at them with bewildered eyes.
"Who is to try?" she asked.
"All of us," answered Rychie. "It will be such fun! And you must, too,Katrinka. But it's school time now, we will talk it all over at noon.Oh! you will join of course."
Katrinka, without replying, made a graceful pirouette, and laughing outa coquettish--"Don't you hear the last bell? Catch me!"--darted offtoward the schoolhouse, standing half a mile away, on the canal.
All started, pell-mell, at this challenge, but they tried in vain tocatch the bright-eyed,
laughing creature who, with golden hair streamingin the sunlight, cast back many a sparkling glance of triumph as shefloated onward.
Beautiful Katrinka! Flushed with youth and health, all life and mirthand motion, what wonder thine image, ever floating in advance, spedthrough one boy's dreams that night! What wonder that it seemed hisdarkest hour when, years afterward, thy presence floated away from himforever.