Hans Brinker; or, The silver skates, a story of life in Holland

Front matter

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Preface

HE Story of Hans Brinker, or of any boy born and bred in Holland, cannot be fitly told without including something of the story of Holland itself, — of its history, its oddities, and the leading characteristics of its heroic and thrifty people. All these must be borne in mind, for some of the traits peculiar to his race are ingrained in every Hollander, young or old, and Holland is as different from Elsewhere as can be imagined.

Therefore, necessary and careful descriptions of Dutch life and customs have been given in the narrative, and many of the incidents are drawn directly from life. Even the wonderful experiences of Raff Brinker are founded strictly upon fact.

While acknowledging my obligations to many well-known writers on Dutch history, literature and art, I turn with especial gratitude to two kind friends, natives of Holland, who, after their marriage, had taken up their abode in this country. With generous zeal, they patiently answered questions, and took many a backward glance at their country for my sake, seeing it as it looked, years ago, when the humble home of the Brinkers crouched by the sheltering dike in sunlight and shadow.

It was my tardy good fortune to visit Holland not long after this book was written, and see with my own eyes the land I had tried to picture for my readers. The Brinker cottage

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Preface was empty, and many things in Holland had changed since the days when Hans and his little sister skated on the frozen ‘‘ Y.” But, to my joy, every detail of the earlier picture of the country was verified. Holland was still wonderful, — in fact, more wonderful ; for time only increased the marvel of its not being washed away by the sea.

Its cities have grown, and, in some of them, national costumes have given place to the conventional European dress of the day. A few of its peculiarities have been brushed away by contact with other nations ; but it is Holland still, and always will be; full of oddity, courage and industry, — the pluckiest little country on earth.

Through the liberality of the publishers, this story of Dutch life is now presented in a more beautiful form than ever before. Mr. Allen B. Doggett, who made a journey to Holland for the express purpose of illustrating this latest and best edition of the story, has done his work with rare skill and discretion and appreciative fidelity to nature.

While thanking the illustrator for his artistic and sympathetic work, I must again express my gratitude to the publishers, the critics, and, above all, the boys and girls of America, England, France and Holland for the kindness they have shown toward this simple story of Hans and Gretel and the Silver Skates.

M. M. D.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Hans and Gretel i

II. Holland lo

II Holland

Holland is one of the queerest countries under the sun. It should be called Odd-land or Contrary-land ; for in nearly everything it is different from other parts of the

world. In the first place, a large portion of the country is lower than the level of the sea. Great dikes, or bulwarks, have been erected, at a heavy cost of money and labor, to keep the ocean where it belongs. On certain parts of the coast, it sometimes leans with all its weight against the land ; and it is as much as the poor country can do to stand the pressure. Sometimes the dikes give way, or spring a leak, and the most disastrous results ensue. They are high and wide y and the tops of

LOWER THAN THE LEVEL OF THE SEA.

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A HOME ON A CANAL-BOAT.

some of them are covered with buildings and trees. They have even fine public roads upon them, from which horses may look down upon wayside cottages. Often the keels of floating ships are higher than the roofs of the dwellings. The stork clattering to her young on the house-peak may feel that her nest is lifted far out of danger ; but the croaking frog in neighboring bulrushes is nearer the stars than she. Waterbugs dart backward and forward above the heads of the chimney-swallows ; and willow-trees seem drooping with shame, because they cannot reach as high as the reeds near by.

Ditches, canals, ponds, rivers and lakes are everywhere to be seen. High, but not dry, they shine in the sunlight, catching nearly all the bustle and the business, quite scorning the tame fields stretching damply beside them. One is tempted to ask, ‘‘ Which is Holland, — the shores, or the water ? ’’ The very verdure that should be confined to the land has made a mistake, and settled upon the fish-ponds. In fact, the entire country is a kind of saturated sponge, or, as the English poet Butler called it, —

“ A land that rides at anchor, and is moored j In which they do not live, but go aboard.”

Persons are born, live, and die, and even have their gardens, on canal-boats. Farmhouses, with roofs like great slouched hats pulled over their eyes, stand on wooden legs with a tuckedup sort of air, as if to say, We intend to keep dry if we can.” Even the horses wear a wide stool on each hoof to lift them

out of the mire.

In short, the landscape everywhere suggests a paradise for ducks. It is a glorious country in summer for barefooted girls and boys. Such wad i n gs ! such mimic s h i psailing ! such rowing, fishing and swimming! Only think of a chain of puddles, where one can launch chip boats all day long, and never make a return trip ! But enough. A full recital would set all young America rushing in a body toward the Zuyder-Zee.

Dutch cities seem at first sight to be a bewildering jungle of houses, bridges, churches and ships, sprouting into masts, steeples and trees. In some cities, vessels are hitched, like horses, to their owners’ door-posts, and receive their freight from the upper windows. Mothers scream to Lodewyk and

EVEN THE HORSES WEAR A WIDE STOOL ON EACH HOOF.

Kassy not to swing on the garden-gate, for fear they may be drowned. Water-roads are more frequent there than common roads and railways. W^ater-fences, in the form of lazy green ditches, enclose pleasure-ground, polder and garden.

Sometimes fine green hedges are seen ; but wooden fences, such as we have in America, are rarely met with in Holland. As for stone fences, a Dutchman would lift his hands with astonishment at the very idea.

There is no stone there, excepting those great masses of rock that have been brought from other lands to strengthen and protect the coast. All the small stones or pebbles, if there ever were any, seem to be imprisoned in pavements, or quite melted away. Boys with strong, quick arms may grow from pinafores to full beards, without ever finding one to start the water-rings, or set the rabbits flying. The water-roads are nothing less than canals intersecting the country in every direction. These are of all sizes, from the great North Holland Ship Canal, which is the wonder of the world, to those which a boy can leap. Water-omnibuses, called trekschuiten^ constantly ply up and down these roads for the conveyance of passengers ; and water-drays, called pakschuyten^ are used

1 Canal-boats. Some of the first-named are over thirty feet long. They look like greenhouses lodged on barges, and are drawn by horses walking

CHILDREN AT PLAY IN HOLLAND.

for carrying fuel and merchandise. Instead of green country lanes, green canals stretch from field to barn, and from barn to garden ; and the farms, or polders, as they are termed, are merely great lakes pumped dry. Some of the busiest streets are water ; while many of the country roads are paved with brick. The city boats, with their rounded sterns, gilded prows and gayly painted sides, are unlike any others under the sun ;

and a Dutch wagon, with its funny little crooked pole, is a perfect mystery of mysteries.

One thing is clear,” cries Master Brightside, “ the inhabitants need never be thirsty.”

But, no. Odd-land is true to itself still. Notwithstanding the sea pushing to get in, and the lakes struggling to get out, and the overflowing; canals, rivers and

THE POLE OF A DUTCH WAGON. _ ^ ° .

ditches, in many districts there is no water fit to swallow : our poor Hollanders must go dry, or drink wine and beer, or send far into the inland, to Utrecht and other favored localities, for that precious fluid older than Adam, yet young as the morning dew. Sometimes, indeed, the inhabitants can swallow a shower, when they are provided

along the bank of the canal. The trekschiiiten are divided into two compartments, first and second class 5 and, when not too crowded, the passengers make themselves quite at home in them : the men smoke, the women knit or sew, while children play upon the small outer deck. Many of the canal-boats have white, yellow or chocolate-colored sails. This last color is caused by a preparation of tan, which is put on to preserve them.

with any means of catching it ; but generally they are like the albatross-haunted sailors in Coleridge’s famous poem of ‘‘ The Ancient Mariner ” : they see

“ Water, water, everywhere.

Nor any drop to drink ! ”

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Great flapping windmills all over the country make it look as if flocks of huge sea-birds were just settling upon it. Everywhere one sees the funniest trees, bobbed into fantastical shapes, with their trunks painted a dazzling white, yellow or red. Horses are often yoked three abreast. Men, women and children go clattering about in wooden shoes with loose heels ; peasant-girls who cannot get beaux for love, hire them for money, to escort them to the kermis;'^ and husbands and wives lovingly harness themselves side by side on the bank of the canal, and drag their pakschuyts to market.

Another peculiar feature of Holland is the “ dune,” or sandhill. These are numerous along certain portions of the coast. Before they were sown with coarse reed-grass and other plants, to hold them down, they used to send great storms of sand over the inland. So, to add to the oddities, farmers sometimes dig down under the surface to find their soil ; and on windy days dry showers (of sand) often fall upon fields that have grown wet under a week of sunshine !

In short, almost the only familiar thing we Yankees can meet with in Holland is a harvest-song, which is quite popular there, though no linguist could translate it. Even then, we must shut our eyes, and listen only to the tune, which I leave you to gupss.

Botermelk und Tawnter ! ”

On the other hand, many of the oddities of Holland serve only to prove the thrift and perseverance of the people. There is not a richer or more carefully tilled garden-spot in the whole

1 Fair.

world than this leaky, springy, little country. There is not a braver, more heroic race than its quiet, passive-looking inhabitants. Few nations have equalled it in important discoveries and inventions ; none has excelled it in commerce, navigation.

ON THE DUNES.

Jearning and science, or set as noble examples in the promotion of education and public charities ; and none, in proportion to its extent, has expended more money and labor upon public works.

Holland has its shining annals of noble and illustrious men and women, its grand historic records ot patience, resistance and victory, its religious freedom, its enlightened enterprise, its art, its music and its literature. It has truly been called “ the battle-field of Europe : ” as truly may we consider it the asylum of the worid ; for the oppressed of every nation have i8 there found shelter and encouragement. If we Americans — many of us surely of Holland stock — can laugh at the Dutch, and call them human beavers, and hint that their country may float off any day at high tide, we can also know that they have proved themselves heroes, and that their country will not float off while there is a Dutchman left to grapple it.

There are said to be at least ninety-nine hundred large windmills in Holland, with sails ranging from eighty to one hundred and twenty feet long. They are employed in sawing timber, beating hemp, grinding, and many other kinds of work; but their principal use is for pumping water from the lowlands into the canals, and for guarding against the inland freshets that so often deluge the country. Their yearly cost is said to be nearly ten millions of dollars. The large ones are of great power. Their huge, circular tower, rising sometimes from the midst of factory buildings, is surmounted with a smaller one, tapering into a caplike roof. This upper tower is encircled at its base with a balcony, high above which juts the axis, turned by its four prodigious ladder-backed sails.

Many of the windmills are primitive affairs, seeming sadly in need of Yankee “improvements;” but some of the new ones are admirable. They are so constructed that, by some ingenious contrivance, they present their fans, or wings, to the wind in precisely the right direction to work with the requisite power. In other words, the miller may take a nap, and feel quite sure that his mill will study the wind, and make the most of it, until he wakens. Should there be but a slight current of air, every sail will spread itself to catch the faintest breath ; but, if a heavy “ blow ” should come, they will shrink at its touch, like great mimosa-leaves, and only give it half a chance to move them.

WINDMILLS ALONG THE CANAl

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One of the old prisons of Amsterdam, called the “ Rasphouse, because the thieves and vagrants who were confined there were employed in rasping logwood, had a cell for the punishment of lazy prisoners. In one corner of this cell was a pump, and in another an opening, through which a steady stream of water was admitted. The prisoner could take his choice,

— either to stand still and be drowned ; or to work for dear life at the pump, and keep the rising flood down until relieved. Now, it seems to me that, throughout Holland,

Nature has introduced this little diversion on a grand scale. The Dutch always have been forced to pump ^ prisoner forced to pump or

for their very existence, and probably must continue to do so to the end of time.

Every year millions of dollars are spent in repairing dikes and regulating water-levels. If these important duties were neglected, the country would be uninhabitable. Already dreadful consequences, as I have said, have followed the bursting of these dikes. Hundreds of villages and towns have, from time to time, been buried beneath the rush of waters ; and nearly a million of persons have been destroyed. One of the most fearful inundations ever known occurred in the autumn of the year 1570. Twenty-eight terrible floods had before that time overwhelmed portions of Holland ; but this was the most terrible of all. The unhappy country had long been suffering under Spanish tyranny ; now, it seemed, came the crowning point of its troubles. When we read Motley’s “ Rise of the Dutch Republic,” we learn to revere the brave people who have endured, suffered and dared so much.

Mr. Motley, in his thrilling account of the great inundation, tells us how a long-continued and violent gale had been sweeping the Atlantic waters into the North Sea, piling them against the coasts of the Dutch provinces ; how the dikes, tasked beyond their strength, burst in all directions ; how even the hand-boss, a bulwark formed of oaken piles, braced with iron, moored with heavy anchors, and secured by gravel and granite, was snapped to pieces like packthread ; how fishing-boats and bulky vessels, floating up into the country, became entangled among the trees, or beat in the roofs and walls of dwellings; and how, at last, all Friesland was converted into an angry sea. “ Multitudes of men, women, children, of horses, oxen, sheep, and every domestic animal, were struggling Hn the waves in every direction. Every boat and every article which could serve as a boat was eagerly seized upon. Every house was inundated : even the graveyards gave up their dead. The living infant in his cradle and the long-buried corpse in his coffin floated side by side. The ancient flood seemed about to be renewed. Everywhere — upon the tops of trees, upon the steeples of churches — human beings were clustered, praying to God for mercy, and to their fellow-men for assistance. As the storm at last was subsiding, boats began to ply in every direction, saving those who were struggling in the water, picking fugitives from roofs and tree-tops, and collecting the bodies of those already drowned. No less than one hundred thousand human beings had perished in a few hours. Thousands upon thousands of dumb creatures lay dead upon the waters ; and the damage to property was beyond calculation.

Robles, the Spanish governor, was foremost in noble efforts to save life, and lessen the horrors of the catastrophe. He had formerly been hated by the Dutch, because of his Spanish or Portuguese blood ; but, by his goodness and activity in their hour of disaster, he won all hearts to gratitude. He soon introduced an improved method of constructing the dikes, and passed a law that they should in future be kept up by the owners of the soil. There were fewer heavy floods from this time ; though, within less than three hundred years, six fearful inundations swept over the land.

In the spring there is always great danger of inland freshets, especially in times of thaw, because the rivers, choked with blocks of ice, overflow before they can discharge their rapidly rising waters into the ocean. Add to this the sea chafing and pressing against the dikes and it is no wonder that Holland is often in a state of alarm. The greatest care is taken to prevent accidents. Engineers and workmen are stationed alk along in threatened places ; and a close watch is kept up night and day. When a general signal of danger is given, the inhabitants all rush to the rescue, eager to combine against their common foe. As, everywhere else, straw is supposed to be of all things the most helpless in the water, of course in Holland it must be rendered the mainstay against a rushing tide. Huge straw mats are pressed against the embankments, fortified with clay and heavy stone ; and, once adjusted, the ocean dashes against them in vain.

Raff Brinker, the father of Gretel and Hans, had for years been employed upon the dikes. It was at the time of a threatened inundation, when in the midst of a terrible storm, in darkness and sleet, the men were laboring at a weak spot near the Veermyk sluice, that he fell from the scaffolding, and was taken home insensible. From that hour he never worked again. Though he lived on, mind and memory were gone.

Gretel could not remember him otherwise than as the strange, silent man whose eyes followed her vacantly whichever way she turned ; but Hans had recollections of a hearty, cheerfulvoiced father, who was never tired of bearing him

upon his shoulder, and ^ whose careless song still seemed echoing near night and listened.

when he lay awake at

VESSELS HITCHED TO A FENCE-POST.

Ill

THE SILVER SKATES

Dame BRINKER earned a scanty support for her family by raising vegetables, spinning and knitting. Once she had worked on board the barges plying up and down the canal, and had occasionally been harnessed with other women to the towing-rope of a pakschuyt plying between Broek and Amsterdam. But when Hans had grown strong and large, he had insisted upon doing all such drudgery in her place. Besides, her husband had become so very helpless of late that he required her constant care. Although he had not as much intelligence as a little child, he was yet strong of arm and very hearty ; and Dame Brinker had sometimes great trouble iii controlling him. When Hans was in the cottage, or some kind-hearted passer-by came to her assistance on hearing a noise within, the poor vrouw could get on very well ; but, when she was alone, it was a different matter.

“ Ah, children ! he was so good and steady,” she would sometimes say, and as wise as a lawyer. Even the burgomaster would stop to ask him a question ; and now, alack ! he doesn’t know his wife and little ones. You remember the father, Hans, when he was himself, — a great brave man, — don’t you ”

“ Yes, indeed, mother ! He knew everything, and could do anything under the sun j and how he would sing ! Why, you used to laugh, and say it was enough to set the windmills dancing.”

“ So I did. Bless me ! how the boy remembers ! Gretel, child, take that knitting-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 with the whir of her spinning-wheel.

Nearly all the outdoor work, as well as the household labor, was performed by Hans and Gretel. At certain seasons of the year, the children went out day after day to gather peat, which they would stow away in square, bricklike pieces, for fuel. At other times, when home-work permitted, Hans rode the towing-horses on the canals, earning a few stivers ^ a day ; and Gretel tended geese for the neighboring farmers.

^ A stiver is worth about two cents of our money.

DAME BRINKER AT HER SPINNING-WHEEL

Hans was clever at carving in wood ; and both he and Gretel were good gardeners. Gretel could sing and sew and run on great high, home-made stilts better than any girl for miles around. She could learn a ballad in five minutes, and

HANS AND GRETEL GATHERING PEAT.

find, in its season, any weed or flower you could name. But she dreaded books ; and often the very sight of the figuringboard in the old schoolhouse would set her eyes swimming.

Hans, on the contrary, was slow and steady. The harder the task, whether in study or daily labor, the better he liked it. Boys who sneered at him out of school, on account of his patched clothes and scant leather breeches, were forced to

RUNNING ON STILTS.

yield him the post of honor in nearly every class. It was not long before he was the only youngster in the school who had not stood at least once in the corner of horrors, where hung a dreaded whip, and over it this motto : —

It was only in winter that Gretel and Hans could be spared to attend school ; and for the past month they had been kept at home because their mother 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 the market-place.

While they were busily assisting their mother on this cold December morning, a merry troop of girls and boys came skimming down the canal. There were fine skaters among them ; and, as the bright medley of costumes flitted by, it looked from a distance as though the ice had suddenly thawed, and some gay tulip-bed were floating along on the current.

There was the rich burgomaster’s daughter, Hilda van Gleck, with her costly furs and loose-fitting velvet sack j and near by a pretty peasant-girl, Annie Bouman, jauntily attired in a coarse scarlet jacket, and a blue skirt just short enough to display the gray homespun hose to advantage. Then there was the proud Rychie Korbes, whose father, Mynheer van Korbes, was one of the leading men of Amsterdam ; and, flocking closely around her, Carl Schummel, Peter and Ludwigvan Holp, Jacob Foot, and a very small boy, rejoicing in the tremendous name of Voostenwalbert Schimmelpenninck. There were nearly twenty other boys and girls in the party ; and one and all seemed full of excitement and frolic.

Up and down the canal, within the space of a half-mile,

1 “ Learn, learn, you idler! or this rope’s end shall teach you.”

2 Ludwig, Gretel and Carl were named after Gorman friends. The Dutch form would be Lode^vjyk^ Grietje and Karel.

they skated, exerted their racing powers to the utmost. Often the swiftest among them was seen to dodge from under the very nose of some pompous law-giver or doctor, who, with folded arms, was skating leisurely toward the town ; or a chain of girls would suddenly break at the approach of a fat old burgomaster, who, with gold-headed cane poised in air, was puffing his way to Amsterdam. Equipped in skates wonderful to behold, — from their superb strappings, and dazzling runners curving toward the instep and topped with gilt balls, — he would open his fat eyes a little if one of the maidens chanced to drop him a courtesy, but would not dare to 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 and factories ; market-women with loads upon their heads ; peddlers bending with their packs ; bargemen, with shaggy hair and bleared faces, jostling roughly on their way ; kind-eyed clergymen speeding perhaps to the bedsides of the dying ; and, after a while, groups of children, with satchels slung over their shoulders, whizzing past toward the distant school. One and all wore skates, excepting, indeed, a muffied-up farmer, whose queer cart bumped along on the margin of the canal.

A BURGOMASTER.

Before long our merry boys and girls were almost lost in the confusion of bright colors, the ceaseless motion and the gleaming of skates flashing back the sunlight. We might have known no more of them, had not the whole party suddenly come to a standstill, and, grouping themselves out of the way of the passers-by, all talked at once to a pretty little maiden, whom they had drawn from the tide of people flowing toward the town.

“ O Katrinka ! ” they cried in a breath, “ have you heard of it ?

The race — 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 acknowledged spokeswoman.

‘‘Why,” said Rychie, “we are to have a grand skating-match on the 20th, on Mevrouw ^ vVn deck’s birthday. It’s all Hilda’s work.

They are going to give a splendid a volendam market-woman. prize to the best skater.”

“ Yes,” chimed in a half a dozen voices, — “ a beautiful pair of silver skates — perfectly magnificent ! with oh, such straps and silver bells and buckles ! ”

“ Who said they had bells ? ” put in the small voice of the boy with the big name.

^ Mrs., or madame (pronounced 3

‘‘/say so, Master Voost,” replied Rychie.

“ So they have ” — “ No, I ’m sure they have n’t ” — “ Oh I how can you say so ? ” — “ It ’s an arrow ” — “ And Mynheer van Korbes told my mother they had bells” — came from

‘‘HAVE YOU HEARD OF IT?”

sundry of the excited group; but Mynheer Voostenwalbert Schimmelpenninck essayed to settle the matter with a decisive—

‘‘ Well, you don’t any of you know a single thing about it : they have n’t a sign 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 j “ but there is to be another pair for the boys, with an arrow engraved upon the sides.”

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 out a coquettish, “ Don’t you hear the last bell ? Catch me ! ” — darted off toward the schoolhouse, standing half a mile away on the canal.

All started pell-mell at this challenge ; but they tried in vain to catch the bright-eyed, laughing creature, who, with golden hair streaming in the sunlight, cast back many a sparkling glance of triumph as she floated onward.

Beautiful Katrinka ! Flushed with youth and health, all life and mirth and emotion, what wonder thine image, ever floating in advance, sped through one boy’s dreams that night ! What wonder that it seemed his darkest hour, when, years afterward, thy presence floated away from him forever !