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The original of this book is in 
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 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014518892 
 
ON THE WHARF AT VOLENDAM 
 
Little People Everywhere 
 
 MARTA 
 IN HOLLAND 
 
 A GEOGRAPHICAL READER 
 
 BY ETTA BLAISDELL McDONALD 
 
 Joint Author ol " Boy Blue and His Friends," 
 "The Child Life Readers," etc. 
 
 AND JULIA DALRYMPLE 
 
 Author of " Little Me Too," " The Make-Believe Boys," etc. 
 
 School Edition 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
 1912 
 

 \. 
 
 I 
 
 nH7l1ar 
 
 Copyright, ign, 
 By Little, Brown, and Company. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 \V,1 
 
 
 
 / x .... 
 
 ^Printers 
 8. J. Paexiull A Co., Boaioa, 0. 3. A. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Every country in the world is different from 
 every other country. Each has its own distin- 
 guishing features, and perhaps no one of them 
 all has greater individuality than the Nether- 
 lands, or Holland, as it is so often called. The 
 mere mention of the name brings to mind pictures 
 of the brave little land, with its dykes and dunes, 
 its rivers and canals, its windmills and red-tiled 
 roofs, its chocolate and cheeses, "its pictures and 
 pretty Delft china. One remembers tales of the 
 thrift and industry of the people, and recalls their 
 sturdy bravery, their long war for freedom from 
 the cruel yoke of Spain, and their love of home and 
 home life. In the science and art of health, 
 cleanliness and home comforts, the Dutch are the 
 pioneers of the world. 
 
 Little Marta van Vranken is true.Dutch, from 
 the dainty cap on her flaxen head to the wooden 
 shoes on her white-stockinged feet. Her home is 
 in one of the quaint old towns on the Zuyder Zee; 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 but she goes to Haarlem to visit her aunt who 
 raises tulips and hyacinths, she spends a day in 
 Amsterdam and sees some of the wonderful pic- 
 tures by famous Dutch painters, and later, when 
 sorrow comes to the little family, Uncle Peter 
 Huyn takes them away for a cruise on the canals, 
 through Rotterdam and Leiden into the heart 
 of Holland. 
 
 It is the dearest wish of Marta's heart to possess 
 a coral necklace, but the little green china pig, 
 which serves as a bank, grows thin and hungry 
 after the father goes away on a fishing trip. In 
 the end, however, her wish is realized, and her 
 darkest cloud shows its silver lining. 
 

 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. 
 
 A Gleam of Sunshine i 
 
 II. 
 
 The Green China Pig 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 III. 
 
 Tulips and Hyacinths 
 
 
 
 • *5 
 
 iv: 
 
 Marta's Wooden Shoes 
 
 
 
 • 23 
 
 v. 
 
 Dutch Pictures . 
 
 
 
 . 28 
 
 VI. 
 
 A Good Neighbor 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 VII. 
 
 Good - bye to the Fisher 
 
 s 
 
 
 43 
 
 VIII. 
 
 An III Wind 
 
 
 
 49 
 
 IX. 
 
 Sad News 
 
 
 
 55 
 
 X. 
 
 The Cheese Market 
 
 
 
 62 
 
 XI. 
 
 An Empty Bank . 
 
 
 
 68 
 
 XII. 
 
 Marta's Wish 
 
 
 
 75 
 
 XIII. 
 
 In Rotterdam 
 
 
 
 80 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Uncle Peter's Boat . 
 
 
 
 88 
 
 XV. 
 
 Brave Little Holland 
 
 
 
 95 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Sant Niklaas Eve 
 
 
 
 102 
 
 XVII. 
 
 A Silver Lining . 
 
 
 
 108 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Pagb 
 Wharf at Volendam . . . Frontispiece in Color 
 
 A Brick-Paved Street in Volendam .... 2 
 
 A Tree-Bordered Canal in Amsterdam, — the Venice 
 
 of Holland 20 
 
 Church in Delfshaven 40 
 
 Flat Green Pastures 52 
 
 The Cheese Market 64 
 
 Bridge over the River Maas, Rotterdam ... 85 
 
 The Road on the Dyke 96 
 
 Dutch Milkmaids .100 
 
MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE 
 
 There is an old saying that every cloud has 
 a silver lining, and the silver lining to Marta van 
 Vranken's clouds was her Aunt Emma Thooft. 
 
 Before the good woman had been in the 
 house five minutes all signs of unhappiness were 
 sure to fly away, leaving only the brightest and 
 cheeriest of faces; and there was never a day so 
 dark nor a sorrow so heavy that she could not find 
 a light spot in it somewhere. 
 
 It was really a pity that the day Aunt Emma 
 was to arrive, Marta's twelfth birthday, should 
 be one of the dark days. 
 
 " Never mind," said Marta cheerily, when she 
 woke to find the morning gray and cloudy; " never 
 mind. Betje and I will pick some daisies for the 
 vase in the window, and Jan will bring home a fine 
 catch of fresh fish. The fish always bite better 
 on a dull day." 
 
 All through the simple breakfast Marta was 
 gay and merry, talking about her aunt's visit, 
 
2 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 and the springtime, and the painting of her father's 
 boat for the fishing trip. 
 
 " Come, Betje! " she called to the little sister, 
 as soon as the dishes had been washed and put 
 away on the long shelf, " we must go now and pick 
 the very biggest bouquet of daisies that Aunt 
 Emma ever saw. 
 
 " They will not be so lovely and bright as Aunt 
 Emma's own tulips and hyacinths," she added, 
 as the two children wandered about in the green 
 meadow, gathering the dainty white blossoms; 
 " but they will give her a welcome from the win- 
 dow-sill." 
 
 Betje nodded her flaxen head and closed her 
 fat little fingers over the head of a big daisy, snap- 
 ping it off short, as was her way. 
 
 " Gekke Betje! Foolish Betty! " said Marta 
 gently. " That is not the way to pick flowers. 
 See, they should have long stems like this." 
 
 But Betje liked her own way better, and filled 
 her two chubby hands with the flower-heads, 
 while Marta gathered a bouquet as big as a round 
 Dutch cheese. Then the two little girls ran down 
 the village street toward home, their wooden 
 shoes clattering on the brick-paved road. 
 
 As they passed the old wharf Marta caught 
 sight of her brother, who was just pushing his 
 boat out into the Zuyder Zee. " Good-bye, Jan! 
 
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. V. 
 
 A Brick-Paved Street in Volendam 
 
 Notice the wooden shoes and the while-winged caps. -Page 2 
 
A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE. 3 
 
 Good luck with the fish! " she called, and waved 
 her daisies for him to see. 
 
 At the head of the wharf her father was working 
 with the other men of the crew, cleaning and paint- 
 ing the big boat which would soon take them on 
 their fishing trip to the North Sea. His eyes 
 followed Marta with a loving look, as she caught 
 Betje's hand and led her away from the edge of the 
 water. 
 
 " No man ever had a better daughter than 
 Marta," he said to himself, as he turned once more 
 to take up his brush. " If the good God prosper 
 me I will give her more chance at schooling than 
 the other children have had." 
 
 And Marta, hurrying along toward home, was 
 saying to Betje, " I will put on your best skirt 
 and a clean cap, and then we will run down to 
 meet Aunt Emma when the boat comes in." But 
 when they opened the kitchen door, Marta saw 
 at once that there would not be time to dress in 
 their best to meet her aunt, for the good Vrouw 
 van Vranken was on her hands and knees, scrub- 
 bing the floor; and the table was piled high with 
 pans and kettles to be polished. 
 
 For three hours Marta and her mother flew from 
 one task to another. They cleaned the windows 
 and ironed the muslin window-curtains, they 
 wiped the walls and dusted the furniture; and 
 
4. MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 when everything inside the house was as clean 
 as soap and water could make it they took their 
 pails and brushes out of doors and washed the 
 step, and the walk, and even the wall of the house 
 as high up as they could reach. 
 
 " Surely," you would have said, " Marta will 
 have the sun shining yet," for all through the 
 busy hours the house was filled with the good cheer 
 of her merry voice and her sunny heart. 
 
 And, at last, the sun actually did send a golden 
 gleam through a rift in the clouds. It found its 
 way past the row of fishermen's houses, past the 
 fishers who painted the boat at the head of the 
 wharf, and in through the open door after Marta. 
 
 It made a little shining track across the floor 
 which had been scoured so clean and white, and 
 it reached as far as the closet under the stairs 
 where Marta knelt to find a pair of klompen. But 
 it stopped short, just this side of Marta's heart, 
 and waited for her to turn and see it. 
 
 There were many, many wooden shoes in the 
 closet. Some were large and some were small. 
 Some had belonged to the father, some to the 
 mother, and some to the boys and girls who had 
 gone away from home. 
 
 Here was a pair that had been worn by brother 
 Hendrik who was working on his uncle's canal 
 boat. There was a_pair of Nieltje's, — kind- 
 
A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE 5 
 
 hearted Nieltje who was a kindermeid in Amster- 
 dam; and over in the darkest corner was a pair 
 that had belonged to the older brother who had 
 gone years ago to seek his fortune in the Dutch 
 East Indies. 
 
 Some of the klompen were too large for Marta, 
 some were too small, and when she took them all 
 out and looked at them she could not find a single 
 pair that was whole and shapely. She brought 
 her own worn shoes from the hearth where they 
 had been set to dry after a good scouring 
 with sand and soap, but there was no heel on 
 one, no toe on the other. A shadow flitted 
 over her face and a frown wrinkled her broad 
 forehead. 
 
 Now if only she had chanced to look at the 
 streak of sunshine that waited on the floor behind 
 her! But she looked instead at the klompen, — so 
 many pairs, and not one that was fit to wear for 
 her Aunt Emma to see! 
 
 Suddenly she gathered them together and pushed 
 them into the closet. " I wish some rich mevrouw 
 would adopt me this very day, so that I need never 
 again, as long as I live, wear an old pair of wooden 
 shoes! " she cried. 
 
 " Oh, Marta, Marta! That is a sad thing for 
 me to hear! " said a voice close behind her. It 
 was her mother, who had just come in to put away 
 
6 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 her pails and brooms, and who had heard her 
 daughter's wish. 
 
 Marta dropped her own shoes to the floor with a 
 loud clatter, and sank down beside them, crying 
 with all her heart. 
 
 In the midst of the tears who should walk into 
 the room but Aunt Emma, fresh and smiling; 
 and behind her came Marta's father and little 
 Betje. 
 
 " Marta crying! Now what is she crying 
 about? " exclaimed the aunt, and she stood still 
 in the middle of the floor, her arms filled with 
 bags and boxes, waiting for some one to speak. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE GREEN CHINA PIG 
 
 Of course everybody spoke at once, for here 
 was Marta in tears, and Aunt Emma come a good 
 hour earlier than she was expected. 
 
 "My Marta!" cried little Betje, running to 
 throw her arms around her sister's neck to com- 
 fort her. 
 
 "My daughter!" said Jacob van Vranken, in 
 great distress at the sight of the child's tears. 
 
 "My sister!" exclaimed Vrouw van Vranken, 
 turning toward Aunt Emma in surprise. 
 
 "My goodness! What a wet day in-doors," 
 said Aunt Emma. And then, before any one could 
 tell how it came about, the father had been sent 
 with the poor battered shoes from off Marta's feet, 
 to see what a good coat of paint would do for 
 them. 
 
 " No one ever heard of painting wooden shoes 
 before; but that is no sign that it can't be done," 
 said the good aunt comfortably. "And you, 
 Marta child, open my bag and take out my caps. 
 I expect they are crushed out of all shape from 
 lying flat these four hours and more." 
 
8 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 The very first thing Aunt Emma always did, 
 when she arrived at Jacob van Vranken's house, 
 was to take out her caps, of which she never 
 brought less than a dozen. Then she ironed them 
 all carefully and set them on wooden frames, ready 
 to wear. To be sure, she never stayed long enough 
 to wear them all, but she said no one ever knew 
 when she might need them, and it did no harm 
 to have a plenty. 
 
 So Marta dried her tears and opened the bag 
 willingly enough, for well she knew there would 
 be something besides caps in the bag. And, sure 
 enough! tucked away under the precious caps 
 were the gifts which Aunt Emma always brought 
 to each one of the family. 
 
 There was a warm knitted jacket for the fisher- 
 man father, a new skirt for the mother, a jack- 
 knife for Jan, a toy for Baby Betje, and a guilder 
 for Marta. 
 
 " You can buy yourself a new pair of klompen 
 with it," said Aunt Emma, as Marta opened the 
 envelope and shook out the silver coin into her 
 lap. 
 
 But Marta ran across the room and took down 
 her little bank from the shelf. It was in the shape 
 of a green china pig, and it had a funny curl of a 
 tail and a long pink nose. 
 
 " Hear that! " said Marta, gaily shaking it 
 
THE GREEN CHINA PIG 9 
 
 until it gave out a sound of merry clinking, as if 
 it were well filled with coins. 
 
 " But why do you wear old klompen, and cry 
 because they are worn out, if you have so much 
 money as that? " questioned her aunt. " Give 
 me back the guilder, and I will buy, you a toy for 
 a gift," and she held out her hand for the coin. 
 
 Marta laughed and dropped it quickly into the 
 narrow slit in the back of the little green pig. 
 
 " I am trying to save money enough to buy a 
 coral necklace," she said. " Nieltje knows of one 
 in Amsterdam that can be bought second-hand 
 for thirty guilders." 
 
 " How much money have you now? " asked her 
 aunt. 
 
 " I don't know exactly," replied Marta; " but 
 I will count it and see." And then, while she sat 
 on the floor, poking the coins out of the bank with 
 a stiff shaving, her mother brought out the table 
 and helped iron the caps, and Aunt Emma arranged 
 them carefully on wooden blocks just the shape of 
 her head. 
 
 As fast as Marta succeeded in getting a coin 
 through the narrow slit, she laid it on the floor 
 beside her, talking all the time, and telling how 
 she had earned each stiver, and dubbeltje, and 
 guilder. 
 
 " This one I earned by taking care of Mevrouw 
 
10 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 Brinker's little Katrinka every afternoon for a 
 month," and she put her pink finger upon a shi- 
 ning guilder. 
 
 " That stiver," she went on, and then stopped 
 talking to laugh. She laughed so hard that her 
 cap slipped off, leaving her pretty hair shining in 
 the streak of sunlight. 
 
 " Well, and how did you earn the stiver? " asked 
 her aunt, taking a hot iron from the stove. 
 
 " I earned it," said Marta, as soon as she could 
 stop laughing, " by scolding some of the Volendam 
 children who were making fun of a stranger." 
 
 Marta did not look as if she could ever scold 
 any one, try as hard as she would. There were 
 dimples in her rosy cheeks, and a dimple in her 
 chin; and her eyes were as blue as the bluest of 
 sunny skies. 
 
 " Why were the children laughing at a stranger? " 
 and Aunt Emma gave the iron a hard push as if 
 to punish the harmless cap for the faults of the 
 children. 
 
 " He was a dwarf, no taller than our little Betje, 
 and as old as father. He had on a long coat, and 
 a big pair of spectacles, and he looked queer enough. 
 I never saw any one like him in my life, and I 
 wanted to laugh myself. It was no wonder the 
 children ran after him and pointed their fingers 
 at him; but it seemed to make him very unhappy, 
 
THE GREEN CHINA PIG II 
 
 so I scolded them and told them it was wrong to 
 treat a stranger like that. 
 
 " Then he thanked me and gave me this stiver, 
 to make them unhappy, I suppose. I wasn't 
 ashamed to take it, because it was so little; but 
 I would have been ashamed to give it," and Marta 
 laughed again. 
 
 " Well, well," said Aunt Emma, holding up the 
 cap and looking carefully to see if she had ironed 
 out every wrinkle, " you would have been ashamed 
 to take more." 
 
 " Yes, that I would," replied Marta. " I am 
 not a little pig like my china bank," and she gave 
 it a hard shake that brought out the very last 
 coin. 
 
 The coin rolled across the floor, but Betje caught 
 it and brought it back, so that Marta could count 
 it with the others. They made a good handful 
 when she gathered them up to slip them into the 
 bank, but there were not nearly enough for the 
 coveted necklace. 
 
 " Only twelve guilders," Marta said with a sigh, 
 as she set the pig up on the shelf again, giving it 
 one more shake to hear the merry clink of the 
 coins; " only twelve guilders, four dubbeltjes 
 and three stivers. I shall have to wear my old 
 shoes all summer; but I don't care, if I can only 
 get the coral necklace before some one else buys it." 
 
12 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 Her father came into the room at that moment, 
 bringing the old klompen, shining now with a coat 
 of brown paint. Both heels had been leveled with 
 the instep, and a new point had been carved at 
 each toe, making " the prettiest pair of wooden 
 shoes in all Holland," he told Marta. 
 
 Marta took them, a little doubtfully, and set 
 them on a paper on the window-sill to dry in the 
 sun. Then she danced and capered around the 
 room in her white-stockinged feet, spreading her 
 skirts at last, and sinking to the floor to make a 
 " Dutch cheese." 
 
 Her father leaned against the window and smiled 
 at her fun. " Did you ever see a better daughter, 
 Emma? " he asked his sister. 
 
 Little Betje, jealous of his look, ran to catch his 
 hand, and, before Aunt Emma could look up from 
 her ironing to answer his question, he had picked 
 up the younger daughter and tossed her to the low 
 ceiling, adding, " Unless it be this one." 
 
 " Something will surely happen if you let your- 
 self be too fond of your family, Jacob," said his 
 sister, shaking her head. " It is fair weather now, 
 but there is no telling when a storm may wreck 
 the little boat." 
 
 Jacob van Vranken put Betje down and crossed 
 the floor to a seat beside the table. " Sometimes 
 I am afraid of it," he said earnestly. " The boat out 
 
THE GREEN CHINA PIG 1 3 
 
 there is far too small to earn money enough for my 
 family. I am trying to buy a share in one of the 
 big boats that sail off to the northern fishing 
 grounds, and like Marta here I am saving my 
 guilders; but it is slow work with so many mouths 
 to feed. 
 
 " To-morrow, if the day be fair, I am going off 
 in the little boat, with Jan to help me. If the fish 
 run well I may be able to slip a few more coins 
 into my bank." 
 
 " I wish you good luck," said his sister heartily; 
 " and I may be able to help you a bit myself. The 
 bulbs in my gardens have been doing wondrous 
 well this spring, and I can spare a few guilders as 
 well as not." 
 
 Her brother gave her a grateful look. " You 
 are like the rest of them," he said; "you spoil 
 a man with your goodness." 
 
 " No, no! " laughed his sister. " Why shouldn't 
 I be generous with what has been given to me so 
 generously? The wind and the weather have been 
 my best friends, and with a good boat they will be 
 yours, too. It would be small credit to me to 
 share my bounty when I am all alone in the world 
 except for you and yours. 
 
 " And, indeed," she continued, " I want to take 
 Marta back to Haarlem with me for a little visit. 
 She will see my tulip beds looking gayer than they 
 
14 MARTA IN HOIXAND 
 
 ever looked before, and if she is willing to work in 
 the gardens she can earn more guilders to feed to 
 her little green pig." 
 
 " Oh, yes! " cried Marta, " Oh, yes! " and she 
 caught Betje up in her arms and whirled round the 
 room, singing over and over, "Little green pigs 
 are always hungry! " 
 
CHAPTER in 
 
 TULIPS AND HYACINTHS 
 
 The next morning was gray and foggy, with a 
 cold wind from the north, but Jacob van Vranken 
 and his son sailed away to their fishing. 
 
 " We shall not go far," they told Marta when 
 she ran down to the wharf to see them start; " but 
 you'll not see us back until we have a good catch 
 of fish." 
 
 On the third day the sun shone at last in a warm 
 flood across the watery fields; but there was still no 
 sign of the little boat, and Aunt Emma Thooft 
 declared that it was high time for her to be going 
 home. 
 
 " I can wait no longer for Jacob to come back," 
 she said. " Bulbs are like children. They need 
 the best of care, and no one takes such good care 
 of mine as I do myself." 
 
 So she packed her caps into. her bag, left a pres- 
 ent of ten guilders in the cupboard for her brother, 
 and set off with Marta for Haarlem. 
 
 " It is not so very far," she told her niece, as 
 they found seats in the little canal-boat which 
 would take them to Edam, only two miles away; 
 
1 6 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 " but we have to make a good many changes. 
 At Edam we shall take another slow-going canal- 
 boat to Amsterdam, and then the electric railway- 
 will whirl us across the country to Haarlem. The 
 moment I start for home I am always in a hurry 
 to get there, but it will be the middle of the after- 
 noon before I set foot across my own threshold." 
 
 Marta never felt less hurried in her life. She 
 folded her hands placidly in her lap, and gazed with 
 calm interest at all the new sights. The little boat 
 was towed by a boy who trudged along beside 
 the canal, pulling sturdily at a long rope which 
 was harnessed over his shoulders, and it moved 
 so slowly through the sluggish water that Marta 
 had plenty of time to see everything. 
 
 They were no more than out of sight of the red 
 roofs of Volendam when Jan ran up the street to 
 tell his mother that their boat was in, and soon 
 Jacob van Vranken himself was in the kitchen 
 with a big basket of fish. 
 
 " It is a pity Marta could not have seen them 
 before she started for Haarlem," said his wife, 
 as she turned the fish over in the basket and held 
 up a big cod to admire its shining beauty. 
 
 "Oh, Marta will have plenty to think about," 
 said Jan. " She has no doubt forgotten us here 
 in old Volendam already." 
 
 But although Marta lost not a single sight on 
 
TULIPS AND HYACINTHS 1 7 
 
 either bank of the narrow canal, she spoke again 
 and again of the dear ones whom she was leaving 
 behind for the first time in her life. 
 
 " Betje would like to see all these children pick- 
 ing flowers," she said, as they moved slowly past 
 a broad green meadow, starred with white daisies 
 and bright with patches of yellow buttercups, 
 where groups of school children were gathering 
 big bouquets of the dainty blossoms. 
 
 " It is the birthday of the Princess Juliana," 
 her aunt told her. " The daisy is her name-flower, 
 and everybody will be wearing one in her honor. 
 If we could go to The Hague to-day we might catch 
 a glimpse of her in the carriage with her mother, 
 Queen Wimelmina." 
 
 "How I should love to see the Queen!" ex- 
 claimed Marta. " We have her picture on a post- 
 card at home. She has a sweet face, and mother 
 says she is just as good as she is beautiful." 
 
 " Our Queen spends one week in every year in 
 Amsterdam," said Aunt Emma. " Perhaps you 
 may see her there some day." 
 
 Then they were in Edam, and in the hurry and 
 worry of changing from one boat to the other, 
 with all their bags and boxes, there was no time 
 for conversation. When, at last, the larger boat 
 was sailing slowly toward Amsterdam, Marta 
 spoke again about Queen Wilhelmina's daughter. 
 
l8 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 " I should like to go to The Hague and see the 
 Princess Juliana," she said. " She is not so old 
 as our little Betje, but she has the same blue eyes 
 and flaxen hair." 
 
 " There is plenty of time for you to travel all 
 over the Netherlands when you are older," her 
 aunt told her. " Our country is so small that you 
 can see it all with very little trouble; but it is the 
 bravest land in the whole world." 
 
 " Why do you say the bravest? " questioned 
 Marta. 
 
 " Because it has fought such a good fight against 
 its enemies among the other nations, and against 
 the sea, too, the greatest enemy of all," said Aunt 
 Emma proudly. " Almost the whole of the Nether- 
 lands is lower than the sea that surrounds it, and 
 part of the land is even lower than the rivers that 
 flow across it. If it were not for our great dykes 
 and sand dunes we should soon be under water, 
 and you would be a little mermaid, swimming 
 around among the sea-shells, or combing your 
 hair on the sand." 
 
 Marta laughed. " My hair isn't long enough 
 for a mermaid," she said. " I should have to be 
 a fish." Then she added more soberly, " Father 
 says the windmills are Holland's best friends." 
 
 " They are one of the best," her aunt agreed. 
 " They have pumped so much water from the 
 
TULIPS AND HYACINTHS 19 
 
 swamps and marshes that we have good soil now 
 for our farms and gardens, and when the rivers 
 overflow their banks, or there is another lake to 
 be drained, they draw off the water and pour it 
 through the canals to the sea. 
 
 " In times of storm and flood their strong arms 
 save our homes from danger, and in times of peace 
 their busy sails sing of comfort and plenty." 
 
 " Just look at them ! There are dozens of them ! " 
 exclaimed Marta, pointing to a long line of wind- 
 mills on the distant horizon, their great sails beat- 
 ing the air like the wings of gigantic birds. 
 
 " There are thousands of them," replied her 
 aunt; " and they are whirling and clicking all the 
 day long, — sawing wood, and grinding grain, 
 and pumping water, and crushing oil from seeds. 
 But at night they fold their arms and rest. It is 
 a pretty sight to see the millers going their rounds 
 to put the mills to sleep." 
 
 " Father has no windmill," said Marta. " He 
 is only a fisherman and has no need of one." 
 
 "If he had a flower farm like mine, he would 
 need many," said Aunt Emma. " I have just 
 bought another from Neighbor Steen." 
 
 " You are always buying a windmill," laughed 
 Marta. " Every time you come to Volendam you 
 tell of a new one you have bought. How many do 
 you own now? " 
 
20 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 " Six," said her aunt with pride, — " six good 
 mills, and they do their work well. When we 
 bought the farm it was little more than a marsh; 
 but the windmills have drained it, and now it is 
 a beautiful flower garden. 
 
 " The land south of Haarlem was once the sandy 
 bed of a lake; but the windmills pumped it dry, 
 and now there is no soil in the whole world so good 
 for bulbs. Neighbor Steen prefers engines and 
 machinery, but I always say, ' Let the wind do our 
 work.' " 
 
 So the time slipped along pleasantly as the boat 
 moved through the quiet waters of the canal, and 
 almost before Marta could believe her eyes they 
 were gliding over the waterways of Amsterdam, 
 — the Venice of Holland. 
 
 The moment the canal-boat was tied up at the 
 dock, Aunt Emma hurried off to the electric rail- 
 way, to find a seat for Marta so that she could look 
 out of the window; and it was not long before they 
 were being whirled into the country of gardens. 
 
 All the land seemed to have burst into bloom. 
 On either side of the road were acres and acres of 
 blossoming hyacinths, with their dainty bells of 
 pink and white and blue, and the air was heavy 
 with their fragrance. 
 
 Flat green fields stretched away to the horizon 
 without even a tiny hillock to break their level 
 
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 
 
 A Tree - Bordered Canal in Amsterdam, — the Venice of Holland 
 
 Page 20 
 
TULIPS AND HYACINTHS 21 
 
 surface. These fields were crossed and recrossed 
 by narrow canals that cut them into squares like 
 a huge chessboard. In these squares were great 
 masses of flaming red and yellow tulips and sunny 
 daffodils, with here and there a patch of snowy- 
 white narcissus, and Marta clapped her hands 
 with the beauty and joy of it all. 
 
 " What lovely bouquets I can make for you," 
 she said, and wondered why Aunt Emma shook 
 her head. 
 
 " We don't grow tulips and hyacinths for their 
 flowers," her aunt told her. " It is the bulbs that 
 are valuable. I have an order already for ten 
 thousand of my best assorted bulbs from a florist 
 in Boston. I have to send them off next fall, and 
 it means a hard season's work for us all. We have 
 to cut off the blossoms and throw them away. 
 That is how you can earn guilders for your little 
 green pig." 
 
 " Oh, Aunt Emma, I can never throw them 
 away! " exclaimed Marta. " They are too beauti- 
 ful! " and for the rest of the ride she sat looking 
 out of the window; until her aunt began to gather 
 up her bags and boxes. 
 
 " Here we are at last! " said Vrouw Thooft, as 
 they left the tram-car, " and there is Peter at work 
 in the gardens. How good it is to be at home! " 
 She took a key from her pocket to open the door 
 
22 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 of her house, but Marta turned to look at the broad 
 beds of hyacinths that stretched away, row after 
 row, as far as she could see. 
 
 On one side of the flower gardens was a shallow 
 canal bordered by blossoming cherry trees, and a 
 man was carrying a great basket of flowers on his 
 head to throw them into a flat-bottomed boat 
 which was already half full of the fragrant blos- 
 soms. 
 
 Behind the red farmhouse was an enormous 
 haystack, and, just beyond, the strong arms of a 
 windmill lifted their sails and let them drop again 
 in their ceaseless round of work. 
 ; It was a beautiful scene of flowers and content- 
 ment, and Aunt Emma drew a long breath of satis- 
 faction as she threw open the door, saying joy- 
 ously, " Welcome to Bulb-land, little Marta! " 
 
CHAPTER TV 
 
 marta's wooden shoes 
 
 Haarlem lies about ten miles west of Amster- 
 dam, and as Marta watched the tram-cars whiz- 
 zing past her aunt's house every ten minutes of the 
 day, she could not help wishing that she might 
 fly away in one of them to find her sister Nieltje. 
 
 " Have I earned two guilders yet? " she asked, 
 after she had delved in the garden for three days. 
 
 " Yes," replied Vrouw Thooft, " you work so 
 well that I will give you a guilder a day. But what 
 are you going to do with two guilders? I thought 
 you wanted to feed all your money to the hungry 
 green pig." 
 
 " So I do," answered Marta; " but I am hungry 
 myself for a sight of Nieltje. I have not seen her 
 for a long time." 
 
 " To be sure," and Aunt Emma nodded her head 
 until the wings of her cap nodded, too. " You 
 may go to-morrow. Send word to Nieltje this 
 morning, and perhaps her mistress will give her a 
 holiday." 
 
 The next morning found little Marta, dressed 
 in six of her very best skirts and a freshly-starched 
 
24 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 cap, on her way to Amsterdam. She had written 
 to Nieltje to meet her at the railway station, and, 
 having dismissed all care from her mind, she pro- 
 ceeded to enjoy the sights from the car window. 
 
 She was an observant little traveller, with eyes 
 for everything, both inside and outside the car. 
 As they rode swiftly along the broad highway 
 that runs straight as an arrow from one city to the 
 other, she saw the children starting out for school, 
 and she noticed at once that they did not wear 
 full skirts like her own. 
 
 All over Holland, except in the larger towns and 
 cities, the people wear quaint costumes which are 
 sometimes ludicrous, but more often picturesque. 
 These costumes are very different in the different 
 provinces, and one can tell at a glance where a 
 little Dutch girl comes from. 
 
 If she has on a tight-fitting cap and a dark blue 
 apron she lives on the island of Marken; but if 
 she wears a white cap with wings, and at least six 
 full skirts, she is, without doubt, a little maid 
 of Volendam. 
 
 The girls dress exactly like their mothers, and 
 the boys like their fathers; and it is a funny sight 
 to see a little lad of five or six looking like an old 
 man in his short tight jacket and long full trousers, 
 fastened at the waist with two big silver buttons. 
 
 When Marta grew tired of looking out of the 
 
MARTA S WOODEN SHOES 2$ 
 
 window at the straight, level roads with the rows 
 of trees overhanging the canals, she studied the 
 signs in the car. 
 
 " Help U Zelf," she read on one, and laughed 
 softly to herself. " That is what I have always 
 had to do," she thought. " There are so many of 
 us that father can't help us all very well; " and 
 then she fell to thinking of Nieltje who was a 
 kindermeid, and of Jan who had to go fishing when 
 he wanted to go to school. 
 
 There was an American boy in the car. He had 
 been out to visit one of the famous bulb farms near 
 Haarlem, and was hurrying back to Amsterdam 
 to catch a train for Antwerp. The moment Marta 
 entered the car he wanted to take a picture of her, 
 Volendam skirts, white- winged cap, and all; and 
 he watched her eagerly all the way to Amsterdam. 
 
 His chance came when they reached the end 
 of the route, and Marta stood outside the station 
 in the sunlight, looking up and down the street 
 for Nieltje. She made as pretty a picture as ever 
 was painted by the most gifted Dutch artist, and 
 still the American boy was not satisfied with his 
 stolen snap-shot. 
 
 He lifted his cap politely, and said, half in Eng- 
 lish, half in very poor Dutch, " Excuse me. I 
 see you have a pair of painted klompen. Where 
 can I buy some for a souvenir, if you please? " 
 
26 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 Marta smiled and shook her head. She did not 
 understand a single word except " klompen." 
 But the boy was accustomed to making himself 
 understood in foreign lands and he tried again. 
 
 " Klompen," he said, and pointed to her shoes. 
 " Painted," he added, and made signs in the air 
 as if he were using a paint brush. Then he took 
 three guilders from his pocket and held them out 
 to her. 
 
 Marta looked down at her white stockings, and 
 at the mud on the brick-paved road; but the three 
 coins in the boy's outstretched hand were most 
 tempting. Nieltje could buy her a new pair of 
 klompen for a single guilder, and there would still 
 be two left for the little green pig. 
 
 She slipped the wooden shoes from her feet and 
 held them out to him, her cheeks blushing a rosy 
 red, her eyes sparkling with delight as she took 
 the coins. 
 
 The boy held up his camera and snapped it 
 once more, before he took the shoes, and long after 
 he had forgotten many of the important facts 
 that his trip to Europe was supposed to teach him, 
 he remembered the little Volendam girl with 
 the beautiful smiling face beneath the white- 
 winged cap. 
 
 " Ik dank U, mynheer," Marta said shyly as 
 she took the coins, and the next moment the boy 
 
marta's wooden shoes 27 
 
 was gone and Nieltje's voice was saying reprovingly, 
 " Why, Marta van Vranken! what are you doing 
 in Amsterdam without your shoes? " 
 
 " I sold them," replied Marta, and she held out 
 the money proudly. " Run and buy me a pair of 
 new ones, and I will wait here for you." 
 
 It did not take Nieltje very long to find a little 
 shop where she could buy a pair of klompen. 
 She soon hurried back with the wooden shoes, 
 which she had selected from a half-barrelful at the 
 doorway of a tiny shop; and while the two sisters 
 took their way across squares and over bridges 
 to the wonderful art gallery of Amsterdam, Marta 
 told how she had sold her painted klompen. 
 
 " It was right for you to do it," said Nieltje ap- 
 provingly. " The boy wanted the shoes, and he 
 was willing to pay for them. The guilders will 
 help buy the coral necklace." 
 
 Then they were in the square in front of the 
 handsome Ryks Museum where some of the world's 
 most famous art treasures are kept, and Marta 
 tucked her money securely away in the pocket 
 of her fourth skirt for safe-keeping. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 DUTCH PICTURES 
 
 Just as Marta and Nieltje entered the museum, 
 a party of school children came in, and the two 
 little girls followed along with them to hear what 
 the teacher had to tell about all the wonderful 
 treasures. 
 
 Some of the children paid more attention to 
 Marta's quaint Volendam costume than to the 
 teacher's words, and they missed a good deal of 
 what she said; but Marta missed nothing. Her 
 eyes and ears were busy every moment, and she 
 tried to remember everything she saw so that she 
 could tell about it all when she reached home. 
 
 In one of the courts was a collection of models 
 of old ships, among them the model of a galley 
 built in Holland for Peter the Great of Russia. 
 
 " The Dutch have always been famous ship- 
 builders," the teacher told the children. " That 
 is why the great Russian Emperor came to Zaan- 
 dam to study ship-building." 
 
 " That is what Jan will like to hear about," 
 Marta said to herself. 
 
 In another room she spied a case full of children's 
 
DUTCH PICTURES 20. 
 
 playthings, all made in silver, and she thought of 
 her little sister Betje; again, she remembered good 
 Aunt Emma when she saw a chimney-piece and 
 ceiling that looked exactly like those in the pleas- 
 ant living-room in Haarlem. 
 
 "Look, Nieltje! " she whispered, "there is a 
 tall clock like Aunt Emma Thooft's." 
 
 But just then the teacher led them away to 
 another part of the great building, to see a collec- 
 tion of wrought-leather hangings from Spain. 
 " They were brought into the Netherlands at the 
 time when we were ruled by the Spaniards," she 
 said. 
 
 Then she called attention to some beautiful 
 Dutch furniture which was several hundred years 
 old. " Home has always been first with us," she 
 told the children, " and household arts have held a 
 high place in our little low country. Our artists 
 have painted wonderful scenes of home interiors 
 and home life, and there are no better home-makers 
 anywhere in the world than our good Dutch wives." 
 
 She showed them some rare tiles made in the 
 porcelain factories of Delft, and spoke with pride 
 of the beautiful Delft ware which is now sent to 
 all parts of the world; and then, when Marta's 
 head seemed filled to bursting with so much new in- 
 formation, she led the way to the picture-galleries. 
 
 Nieltje's face was beaming with delight, and she 
 
30 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 nudged her sister vigorously. " Listen now> 
 Marta! " she whispered eagerly. 
 
 Poor little Marta turned imploring eyes toward 
 the older girl. " Oh, Nieltje! " she answered, 
 " my head is beginning to ache already with so 
 much looking and listening." 
 
 But Nieltje only nudged the harder. "You 
 must make yourself hear," she said. " It will not 
 last long, and you may never have such a good 
 chance again to learn about our great artists." 
 
 Marta turned her eyes from Nieltje to the 
 pictures hanging on the walls, and in an instant 
 her headache was forgotten, for there, as plain as 
 day before her, were her mother's kitchen, her 
 father's boat on the dancing waters of the Zuyder 
 Zee, and all the dear familiar scenes of home, 
 painted as only a Dutch artist knows how to paint 
 them. 
 
 " Oh, if only Jan could see them! " she said 
 softly. " I can never tell him how beautiful they 
 are! " 
 
 Either Jan's love of boats had made an artist 
 of him, or, because he had the artist's gift, he loved 
 the sight of a sail on the open sea. When he was 
 not fishing, or sailing his father's boat, he was 
 drawing pictures; and he would work for hours 
 with his few cheap paints, trying to get the colors 
 he had seen in the waters of the Zuyder Zee. 
 
DUTCH PICTURES 3 1 
 
 When Marta saw the wonderful rich colors in the 
 Rembrandt pictures on the walls, she knew at 
 once how Jan would feast his eyes upon them with 
 delight, just as everyone must do who loves beauti- 
 ful paintings. 
 
 " People call Rembrandt one of the greatest 
 artists of the whole world," the teacher said. 
 " They are willing to pay hundreds of thousands 
 of guilders for one of his pictures." 
 
 Then she led the way to his masterpiece — 
 the Night Watch — hanging alone at the farther 
 end of the Gallery of Honor. 
 
 " There were sixteen members of a guild who 
 wished to have their pictures painted by the great 
 Rembrandt," she said; " so he put them together 
 in one picture, and made it seem as if they were 
 coming out of their guild house. It is the wonderful 
 way in which he painted the light and shadow in 
 the room, and the true likenesses of the men, 
 that makes it such a remarkable piece of work. 
 
 " Each man paid Rembrandt one hundred florins 
 for painting him into the picture," she added. 
 " How many florins did that make in all? " and she 
 turned suddenly to Marta for an answer to her 
 question. 
 
 Marta blushed a rosy red, and shrank behind her 
 sister to hide from the twenty pairs of eyes that 
 were fixed upon her. 
 
32 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 Nieltje would have answered for her, but the 
 teacher shook her head. " The little girl must 
 tell me herself," she said. " Has she never been 
 to school? " 
 
 " Answer the teacher, Marta," said Nieltje, 
 stepping aside and leaving her sister to face the 
 class alone. 
 
 Marta came of a race that has plenty of courage 
 and independence when there is need of it. She 
 kept on blushing, but her voice was clear as she 
 answered politely, " I have been to school since 
 I was six years old; but I don't know anything 
 about pictures." 
 
 The little Amsterdam boys and girls, whose eyes 
 were fastened on her blushes, looked at one an- 
 other in surprise. They even began to laugh a 
 little, as if Marta should be ashamed of not know- 
 ing about pictures. 
 
 The teacher hushed them quickly. " Perhaps 
 the child has never seen a picture painted," she 
 said. 
 
 "Oh! yes, I have," Marta answered. "I have 
 often been painted into a picture myself, at my 
 home in Volendam. Many artists come there in 
 summer to paint our houses and our kitchens, and 
 the fishing boats on the water; but they go away 
 and we never hear of them again." 
 
 " It is not so with the great masters," said the 
 
DUTCH PICTURES 33 
 
 teacher. " Their work lives forever. The ' Night 
 Watch ' was painted over three hundred years 
 ago, but it is better known to-day than ever be- 
 fore, and its colors are as fresh and clear as they 
 were at first. Rembrandt has made the country 
 of Holland famous by his paintings." 
 
 " Oh, if Jan could only be an artist! " thought 
 little Marta, and as the teacher led the class in 
 and out of one room after another, where all the 
 walls were covered with paintings, she tried to 
 keep a picture of them in her mind to carry home 
 to her brother. 
 
 There were fruits, and flowers, and fowls of the 
 , barnyard, and gay little children in quaint Dutch 
 costumes. 
 
 " Frans Hals of Haarlem was one of our most 
 celebrated artists," said the teacher, as her pupils 
 stopped to admire a fine portrait. " Here is an- 
 other famous painter who put the love of a mother 
 for her baby upon his canvas, and there you see an 
 old woman who has lived a good Christian life. 
 You can tell it by her face, because the face always 
 does tell what kind of a life we are leading." 
 
 " Have we no great artists who are still liv- 
 ing? " asked one of the children. 
 
 " Yes," answered the teacher. " We will go 
 now to the municipal museum where there is a 
 splendid collection of modern paintings. There 
 
34 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 you will see windmills and dykes and fishermen, 
 and all sorts of familiar sights." 
 
 So the little children, who had made friends with 
 Marta by this time, slipped on their wooden shoes 
 at the entrance door and clattered down the street 
 to the smaller building. There they found a 
 picture by Josef Israels that drove the memory of 
 the " Night Watch " quite out of Marta's mind. 
 
 It was a fisherman's wife saying good-bye to her 
 husband as he was leaving home for his voyage to 
 the distant fishing banks. It might have been 
 Marta's own father and mother, as she had seen 
 them many times, saying good-bye in just the same 
 way. 
 
 The tears came into her eyes, and she quickly 
 slipped her hand into her sister's. " Nieltje," she 
 whispered, " I don't want to stay any longer." 
 
 " They are all going now," her sister told her; 
 and in a few minutes the teacher led the little 
 flock out of the building. 
 
 " I thank you," said Marta earnestly, as she 
 stood for a moment in the doorway beside the 
 teacher; and then she slipped away with Nieltje 
 for a long afternoon of sight-seeing in Amsterdam. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 A GOOD NEIGHBOR 
 
 " Here I am, Auntie," called Marta's cheery- 
 voice through the fog, as she stepped down from 
 the tram-car at her aunt's door that evening. 
 
 Then the lights of the car moved off in the 
 direction of Haarlem, the new klompen clattered 
 up the brick-paved walk, and the next moment 
 Vrouw Thooft caught her little niece in her arms 
 and gave her a kiss on each rosy cheek. 
 
 " Now, Marta, you naughty child; come straight 
 to the table and eat your supper, and tell me why 
 you stayed so late! " and Aunt Emma drew the 
 little girl toward a big square table in one corner of 
 the living-room. 
 
 " Puzzle, find the supper," laughed Marta, 
 looking over the fine array of plates and bowls and 
 pewter mugs. 
 
 Aunt Emma laughed, too, and rang the bell for 
 her little maid, who came in with a pot of cocoa 
 and a plate of hot poffertjes. 
 
 " You must be cold after your long ride through 
 
36 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 the fog," said Vrouw Thooft, as she poured a 
 bowl of steaming cocoa from the pretty brown Delft 
 chocolate pot. 
 
 " No, I'm not one bit cold," answered Marta. 
 " I'm so warm that I just feel glowy all over, but 
 these poffertjes taste better than anything I ever 
 ate before in my life." 
 
 Her aunt took a seat on the opposite side of the 
 table. " Now tell me all about your day in Am- 
 sterdam," she said. " Did you have any trouble 
 in finding Nieltje? And did you go to the Aqua- 
 rium, and the Zoo, and the Ryks Museum? " 
 
 Marta laughed again. " I had no trouble in 
 finding Nieltje," she answered; " and we spent 
 the whole morning in the Museum. We ate our 
 lunch on one of the benches in the Zoo, but we 
 didn't visit the Aquarium because it cost too much 
 money. 
 
 " In the afternoon we wandered about in the 
 streets, and I saw the harbor with all the big 
 steamers at the docks, and the ' Tower of Tears ' 
 where the wives and children used to go to watch 
 the fishers sail off to the North Sea, and, oh! ever 
 so many other things that I can't remember now." 
 
 " Was that all you did? " exclaimed her aunt. 
 " I wanted you to see the shipyards, and the sugar 
 refineries, and the candle factories; and I felt sure 
 Nieltje would show you some of the beautiful 
 
A GOOD NEIGHBOR 37 
 
 diamonds in the jewelry shops. The diamond- 
 cutters of Amsterdam are the best in the whole 
 world." 
 
 " No, we didn't see any diamonds," said Marta; 
 " but the very last thing, just as I was thinking of 
 coming home, Nieltje took me to see the string of 
 coral beads. Oh, it was beautiful! The woman 
 let me put it around my neck and look at it in 
 her mirror," and Marta's eyes shone with delight 
 at the thought of the precious necklace. 
 
 It was Aunt Emma's turn to laugh. " So that 
 was what made you late," she said. " And all the 
 time I was thinking of the sights you were seeing 
 in the city. When I was your age a day in Amster- 
 dam would have been a wonderful event in my life, 
 and I should have talked about it for weeks." 
 
 Marta leaned her elbows on the table and looked 
 at her aunt with merry eyes. " But I have only 
 this minute come home," she said. " I haven't 
 had even a half-hour to fill with my chatter. Do 
 you want to know all my adventures at once? " 
 
 " Of course I do ! Now be a good girl, and tell me 
 what you said to Nieltje, and what you thought 
 about everything you saw, and if Nieltje liked 
 your new dress." 
 
 " First, Aunt Emma Thooft, you must tell me 
 if you like my new shoes," and Marta ran to the 
 porch and brought in the klompen, which she had 
 
38 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 slipped off at the door, just as everyone does in 
 Holland before stepping upon the clean floors, 
 which are sure to have been recently scoured and 
 scrubbed. 
 
 " But what have you done with your pretty 
 brown ones? " asked her aunt in amazement. 
 
 " They are on their way to Antwerp, and before 
 many days they will probably be sailing across 
 the broad Atlantic Ocean," and Marta seated 
 herself again and passed her bowl for more cocoa. 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " I have sold them," said Marta, helping her- 
 self to some hot poffertjes which the little maid 
 brought in. 
 
 "What a child you are! Tell me about it at 
 once," and Aunt Emma settled herself comfort- 
 ably in her chair. 
 
 The cheer of the pleasant room seemed to grow 
 cheerier as Marta told her story. The dark 
 wooden panelling of the walls, the oaken beams 
 that marked the ceiling into squares, were bright- 
 ened by the nickering light of the fire on the deep 
 hearth. The tall clock against the wall tick-tocked 
 a rhythmical accompaniment to the child's happy 
 voice, and the sweet odor of hyacinths blew in 
 through the upper half of the Dutch door, which 
 was set wide open to the soft night air. 
 
 " It is just like an American to do such an im- 
 
A GOOD NEIGHBOR 39 
 
 pulsive thing," said Aunt Emma when the story 
 was told. " First and last we have had a good 
 many dealings with our American neighbors in 
 one way and another. Here is a card that came 
 from New York to-day with an order for some 
 bulbs," and she passed it across the table for Marta 
 to see. 
 
 " I didn't know there was any neighborliness 
 between the two countries," said Marta, as she 
 studied the strange words on the card; "except, 
 of course, that we send a good many toys for their 
 children to play with, and a good deal of chocolate 
 and cocoa for them to eat and drink." 
 
 " Yes, indeed," mused her aunt, " Holland takes 
 pride in being a good neighbor of the United States. 
 She sent some of the first settlers to four of the 
 original colonies, and New York, New Jersey, 
 Pennsylvania and Delaware were once called New 
 Netherland. New York City was called New 
 Amsterdam, and a part of it is still called Harlem. 
 You, yourself, have some distant relatives in Penn- 
 sylvania." 
 
 " They must be very distant," laughed Marta, 
 " unless that boy who bought my shoes is one of 
 them. Perhaps he is my cousin, and we didn't 
 recognize each other. But you haven't told me 
 how it happens that America and Holland are 
 good neighbors," she added. 
 
40 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 " Oh, there are many bonds between them," 
 replied Aunt Emma. " The first ship that failed 
 up the Hudson River under Henry Hudson was 
 manned by Dutch sailors. Then there were the 
 English Pilgrims who went to form the little Massa- 
 chusetts colony in 1620. They came first to Leiden 
 where they lived for eleven years. When they 
 were ready at last to cross the ocean, they set 
 sail in the Speedwell from Delf shaven; and when 
 finally the American colonies banded together and 
 threw off the yoke of English rule, they were only 
 following the example of the Dutch provinces 
 that joined forces and declared their independence 
 of Spain in 1568." 
 
 Marta's face beamed with interest. " How is 
 it, if we declared our independence of Spain, that 
 we are not a republic like- the United States? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " We were known as the Dutch Republic for 
 more than two hundred years," her aunt answered; 
 " and although we have a queen, it is partly be- 
 cause our neighbors among the other nations dis- 
 like a republic. Our queen is more like a beloved 
 mother than a ruler, and we make most of our 
 laws ourselves." 
 
 A burning log in the fireplace sent out a snap 
 and a crackle, and Marta, whose head was be- 
 ginning to droop wearily, sat up straight in her 
 
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 
 
 Church in Delfshaven 
 
 re the Pilgrim Fathers went to pray before they set sail for North America 
 in 1620. Page 40 
 
A GOOD NEIGHBOR 41 
 
 chair and opened her blue eyes wide, to drive 
 away the sleep that was creeping over her. 
 
 " What else have the Americans borrowed from 
 us besides early settlers and ideas of independ- 
 ence? " she questioned. 
 
 " They have borrowed all sorts of things, and 
 so have all the other nations," replied Vrouw 
 Thooft. " The Dutch are an ingenious people, 
 and they are always thinking of some new way 
 of making their work easier and their home life 
 more comfortable and attractive. 
 
 " They were among the first to make and use 
 tablecloths and napkins, shirts, handkerchiefs, 
 and bed-linen. They were the first to use starch 
 and to bleach linen. 
 
 " They revived the art of brick-making, which 
 had been forgotten since the days of the ancient 
 Romans, and made bricks which were famous 
 for their fine quality. They had to be good bricks, 
 for there was no stone or wood in the country to 
 spare for building homes and dykes. 
 
 " They perfected plows, windmills, green-houses 
 and cold-frames, and they invented the mariner's 
 compass, the thermometer and telescope. You 
 may well be proud of being a little Dutch girl, 
 my child." 
 
 Marta fixed her eyes merrily on her aunt's face. 
 " Dear Auntie Thooft," she said with a laugh, 
 
42 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 " this day will soon be gone, and you haven't 
 given me a chance yet to tell you what Nieltje 
 thought of my new dress." 
 
 Her aunt's eyes flew to the clock. " Dear me! " 
 she cried, jumping up from the table, " it is half- 
 past ten, and all those blossoms are to be picked 
 in the morning. Where do the days go so fast? 
 You must go to bed this minute, and tell me the 
 rest to-morrow." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ♦GOOD - BYE TO THE FISHERS 
 
 Marta's visit to Aunt Emma Thooft lasted 
 only a fortnight, but it was the shortest fortnight 
 the child had ever known. 
 
 " It seems only yesterday that I went away," 
 she said, when she stood once again in the little 
 Volendam kitchen, kissing and hugging sister 
 Betje with all her might; but before she had been 
 at home many days her mother declared that she 
 had brought back enough new ideas for a whole 
 year. 
 
 She set tulip and hyacinth bulbs in the window- 
 boxes, and made a tiny strip of garden between 
 the house and the canal, where she planted daffo- 
 dils and lilies. 
 
 She coaxed Jan to put a shelf along the living- 
 room wall, just below the ceiling, and there she 
 stood all her mother's best blue plates in a long 
 row. 
 
 " They are just as pretty as Aunt Emma's," 
 she said, standing off to admire them. " We must 
 polish up our old copper saucepans and fill an- 
 other row." 
 
44 MARTA IN. HOLLAND 
 
 But on the day her father sailed away with the 
 fishing fleet she did the strangest thing of all, — 
 she washed the great settle that stood beside the 
 fireplace. 
 
 " What is going to happen now? " her father 
 asked, when he came into the house and found 
 Marta on her knees, with a pail of water and a 
 box of sand, scrubbing and scouring the broad 
 oaken back. 
 
 Then, without waiting for an answer to his 
 question, he crossed the room and took from a deep 
 chest the little store of clothes for his voyage. 
 It was not a large bundle, — only a woollen shirt, 
 a pair of home-knit socks and some heavy flannels, 
 — and he rolled them up in a big blue handkerchief 
 and tucked them under his arm, ready to be off to 
 his boat. 
 
 Marta dropped her brush and went to take her 
 father's hand, and the mother lifted Betje to his 
 broad shoulder. It was always hard to say good- 
 bye. Tears filled their eyes at the thought of 
 parting, for well they knew that he might never 
 return. Many a boat sails gaily away in the sun- 
 shine, to come back with a story of fogs and storms 
 and loss of life. 
 
 But Jacob van Vranken drove away their tears 
 with a laugh. " We'll be coming home soon with 
 a fine catch of herring," he said; " and you'll be 
 
GOOD - BYE TO THE FISHERS 45 
 
 running out on the dyke to give us our welcome, 
 almost before you know we are gone." 
 
 Then turning to Marta he asked again, " What 
 are you doing over there by the fireplace? Does 
 Aunt Emma Thooft hang plates on her settle? " 
 
 Marta shook her head. " I am going to make 
 some lettering," she said. " There is lettering 
 over Aunt Emma's fireplace, and on her bowls and 
 mugs, — mottoes that make you think happy 
 thoughts when you read them; and Aunt Emma 
 showed me how to burn letters on wood so that 
 I can make mottoes, too. I thought the back of 
 the settle would be a good place for one, because 
 it is so big and broad, and there's nothing on it." 
 
 Her father threw back his head and laughed a 
 jolly sailor's laugh. " You've caught your aunt's 
 good business ideas," he said. " Nothing goes 
 to waste in her house, not even a stick of wood. 
 That's true Dutch thrift." 
 
 " It isn't all thrift," said Marta. " It is partly 
 for looks. The lettering is pretty if it is well done, 
 and the mottoes are good to think about." 
 
 " And what is your motto going to be? " ques- 
 tioned the mother, smiling at Marta through her 
 tears. 
 
 " Oh, it is just a little one that Aunt Emma told 
 me when I was worrying about something," replied 
 the child. 
 
46 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 " Come, tell us what it is," urged her father, 
 " and then I must be off to my boat. There's a 
 stiff breeze this morning, and we want to make the 
 most of it." 
 
 " That's what the motto is about," Marta told 
 him. " Aunt Emma says ' it is an ill wind that 
 blows nobody good; ' so I thought I would put 
 it on the settle and we could think about it when 
 you are away." 
 
 " There are ill winds enough when your father 
 is away on these long fishing trips," said her mother 
 with a sigh. " It is hard to believe that they can 
 blow good to any one." 
 
 " Sometimes the wind blows in a big school of 
 herring," Marta reminded her, " and that means 
 good luck for the fishers even if it is bad luck for 
 the fish." 
 
 " That's right," said her father heartily. " I'll 
 think of your motto myself, when I'm pulling in 
 the nets, and if there is a good catch of herring 
 I'll try to find an extra guilder for the coral neck- 
 lace." Then, swinging Betje to the other shoulder, 
 he took Marta by the hand and hurried along the 
 dyke with his wife by his side. 
 
 The wharf was crowded with just such families, 
 — tearful wives saying good-bye to fisher husbands, 
 boys and girls looking soberly at the boats that 
 waited for their crews. 
 
GOOD - BYE TO THE FISHERS 47 
 
 Jacob van Vranken kissed Marta, and stood 
 for a moment holding his wife's hand, bidding her 
 not to worry over his absence. " It's an ill wind 
 that blows nobody good," he repeated, with a 
 twinkle in his keen blue eye. " It may be that 
 it will blow us good fortune on this very trip, — 
 who knows? " Then he set little Betje down on the 
 wharf, gave her another hearty kiss, and swung 
 himself on board his boat. 
 
 The rest of the crew were already on the deck, 
 and the captain was giving his orders for the hoist- 
 ing of the great brown sails, urging the men to 
 make haste so that their boat might get out into 
 the channel, and be the one to lead the fleet across 
 the Zuyder Zee. 
 
 The sailors sang as they worked, — a rollick- 
 ing song of the sea, — and as one boat after another 
 left the wharf, the women and children took up the 
 song and shouted it back to them across the water. 
 For the moment the sadness of parting was for- 
 gotten; fluttering handkerchiefs and waving hands 
 cheered the fishers on their way. 
 
 Then slowly, as the fleet grew smaller and smaller 
 in the distance, the crowd of women and children 
 broke up into little groups that turned sadly 
 toward their homes. The men were gone, but the 
 work must go on just the same. Mothers must 
 find food for hungry little ones, even though their 
 
48 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 hearts were heavy and their eyes were filled with 
 tears. 
 
 Vrouw van Vranken led her brood of three to 
 the house at the head of the dyke, where she must 
 now fill the place of both father and mother. But 
 when they reached the open door Jan offered to 
 help Marta with her lettering, and the cheerful 
 sound of the children's voices drove the shadows 
 from the mother's heart, so that she blessed her 
 good fortune in having them with her while her 
 husband was away. 
 
 The big. settle stood facing the hearth, and its 
 broad back could be seen from the kitchen door. 
 On many a lonely day, when Vrouw van Vranken's 
 thoughts would have drifted away across the 
 ocean with its fogs and storms, she turned them 
 resolutely toward the bright, eager faces of the 
 children at their work. 
 
 " It is an ill wind that blows nobody good," 
 she repeated over and over, and she prayed 
 in her heart that the winds of the north would 
 bring them all happiness. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AN ILL WIND 
 
 It was the middle of May when the fishing fleet 
 sailed away from Volendam, and it was almost a 
 week later before the children finished the last of 
 the lettering on the back of the old Dutch settle. 
 
 " Run out of doors now and play a bit," their 
 mother urged, after they had all admired the letters 
 which Marta had burned deep into the dark wood. 
 
 Then, as she crossed the room and stood in the 
 open doorway, she added: " It looks as if a storm 
 were blowing down from the north. The water in 
 the Zee is all yellow foam, and I can hear the 
 breakers pounding against the dyke." 
 
 " When father is away you are always looking 
 for a storm," Jan told her, " just as the dyke-men 
 are always looking for a leak." 
 
 " Those that bear care must take care," his 
 mother said gently, looking down into the boy's 
 happy face, tanned already with the spring winds 
 and the fitful sun. 
 
 " What do you mean, Mother? " and Marta 
 snuggled as closely to her mother's side as their 
 thick skirts would permit. 
 
50 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 " I mean that the fisher's wife fears the danger 
 in a storm, just as the dyke-men fear the danger 
 of a little leak in our great dykes," the good vrouw 
 answered. " Day and night, winter and summer, 
 the dykgraaf must be watching and guarding the 
 land, else there might sometime be no land to 
 guard." 
 
 " I have heard father tell of great floods that 
 came sweeping in from the sea to destroy whole 
 cities," spoke up Jan. 
 
 " Truly, Mother? " questioned Marta, her eyes 
 big with fear. 
 
 " That was long, long ago," replied her mother 
 comfortingly. " Our dykes are stronger now." 
 Then as Marta took Betje's hand and ran down 
 the road to play on the beach, Vrouw van Vranken 
 said to her son, "You must -not speak so before 
 the children, Jan. They will have care enough 
 when they are older." 
 
 " Father tells me many tales about the dyke- 
 men when we are out in the little boat on the 
 Zee," Jan replied gravely. " He wants me to have 
 a place on the force some day. It would mean 
 steady pay for me, and if they drain the Zuyder 
 Zee, to make more land for Holland, there will be 
 no more fishing for the men of Volendam." 
 
 " A place among the dyke-men is not to be 
 had for the asking," his mother told him. " It 
 
AN ILL WIND 51 
 
 takes long training to make a good hand for the 
 work, and you are but a boy yet." 
 
 " I shall be as big as father when I'm grown," 
 said Jan, throwing back his shoulders and stretch- 
 ing himself to his full height. 
 
 His mother looked at him proudly. " That is 
 true," she nodded, " and it is big strong men like 
 your father who are needed for the work on the 
 dykes." 
 
 Then she pushed him gently through the door 
 and sent him off to look after the mooring of his 
 little boat, turning back to her own work with a 
 sigh. 
 
 The sky was dark and threatening. Thick gray 
 clouds were rolling up from the north, and the 
 wind was sweeping across the meadows in strong 
 gusts. Unless all signs failed there would be a 
 bad storm before many hours, and the anxious 
 mother thought once more of the dykes and dunes 
 that protected their little low country from the 
 angry waves. 
 
 Well she knew the dangers of the stormy sea. 
 Stories of the great floods caused in olden times 
 by overflowing rivers and inrushing tides have 
 been told from father to children for many gener- 
 ations; but the days when cities were destroyed, 
 and great forests disappeared beneath the waves, 
 are now almost forgotten; and the Dutch farmers 
 
52 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 cultivate their polders, secure in the strength of 
 the dykes and dunes. 
 
 Now and then it happens that a portion of one 
 of the sea-walls is undermined by the gnawing of 
 the waves; but all along the coast men are repair- 
 ing the water-gates and strengthening the dykes 
 and dunes to protect the land from its restless 
 enemy, the sea. 
 
 These dyke-men are always on the watch, and 
 when they raise the cry, " Come out! Come out! " 
 every man, woman, and child, if need be, must 
 hurry to help strengthen the weak spots in the 
 crumbling walls. 
 
 The rivers, too, have to be guarded, especially 
 after heavy spring rains and high tides, for in some 
 places they are higher than the land through which 
 they flow, and there is nothing but the dykes along 
 their banks to keep them from flooding the country. 
 
 More than once have the women of Volendam 
 taken the mattresses from their beds and carried 
 them out for the dyke-men to pack against the 
 weakening barriers that stand between their homes 
 and the hungry waves. 
 
 " The sky looks just as it did on that day, ten 
 years ago, when Jacob lost his boat in the storm," 
 Vrouw van Vranken said to herself, as she stood 
 once more at the window to watch a little steamer 
 that was pounding along through the choppy sea, 
 
AN ILL WIND 53 
 
 hurrying to reach a safe harbor before the tide 
 should turn and bring worse weather. 
 
 It was not long before the children came home 
 from their play; and Jan soon followed them, the 
 oars of his boat over his shoulder. " The gulls are 
 screaming like mad, and they are flying inland 
 by hundreds," he said uneasily. 
 
 It grew dark long before it was time for the night 
 to fall, and the little family drew close about the 
 fireplace, sitting together on the old settle, and 
 trying to talk cheerfully of other things. But all 
 the time their thoughts were on the storm, and 
 they were listening to the roaring of the surf on 
 the beach and the pounding of the waves against 
 the dyke. 
 
 When the wind shrieked under the low eaves, 
 and howled around the chimney, Marta drew 
 closer to her mother. " Do you think father is in 
 the storm? " she whispered anxiously. 
 
 " It may be not," the mother replied, trying 
 bravely to smile; but she knew in her heart that 
 her husband's boat must be tossing on the open 
 sea, in the very teeth of the gale which had gath- 
 ered in the far north where the fishing fleet lay. 
 
 She sent the children to bed when they had eaten 
 their supper, but she could not sleep herself; and 
 all through the long hours she sat by the window, 
 looking and listening, dreading to hear the call 
 
54 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 of the dyke-men, the call for help that means 
 trouble and danger. 
 
 It came at midnight, the loud ringing of the 
 alarm-bell in the church steeple, and she woke 
 Jan and sent him out to take his place with the 
 men who were fighting back the sea. Later, Marta, 
 and even little Betje, had to leave their beds and 
 give up the straw mattresses to strengthen the 
 sea-walls and keep out the flood, as did hundreds 
 of other little Dutch maidens on that dreadful 
 night. 
 
 In the morning, when the storm was over and 
 the danger past, Jan lay beside the fire on the 
 seat of the old settle and slept for hours, tired out 
 with the long night's work. 
 
 Out on the Zuyder Zee the waters slept, too. 
 Their fury was over, and the bright sun shone 
 down out of a clear blue sky upon a sea as level 
 as Vrouw van Vranken's own kitchen floor. 
 
 The brave little lowland country had lived 
 safely through another time of storm and stress. 
 The ducks paddled up and down the narrow canals, 
 the swans plumed their feathers in the sunshine, 
 and the children played once more along the dyke, 
 as if in all the world there were nothing but peace, 
 and happiness, and pleasant weather. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 SAD NEWS 
 
 Happy days fly fast. That was the reason the 
 last week in May was so soon gone from Marta 
 van Vranken's Dutch calendar. 
 
 Old Gapper Groot, who had seen more years 
 than any one else in the whole village, said he 
 could not remember a May when there were so few 
 foggy days. There were clouds, of course, there 
 are always clouds in Holland; but the sun shone 
 through them bravely, and the wind brought a 
 warm breath of summer from the south. 
 
 In the cracks between the cobble-stones timid 
 grasses ventured to send up their green blades, 
 a gay riot of flowers blossomed in the meadows, 
 and the babies toddled along the sandy beach. 
 
 The tired, careworn faces of the mothers lost 
 their anxious lines, and even Granny Grooch, 
 who seldom spoke a kind word to any one, let the 
 children play in peace before her clean doorstone. 
 
 " It is so long since I have been cross that I have 
 almost forgotten how it feels," Marta told her 
 mother, one morning toward the middle of the 
 month. 
 
56 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 She had washed and wiped the dishes, scrubbed 
 the floor, and polished the candle-sticks, and now, 
 laughing merrily, she caught Jan by the hand and 
 pulled him out of the house and down the road to 
 the beach. There she seated herself on the sand 
 and began at once to talk eagerly about the price 
 of cotton cloth. 
 
 " If it costs more than a guilder a yard I shall 
 be as cross as these two sticks," she told her 
 brother, as she placed one bit of driftwood across 
 another on the sand before her. 
 
 Jan looked at her in surprise. " I don't see 
 what the price of cloth has to do with your being 
 cross," he said, and he picked up one of the sticks 
 and began to whittle out a mast for a little boat 
 he was making. 
 
 " Well, you see," Marta explained, " I want to 
 buy a new dress for mother. I counted ten places 
 where she has mended the one she is wearing now, 
 and if I can buy enough cloth for five guilders I 
 am going to get the dress right away." 
 
 " I thought you wanted to buy a necklace," 
 said her brother. 
 
 Marta nodded her head. " So I do," she an- 
 swered, " but I have money enough now for the 
 necklace, and five guilders besides. Mother needs 
 a new dress more than anything else in the world, 
 and if I buy the cloth this very day, perhaps she 
 
SAD NEWS 57 
 
 can have it made in time to wear when father comes 
 home." 
 
 " That's a good idea," said Jan approvingly, and 
 he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a coin 
 of his own. " I have saved a guilder, too," he 
 said. " You may put it with your five, and then 
 I shall have a small share in the gift myself." 
 
 Marta took the coin and slipped it into her 
 pocket. " Mother is always thinking of us first," 
 she said, " and so I feel as if I ought to buy the 
 dress before I get the necklace; but I have been 
 waiting so long that I can't bear to wait much 
 longer," and she gave a little sigh of contentment 
 as she thought that at last she had the money to 
 buy the coral beads. 
 
 Jan's mind was always a little slower than 
 Marta's, and he sat looking off across the dancing 
 water of the Zuyder Zee for a few minutes before 
 he spoke again. " If mother doesn't expect the 
 new dress she will not be disappointed if she doesn't 
 get it," he said, " and she knows very well that 
 you are planning to buy the beads." 
 
 "Oh, you stupid Jan!" cried his sister, "if 
 she doesn't expect the dress she will like it all the 
 better. God never tells us beforehand of all the 
 good things He is going to give us. It is our pleas- 
 ant surprises that always make us the happiest." 
 
 Jan stared at Marta as if he wondered how in the 
 
58 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 world she happened to think such strange thoughts. 
 " Well," he said after a moment, " you can buy 
 the dress for a surprise, if you wish; but you will 
 like the necklace well enough when you get it." 
 Just then he caught sight of a sail that was ap- 
 pearing above the horizon, and he rose and walked 
 away toward the wharf, still busy with his whit- 
 tling. 
 
 Marta rose, too, and went in search of Betje. 
 She found the child playing on the sand with two 
 or three other little girls of her own small size. 
 Her red skirt was wet to the waist, and her black 
 bodice was covered with sand. Her soft yellow 
 hair was tumbling out of her close-fitting cap, 
 her cheeks were as rosy as red apples, and her 
 blue eyes danced with laughter as she sailed one of 
 her wooden shoes in a shallow pool left by the tide. 
 
 Marta drew a woollen stocking from the bag by 
 her side, and sat down to knit, while she kept an 
 eye on her sister to see that no harm came to her; 
 but it was not long before a group of girls joined 
 her and begged her to play school with them. 
 
 " You can be the teacher," they said, " and 
 we'll run down the beach and come to school when 
 you ring the bell." 
 
 So away they flew across the sand until the ding- 
 dong of Marta's make-believe bell called them 
 back; and then for a half-hour the play school 
 
SAD NEWS 59 
 
 made so much frolic and laughter among its pupils 
 that many a busy housewife glanced out of her 
 window at the happy group. 
 
 Two old men were sitting on a log near by to 
 warm themselves in the sun, and they laughed, 
 too, over the merry game. 
 
 " There'll never be a better morning for the 
 children than this," said one, nodding his gray head 
 feebly. 
 
 " And Marta van Vranken will never see a hap- 
 pier day," replied the other. " She is a good girl 
 and deserves to be happy, but sorrows come to 
 young and old when they are least expected." 
 Then, looking across the water, he suddenly 
 lifted his trembling hand to shade his eyes from 
 the glare of the sun. 
 
 " Isn't that Joost Zoon's boat coming in from 
 the open Zee? " he asked, pointing to a distant 
 sail. 
 
 His friend rose to his feet as fast as his trembling 
 old legs would let him. " That it is," he answered 
 eagerly. " It is the first of the fleet to come back. 
 We'll go down to meet them, and hear the news 
 of the catch," and he shuffled off toward the wharf, 
 where Jan was already waiting. 
 
 It did not take long for the news of the in- 
 coming boat to run through the little village. Boys 
 left their work; women ran out of their cottage 
 
60 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 doors and hurried along the dyke, waving their 
 hands to greet the returning fishers; but the little 
 group of girls, deep in their fun, paid no heed to 
 the gathering crowd. 
 
 Then, suddenly, as the boat swung round to come 
 up to the wharf, a silence fell upon the women on 
 the shore, and they looked at each other with 
 blanched faces, for they had caught sight of the 
 flag which fluttered at half-mast, and well they 
 knew that some one of them had lost a son or a 
 husband. The great storm had taken its toll 
 from the brave fishers. 
 
 I As the boat came slowly up to the wharf and 
 was made fast, the captain took his place in the 
 bow, his weather-beaten cap in his hand, while 
 those on shore strained their ears to hear what he 
 had to tell them. But still the group of girls went 
 on with their play, and as he spoke a shout of 
 laughter drowned his voice, 
 t Then at last something in the air made Marta 
 turn her eyes toward the boat and the silent crowd 
 of waiting women on the wharf, and she held up 
 her hand to quiet her companions. 
 
 " Hush! " she whispered, " there is bad news 
 from the fleet," and as the captain spoke once 
 more she almost held her breath to listen. 
 
 " There was heavy weather off the north coast 
 of Scotland," the man said slowly, looking down 
 
SAD NEWS 6 1 
 
 into the pale faces before him, " and the small 
 boat with Jacob van Vranken and two of his com- 
 panions was lost in the storm." 
 
 Marta was the first to move. Springing away 
 from the little group of girls, she ran to her mother's 
 side and threw her arm around her. Jan turned, 
 too, with a dazed look on his face, and moved 
 slowly across the wharf to meet his mother and 
 sister. 
 
 From the other women came the cry, " The two 
 men, — who were they? Tell us their names!" 
 but even while the captain was still speaking, the 
 sorrowful group of three made its way slowly 
 toward the cottage at the end of the street. 
 
 Everything else was forgotten, — sister Betje 
 on the sands, the glad sunshine, the laughing 
 waters of the Zee. It seemed to Marta as if the 
 whole world were darkened, and she could never 
 laugh again. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE CHEESE MARKET 
 
 Marta did laugh again, however, and that be- 
 fore many days went by. She laughed at little 
 Betje who made faces at the black house-cat, and 
 she laughed at the pictures Jan drew of those same 
 funny faces. 
 
 " It is only natural that she should laugh," 
 Vrouw van Vranken said to herself. " She is just 
 a child, for all her thoughtful ways; " but her 
 own face was sad, and her heart was heavy with 
 sorrow. 
 
 Marta always checked herself in the midst of a 
 laugh and looked penitently at her mother; but 
 when Jan dressed himself in his new suit of white 
 linen and came out for their inspection, they all 
 laughed together over the strange sight. 
 
 Jan, it had been decided, must go to Alkmaar 
 to earn his own living and help as much as he 
 could with the support of the family. 
 
 Alkmaar is the center of the North Holland 
 cheese trade. A merchant, who owned one of the 
 warehouses there, had a brother who was the 
 minister of one of the little churches in Volendam, 
 
THE CHEESE MARKET 63 
 
 and through him Jan was given work in the ware- 
 house. 
 
 But the men who work among the cheeses must 
 dress in spotless white, and Jan's baggy trousers 
 and faded green coat were better suited to a day's 
 fishing on the Zee. 
 
 " There is plenty of money in my green pig for a 
 new white suit," said Marta, when she heard of 
 the need of one. 
 
 Jan shook his head. " That must go for your 
 necklace and the dress we were planning to give 
 mother," he said. 
 
 " I can do without the necklace if I have to," 
 Marta answered stoutly; " and I just have to 
 because that is almost all the money there is in 
 the house." 
 
 Then she laughed bravely, for she saw tears in 
 her mother's eyes. " Just as if I cared for a useless 
 coral necklace! " she said with a toss of her head, 
 and began to hum a little tune. 
 
 So out of the pig-bank came money enough to 
 buy two cheap white suits, and off went Jan to 
 Alkmaar to learn how to toss cheeses with a sure 
 aim, to stack them with a true eye, and to polish 
 them with his hand until they shone like glass. 
 
 All through the week, before the Friday market- 
 day, Jan was kept busy packing cheeses in neat 
 boxes to be sent away to foreign countries. These 
 
64 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 cheeses were first covered with a thick red oil, like 
 paint, to enable them to withstand their long sea- 
 voyage without injury to their delicious flavor; 
 but on Thursday fresh yellow cheeses, like golden 
 cannon balls, began to arrive from Edam and all 
 the other towns near by. 
 
 They came in boats along the narrow canals; 
 they came in wagons of light polished wood, painted 
 blue within, and some even came in little carts 
 drawn by sturdy dogs. 
 
 Jan almost forgot his homesickness while he 
 stood watching the arrival of these great loads of 
 cheeses. It seemed as if every farmer in the Neth- 
 erlands must have come to the Alkmaar cheese- 
 market; and where before he had thought the 
 Dutch were all fishers, he felt sure now that every 
 man in the country must have turned dairyman. 
 
 The cheese-market of Alkmaar is held in the 
 square in front of the old weigh-house, where a 
 stretch of clean canvas is spread over the cobble- 
 stones, ready to be covered with the golden balls. 
 
 Jan would have been glad to do nothing all the 
 afternoon but stand and watch the game of pitch 
 and toss, as the cheeses were unloaded from boats 
 and carts; but he had to learn the game himself, 
 and he went to work with a will, throwing and 
 catching until his arms ached and his back was 
 lame with the unaccustomed motion. 
 
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. V. 
 
 The Cheese Market 
 
 A stretch of clean canvas is spread over the cobble stones and covered with 
 the golden balls. Page 64 
 
THE CHEESE MARKET 65 
 
 He expected the balls would go amiss; but no! 
 he caught them squarely and placed them on the 
 ground, ready to catch the next two, and the next, 
 until he had a pile of them built up before him in 
 regular rows, ten deep and twenty long. Then he 
 moved two or three paces to one side and began 
 again, the fusillade of golden cheeses growing 
 thicker and faster all the while. 
 
 He ate his supper and went to bed at last in the 
 loft of the warehouse, and he slept without waking 
 once through the long hours of the noisy night, — 
 noisy because the peasants, who had brought their 
 cheeses in from the country round about, were 
 wandering restlessly through the streets, singing 
 and playing pranks on one another. And other 
 peasants kept arriving with more cheeses, so that 
 when Jan woke in the morning he found as many 
 again as he had left when he went to bed. 
 
 And still they kept arriving until nearly ten 
 o'clock, the hour for the sale to begin; and at the 
 last the air was filled with the flying globes, like a 
 great shower of shining gold. It was an interesting 
 sight, and many a foreigner stopped to laugh at the 
 quick eye and sure aim of these slow-going Dutch- 
 men. 
 
 Then the clock in the tower struck ten, and in- 
 stantly there was the greatest commotion. The 
 sellers stood beside their wares, the buyers hurried 
 
66 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 to and fro, feeling the cheeses, patting them, 
 smelling them, plunging their scoops in, and pulling 
 out a bit to taste. 
 
 The buyers made offers, which were refused. 
 They made others, which were accepted; the buyer 
 and seller clasping hands once, twice, three times, 
 to bind the bargain. 
 
 Not until half-past ten could the weighing begin. 
 Then out of the weigh-house came the porters, a 
 band of men dressed all in white, except for their 
 black slippers and gay straw hats. Their hats 
 were all the colors of the rainbow, and as they took 
 up the great trays of yellow cheeses and trotted 
 in and out of the weigh-house, the place seemed 
 like a tournament, and they the knights of the 
 round cheeses. 
 
 But Jan had no time to watch the scene. He 
 was in the midst of it, fetching and carrying, learn- 
 ing to buy and sell with true Dutch thrift 
 
 At twelve o'clock the sale was over, the farmers 
 had taken up their reins or oars and started off 
 toward home, the cheeses were being stored away 
 in the warehouses, and the great golden field was 
 once more only a square of cold gray stones. 
 
 Then up in the tower of the weigh-house the 
 chimes pealed forth their noonday tune; and when 
 the great bell boomed out its dozen strokes a com- 
 pany of knights appeared upon their platform, 
 
THE CHEESE MARKET 67 
 
 just beneath the clock, prancing gaily back and 
 forth in mock tourney. 
 
 On Sunday Jan wrote a long letter to his mother. 
 He told her all about the market-day, and the 
 cheeses he had weighed and packed. He made a 
 picture of the great square and the weigh-house 
 with its clock tower and its mimic knights, and he 
 slipped a guilder into the letter, — one of the three 
 he had earned for his first week's work. 
 
 His mother cried over the letter; but Marta 
 laughed and said cheerily, " I always said Jan was 
 an artist. He'll be painting pictures on the cheeses 
 yet." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 AN EMPTY BANK 
 
 While Jan was still learning how to handle 
 cheeses in Alkmaar, Marta was trying to take both 
 his place and her father's at home. 
 
 "Here I go, — a-fishing O!" she chanted, as 
 she pulled her brother's old straw hat over her own 
 white cap, one wet, windy morning in July. 
 
 " Oh, Marta! why not put it off until the wind 
 goes down? " begged her mother, looking out over 
 the foaming water of the Zee. 
 
 But Marta shook her head. " The fish bite 
 better on a cloudy day," she answered. 
 
 At the door, however, she stopped to say, " I 
 must truly go this morning, Mother. You said 
 yourself that we have nothing in the house for 
 dinner." 
 
 " But it looks so treacherous out there on the 
 water," her mother objected; " and we could take 
 another guilder out of the china pig." 
 
 Marta shook her head decidedly. " The china 
 pig is beginning to grow thin," she said. " It will 
 never do to take out any more guilders before we 
 have put some in." 
 
AN EMPTY BANK 69 
 
 " Jan or Nieltje will send us some money by the 
 last of the week, and I'm earning a little myself 
 with my needle," said her mother. 
 
 But Marta still shook her head, and shouldering 
 the oars, she beat her way against the wind toward 
 the wharf where Jan's boat tugged at its mooring. 
 She threw her box of bait into the bottom of the 
 boat and jumped in after it. Then she untied the 
 knot that held the boat to one of the wooden posts 
 under the wharf, slipped the oars into the rowlocks, 
 and pulled away from the shore. 
 
 Marta's arms were strong, her muscles hard and 
 well-developed. Ever since she could remember 
 she had been able to row her father's boat across 
 the Zee, and there were few Volendam boys of her 
 own age who could have pulled through the choppy 
 water as easily as she did now. 
 
 And Marta's heart was a singing heart. As the 
 boat bobbed up and down with the waves, the words 
 of an old tune kept time with her oars, and she 
 found herself saying over and over: — 
 
 " The garden of our house, 
 
 It is the funniest garden yet; 
 For when it rains, and rains, and rains, 
 The garden it is wet! " 
 
 She laughed aloud at last, to find herself thinking 
 such foolish words. J' Mother says it is a rhyme the 
 
70 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 Spaniards taught us," she said to herself; and as 
 she sang it again, she added, " The Dutch are too 
 sensible to make up anything so silly." 
 
 Then, because the Spaniards had found a place 
 in her thoughts, she recalled what Jan had said in 
 one of his letters about the way the brave people 
 of Alkmaar had resisted the Spanish siege — a 
 siege which lasted many weeks — and how, at 
 last, with famine staring them in the face, they 
 had decided to give their enemy a lesson in Dutch 
 geography, and had cut the dykes, letting in the 
 sea to flood the Spanish camps. 
 
 " Jan told us that even now, just by turning a 
 key at The Hague, we could have more than half 
 of Holland under water in a few hours," she said to 
 herself. 
 
 Then she fell to wondering if it were really true; 
 and if it were true, too, that some day all the water 
 would be pumped out of the Zuyder Zee, and the 
 land turned into green meadows. 
 
 " If it is," she thought, " there will be black and 
 white cows out here instead of fishes. Perhaps I'd 
 better hurry and catch the fish while they are still 
 here; " and she laughed merrily as she drew in her 
 oars and threw out her anchor. 
 
 Marta was a good fisherman, but to-day the fish 
 refused to bite. Her line hung motionless in the 
 water, and while she sat there, waiting patiently 
 
AN EMPTY BANK 7 1 
 
 for a nibble at the hook, she began to wonder what 
 they would do at home if a long storm shut them 
 into the house for several days. 
 
 The money in the bank would soon be gone, and 
 even with what her mother could earn by sewing, 
 there was not enough to keep the three of them 
 from cold and hunger, especially when the winter 
 weather set in. 
 
 " I must leave home and go to work, just as Jan 
 and Nieltje and the others have done," she said at 
 last. " Hendrik will surely get our letter soon, — 
 the letter to tell him that father was lost in the 
 storm, — and then he will come home and take 
 care of mother and Betje, or they can go to live 
 with Aunt Emma Thooft; but I am old enough to 
 take care of myself." 
 
 So Marta's mind drifted on, and with the thought 
 of her father she found herself saying, as she had 
 said over and over since she first heard that he was 
 lost: " It can't be that he was drowned. His boat 
 may have drifted away with the wind. He will 
 surely come back some day and surprise us." 
 
 Then suddenly there came a tug at her hook, — 
 a tug so quick and strong that the line slipped 
 from her hand and slid over the edge of the boat. 
 But she caught it and wound it around her wrist, 
 tugging with all her might to pull in the fish. 
 
 To her amazement the fish had more strength 
 
72 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 than was in her own sturdy arms, and all at once 
 she found that the boat was beginning to move 
 through the water. Either the rope that held it 
 had given way, or else it had slipped from the 
 anchor, which was nothing but a bag of klinkers, 
 as the bricks of Holland are called. 
 
 Here was an adventure worth having! She held 
 the line fast, even though the boat was being drawn 
 steadily farther and farther from the shore. How 
 she wondered what strange steed it might be that 
 had her in tow! 
 
 When they reached one of the shallows, which 
 are so numerous in the Zuyder Zee as to make 
 navigation dangerous, she looked over the side of 
 the boat and caught a fleeting glimpse of the great 
 fish. It was a salmon! 
 
 Marta gave a scream of delight. If she could 
 catch it, she could easily sell it for at least 
 four guilders, for it was only once in a great while 
 that a salmon found its way into the Zee. She had 
 the good stout line which Jan always used for deep- 
 sea fishing, and the fish had doubtless swallowed 
 the hook. It was only a question of tiring him out. 
 
 She crawled to the end of the boat and tried to 
 pull in the line and wind it around the post, but 
 suddenly the salmon turned on its course and made 
 for deeper water. 
 
 Still Marta bravely kept her hold, although the 
 
AN EMPTY BANK 73 
 
 stiff line cut her wrist and tore her fingers until 
 they bled. 
 
 It was a long chase, but at last the salmon won. 
 The line slipped from her aching hands, and as 
 she saw it run out and disappear in the water, big 
 tears of disappointment rolled down her cheeks 
 unheeded. 
 
 " I'm thankful the oars are left," she said with a 
 sob, as she took them up and began the long hard 
 pull toward home. 
 
 Two men who were mending their nets on the 
 beach saw her rowing sturdily against wind and 
 tide, and went out in their own boat to tow her 
 in; and it was not long before the little kitchen 
 was filled with sympathetic neighbors, eager to 
 hear the story from the child's own lips. 
 
 After they were all gone, and her cuts were 
 bathed and bandaged, Marta put her head wearily 
 on her mother's shoulder. " I don't care for the 
 hurt of my hands and wrists," she sobbed; " but 
 I did want to catch the fish. What will we do now 
 for something to eat? " 
 
 "Never mind! Never mind!" soothed her 
 mother. " We will not begin to worry until the 
 bank is empty." 
 
 " We must be careful how we shake it," said 
 Marta, trying to smile. " Perhaps we can keep it 
 rattling along through the whole of the summer." 
 
74 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 But, careful as they were, the rattle grew fainter 
 and fainter; and in the middle of August it stopped 
 altogether. 
 
 Little Betje found the poor pig standing on the 
 seat of the old settle one morning, after Marta had 
 gone to the store halfway up the street to buy 
 some meal. She took it in her hand and shook it 
 as she had seen her sister shake it so many times 
 before. 
 
 Not a sound could be heard from within, — not 
 even a jingle or a single merry clink. Betje put it 
 close to her little pink ear and shook it again. 
 
 The bank was quite empty! 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 marta's wish 
 
 Brenda Bray stopped Marta, as she was on her 
 way home from the little store, to ask her a ques- 
 tion. 
 
 " Marta," said Brenda, leaving a group of idle 
 children to join her friend, " Gapper Groot says 
 that every good wish is sure to come true, if it is 
 good for us to have it. Do you believe that is so? " 
 
 Marta's bare arms were as brown as berries, and 
 they clasped the great bag of meal carefully, lest 
 some accident might befall it before she could put 
 it safely on the kitchen table. The little family 
 could not afford to have anything happen to that 
 precious meal, which was bought with the very last 
 stiver from the pig-bank. 
 
 But she looked at Brenda over the top of the 
 bag as cheerfully as if it were an every-day affair 
 with her to have her wishes come true. 
 
 " How can I tell? " she asked with a laugh, 
 hugging the bag of meal as tightly as if it were 
 Betje. " I've not lived long enough yet to be sure 
 that they don't come true at last." 
 
 " Oh, Marta, that's no answer," objected Brenda. 
 
70 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 " I wished that something would come true yester- 
 day, and it didn't. Now how can you think it may 
 come true at last, when yesterday is gone by? " 
 
 " Oh, there's always a yesterday, just as there's 
 always a to-day," was Marta's answer. " It may 
 come true yet. I wished that my brother Hendrik 
 would come home to-morrow. That was weeks 
 ago, and there are plenty of to-morrows still 
 coming." 
 
 " But I don't like to wait for the to-morrows," 
 said Brenda Bray, and she ran back to join the 
 group of children. 
 
 " I don't like to wait either," Marta said to 
 herself, as she trudged toward home, still hugging 
 the bag of meal. " I wish Hendrik were here this 
 very minute! " and, even as she thought the wish, 
 she saw some one standing in the doorway oi their 
 little cottage. 
 
 It was a young man, tall as her father, and so 
 much like him that Marta's heart almost stopped 
 beating for a moment, and the strength went out 
 of her arms so that she lost her hold on the bag of 
 meal. 
 
 It fell to the ground with a dull thud that brought 
 her thoughts back quickly to what she was doing; 
 and, with a second glance, she saw that it was her 
 brother Hendrik, come home at last to answer her 
 wish. 
 
MARTA S WISH 77 
 
 " Oh, Hendrik! " she cried with delight, " I'm 
 so glad you have come! I'll be there in a minute 
 to give you a dozen kisses." She stooped and hur- 
 riedly gathered up the bag, scooping up with it as 
 much of the clean meal as it would hold with the 
 long break in its side. 
 
 Hendrik hurried down to meet her, and took her 
 burden, saying heartily: " I'm glad to be here. I 
 got your letter yesterday when we reached Rotter- 
 dam, and I came home on the very first boat this 
 morning. 
 
 " It is time I came, too," he added soberly. 
 " Mother tells me there is no more money left in 
 the house." 
 
 " No, but some would have come soon from Jan 
 or Nieltje or from Aunt Emma Thooft, and mother 
 earns a little every week with her sewing," an- 
 swered Marta cheerfully. " Where have you 
 been all this long time? " and she looked lovingly 
 into his face. 
 
 Hendrik and Jan looked just alike, she noticed. 
 Hendrik was bigger because he was older; but he 
 had the same blue eyes and light hair. Marta 
 was always glad that the Van Vrankens did not 
 have dark eyes and hair, as so many of their 
 neighbors had. Dark eyes always reminded her of 
 the Spaniards, and she had no liking for those same 
 Spaniards. She had heard too many stories of 
 
78 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 their acts of oppression in the days when Spain 
 ruled Holland. 
 
 But Hendrik was speaking, and Marta forgot to 
 think about his looks in listening to what he had to 
 say. 
 
 " I must have left Rotterdam for my trip up the 
 Rhine, about the time you wrote to me," he said; 
 " and your letter has been waiting for me there all 
 the time I have been gone." 
 
 " And now what are we going to do? " asked 
 Marta. " I've been thinking that I shall have to 
 go to work like Jan and Nieltje; but who is going 
 to take care of mother and Betje? That's what 
 troubles me." 
 
 Hendrik laughed a kindly laugh. " There will 
 be no need of your going to work just yet," he said. 
 " Uncle Peter has sent me to take you, all three, to 
 Rotterdam to-morrow, and we're going to live with 
 him on the canal-boat for the rest of the summer." 
 
 Marta gasped and stood still in the middle of 
 the road. " I must run and tell Brenda Bray that 
 my wish came true," she said. " Perhaps hers will 
 come true some day," and she sped back toward the 
 group of children. 
 
 They listened to her story in amazement, glancing 
 up the street at the big figure of Hendrik, who was 
 standing where his sister had left him. 
 
 " He is going to take all three of us to Rotter- 
 
MARTA S WISH 79 
 
 dam to-morrow," Marta ended breathlessly. Then 
 she turned and hurried back to Hendrik. 
 
 For a few moments the children stood still, talk- 
 ing over the wonderful story, then they separated 
 to spread the news through the village. In less 
 than an hour every family on the street was dis- 
 cussing it excitedly, and many a good housewife 
 left her own work and went hurrying away to 
 Vrouw van Vranken with offers of assistance. 
 
 There was plenty to do all day in the little house 
 at the head of the dyke. Soiled clothes were 
 hurriedly put through the tub) white caps were 
 starched and ironed, bags were packed, and the 
 few small treasures were stored carefully in a 
 strong box. 
 
 But with all this work Marta found time to steal 
 away for a few moments, to write a note to her 
 father, telling him where they had gone, and what 
 they were going to do. And the next morning, just 
 before the key was turned in the lock, she ran back 
 and pinned the note to the old settle, just where he 
 would be sure to see it if ever he should come again 
 to the little home in Volendam. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 IN ROTTERDAM 
 
 " There's something in Rotterdam that I've 
 always wanted to see," said Marta, as they neared 
 the end of their railway journey toward the city 
 which is the largest seaport in the Netherlands. 
 
 " What is that? " questioned Hendrik. 
 
 " I'm not going to tell you. I'm afraid you will 
 laugh at me," and his sister shyly shook her head. 
 
 " Then how shall I take you to see it? " he asked. 
 
 " I don't believe you know where it is," Marta 
 told him. 
 
 " Try me and see," Hendrik urged. " I've been 
 in Rotterdam for a week at a time when we were 
 loading and unloading the canal-boat, and I've 
 tramped all over the city again and again." 
 
 " Well," said Marta, after a moment, " I'll tell 
 you what it is. It's the stork in the Zoo. I never 
 saw one in all my life. Mother used to see them 
 when she was a little girl in Zeeland, and she often 
 tells me stories about them. 
 
 " They bring good luck, you know; and I 
 thought if I could see the one in the Zoo it might 
 bring me some good luck I've been wishing for." 
 
IN ROTTERDAM 8l 
 
 " One of your wishes came true yesterday," her 
 brother reminded her. " Are you looking for a 
 fairy godmother to give you everything you want, 
 just for the asking? " 
 
 Hs/' No," replied Marta soberly. " I have only one 
 more wish in my heart, and I'm afraid not even a 
 fairy godmother could answer it for me." 
 
 " Tell me what it is and I'll do my best to answer 
 it myself," said Hendrik; but again Marta shook 
 her head. 
 
 " I can't tell it to any one," she said with a little 
 sigh. " But I think about it every day, and some- 
 times I feel almost sure it is going to happen." 
 
 Then, when Hendrik seemed about to ask another 
 question, she added quickly: " Tell me about the 
 storks. Have you ever seen them, and what were 
 they like? " 
 
 " Yes," replied her brother, " I saw them one 
 afternoon last spring when I went up to the Zoo 
 with Uncle Peter. The mother stork was sitting 
 on her nest on the roof of the buffalo house, and 
 the father stork was standing soberly on one leg 
 by her side, just as you have seen the herons stand- 
 ing in the rushes on the edge of the pond. After a 
 little while he went sailing away over the trees, 
 with his great wings flapping loosely up and down, 
 and his long legs stretched out behind him like a 
 rudder." 
 
82 . MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 " Aunt Emma says that the storks ate up all the 
 toads and frogs, and that's why we don't have very 
 many, in spite of all our canals and ditches," said 
 Marta. 
 
 " That may be true," replied her brother. " Per- 
 haps that is one reason why the Dutch are so fond 
 of the stork, and have taken it for the emblem of 
 The Hague. But now that there are so few storks 
 left in Holland, it almost seems as if they ought to 
 choose something more common, — a windmill, 
 for example." 
 
 " They might choose a canal or a river," sug- 
 gested Marta. " It seems to me that we cross one 
 every two minutes. I didn't know there were so 
 many bridges in the world as we have seen to-day." 
 
 " That's not a bad idea," replied her brother. 
 " It is the canals and rivers that have made the 
 country prosperous. A great many of our towns 
 and cities have grown up beside the rivers. There's 
 Rotterdam on the Rotte, and Amsterdam on the 
 Amstel." 
 
 " And Schiedam on the River Schie, and Zaan- 
 dam on the Zaan," added Marta. " I never thought 
 about it before, but I suppose that is where the 
 cities get their names." 
 
 " That's just the way of it," said Hendrik. " The 
 people built dams in the rivers so that they could 
 hold back the water to fill the canals, and then 
 
IN ROTTERDAM 83 
 
 when the towns grew up near the dams they natu- 
 rally took their names from the river. 
 
 " The dam in the Rotte was built where the little 
 river unites with the Maas. There it is now, and 
 we are coming into the city. You can take care of 
 Betje, and I will help mother with the bags and 
 boxes." 
 
 The two little girls hurried through the crowded 
 railway station, keeping close to their mother's 
 side; but while they were waiting for the tram- 
 car to take them down to the wharf where Uncle 
 Peter's boat was being loaded, Marta looked 
 eagerly up and down the street. 
 
 " I know what I should like to do," she said. " I 
 should like to walk down to the boat, if it isn't too 
 far. I've been sitting still until I'm just tired all 
 over." 
 
 " And so am I," Hendrik declared. " We'll let 
 mother and Betje ride, and you and I can have a 
 good walk and see the sights." 
 
 " Oh, let Betje go with us," pleaded Marta, 
 when she saw the look of disappointment in her 
 sister's face. " We can take turns carrying her if 
 she gets tired." 
 
 " So we can," replied Hendrik. " It is a long 
 time since I've had such good company on my 
 travels; " and as soon as the tram-car went whirling 
 around the corner, with Vrouw van Vranken and 
 
84 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 all their bundles and budgets, he led the way 
 through the busy streets, proudly clasping a hand 
 of each little sister. 
 
 They met country girls, in quaint costumes, 
 going to market to sell butter or cheese. Some of 
 them were riding on the backs of donkeys, some 
 were walking beside carts drawn by dogs, and 
 others were carrying a yoke over their shoulders 
 from which hung baskets of fruit or brimming pails 
 of milk. 
 
 They passed the market-place, where there was 
 a great jumble of fruit and vegetables in booths 
 and stalls and baskets on the pavement, and where 
 women, with knitting in their hands, were waiting 
 to sell their wares. 
 
 They walked through canal-bordered streets, and 
 saw gaily-painted boats with great brown sails, 
 moving slowly along between the rows of tall 
 brick houses, and they stood still for a moment to 
 hear the chimes in the cathedral play one of the 
 national airs. 
 
 Once Betje kept them waiting while she stooped 
 to pet a little gray kitten that was curled up on a 
 low doorstone, and a few minutes later Marta 
 stopped before a jeweller's window, where silver 
 buttons and buckles, and long strings of beads, 
 were temptingly shown; but for the most part they 
 all three klomped along in silence, their eyes so 
 
1 
 
 Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 
 
 Bridge over the River Maas, Rotterdam 
 
 See all the river steamers, and canal-boats, and barges. Page 85 
 
IN ROTTERDAM 85 
 
 busy with the strange sights of the city that they 
 found no time for words. 
 
 But when they stood on the splendid quay 
 that stretches away for more than a mile 
 beside the River Maas, Betje at last found her 
 tongue. 
 
 "Look at the trees! " she cried, pointing to a 
 long row of ancient elms that overhung the broad 
 street. 
 
 " Those are the ' boompjes,' " her brother told 
 her, " the ' little trees ' that give the quay its 
 name. They were planted almost three hundred 
 years ago, and are as large as any trees in the 
 country; but the people of Rotterdam still lovingly 
 call them their boompjes." 
 
 " And look at all the ships," added Marta, " and 
 the river steamers, and the canal-boats, and the 
 barges loaded with wood. Where do they all 
 come from? " 
 
 " They come from every corner of the Nether- 
 lands, and all the countries of the world," said 
 Hendrik. " Over there is an ocean steamer from 
 New York, and another from the Dutch East 
 Indies. That one with the British flag came from 
 London, and next beyond is a vessel from Eastern 
 Asia. More than half the imports and exports of 
 our country pass through the warehouses of 
 Rotterdam. You can hardly think of a place any- 
 
86 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 where that we couldn't reach by boat from this 
 very quay." 
 
 Immediately Marta began to play a little game. 
 
 " How would you go to the North Sea? " she 
 questioned. 
 
 " It is down the river only a few miles away," 
 her brother told her. "And through the North 
 Sea and the English Channel you could sail away 
 to Africa, or America, or any other wonderful 
 foreign land. That is the way the great ships go 
 with Dutch china, toys, chocolate, cheese, and 
 anything else we have to sell; and the way they 
 come back with tea, cotton, rice, spices, and what- 
 ever else we have to buy." 
 
 " How would you go to Germany? " she asked. 
 
 " Up the river in a canal-boat, or a river 
 steamer," replied Hendrik. " The Maas unites 
 with the Lek and forms one of the many mouths 
 of the Rhine. The Rhine flows across Germany and 
 Holland, and spreads out in a great broad delta, 
 like a fan, turning all this part of the country into 
 islands." 
 
 " And how would you go to Volendam? " she 
 asked, looking longingly at the boats, as if she would 
 like to go sailing home again that very afternoon. 
 
 " On a canal-boat," Hendrik replied promptly. 
 " Every canal in the Netherlands is connected 
 with some other canal, so that you can go in and 
 
IN ROTTERDAM 87 
 
 out, from one to the other, and reach any town you 
 like, if only you have plenty of time." 
 
 " Then I choose the canal-boat," said Marta 
 quickly. 
 
 " And there it is," added her brother, " down 
 there where the railroad bridge crosses the river. 
 I can see mother and Uncle Peter and little Schnitz. 
 You'll like Schnitz, he's the best-hearted dog in 
 the world; " and he lifted Betje up to his shoulder 
 and hurried down to the boat, giving a low whistle 
 that brought short, sharp barks of welcome from 
 the eager dog. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 uncle peter's boat 
 
 " Where are we going, Uncle Peter? " ques- 
 tioned Marta, as she stood on the deck the next 
 morning, watching him hoist the great brown sail, 
 — " up the Rhine into Germany for another load 
 of toys? " 
 
 " No," replied her uncle, " we haven't time to go 
 into Germany again before winter sets in. First 
 we'll take this load of freight to Leiden, and then 
 we'll go over into the heart of Holland and cruise 
 up and down the canals. I can always find plenty 
 of work there, carrying fruit and vegetables to the 
 city markets." 
 
 " What fun it will be," cried Marta, clapping 
 her hands. " I'd like to live on this boat forever 
 and ever, and go sailing all over the world! " and 
 she caught Betje's hand and clattered up and down 
 the deck with her, while Schnitz ran round and 
 round in circles, barking with delight over the 
 frolic. 
 
 " Marta! " her mother called suddenly from the 
 cabin, " there's work waiting for you in here." 
 
 " Yes, Mother, I'm coming," replied Marta 
 
uncle peter's boat 89 
 
 cheerfully. " Just wait a minute while I make a 
 playhouse for Betje," and she set her little sister 
 down in one corner of the deck, building a fence 
 around her with three or four boxes and a wooden 
 chair. 
 
 " Take good care of her, Schnitz," she said, 
 shaking her finger at the little dog. " She's not 
 used to living on a boat, you know. She might 
 forget where she is and fall overboard." 
 
 Schnitz curled himself up beside the playhouse, 
 cocking his head on one side, as if to say, " Leave 
 her to me. I'll see that no harm comes to her; " 
 and Marta stooped to give him a loving pat before 
 she hurried away to help her mother. 
 
 The boat was already moving slowly down the 
 river, and as she opened the cabin door, she turned 
 to look back once more at the roofs and towers of 
 Rotterdam. 
 
 " Oh, Hendrik," she called, putting her hands 
 to her mouth to form a trumpet; " tell me when 
 there is something you think I ought to see." 
 
 Then she went inside and closed the door, leaving 
 all the fascinating scenes of her first day on the 
 river, while she helped her mother with the scrub- 
 bing and cleaning which every good Dutch house- 
 wife finds so imnortant. 
 
 It took more than one day to clean the big boat 
 to Vrouw van Vranken's liking; but when it was 
 
90 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 finished the whole family was called together to 
 walk up and down the deck, and in and out of the 
 little cabin, admiring everything. 
 
 The boat was a bright apple-green, with white 
 trimmings, and the cabin, which was painted white 
 both inside and out, had been scoured with sand 
 and soap. Every bit of brass had been polished 
 until it shone like gold, the two tiny windows 
 sparkled in the sun, and their spotless muslin 
 curtains were drawn back to show the gay red 
 geraniums in the window-boxes. 
 
 " I've lived on this boat, man and boy, for fifty 
 years; but it never seemed more like home than it 
 does to-day," Uncle Peter declared, as he went 
 back to his pipe and his tiller. 
 
 Marta looked up at him in amazement. " Why, 
 Uncle Peter Huyn! " she exclaimed, " have you 
 really and truly lived right here on this boat all that 
 long time? Didn't you ever live in a house on the 
 land, and go to school, and run up and down the 
 dykes, and play games with the other children? " 
 
 Her uncle shook his head. " My father owned 
 this boat when I was born," he replied; " and here 
 I have lived all my life. My mother taught me to 
 read and write, and I've picked up a little learning 
 here and there in my wanderings; but I never set 
 foot in a schoolhouse, nor did I ever have a boy 
 friend to play with, except for a few weeks in the 
 
■UNCLE PETERS BOAT 91 
 
 winter when our boat was ice-bound in some 
 canal. It is a hard life for a child, — with no play- 
 mates, and no chance to go to school." 
 
 " I never thought of that," and Marta looked 
 across the deck at her little sister, who had turned 
 one of her shoes into a bed for her doll and was 
 singing to herself as contentedly as if she had always 
 lived on a boat. " If we stay here all winter I'll 
 have to teach Betje her letters. We wouldn't want 
 her to grow up without learning to read. Would 
 we, Uncle Peter? " 
 
 Her uncle threw over the tiller to make room for 
 a passing steamer, and did not reply at once. 
 " No," he said, after a moment, " I've been 
 thinking that we'd all better go back to Volendam 
 when the canals freeze over, and then you two 
 little girls can go to school. There is nothing so 
 good as a good education. There are more than 
 thirty thousand children on the canal-boats of 
 Holland, and some day there will be a law calling 
 them all into school." 
 
 " But why do the people live on the boats then, 
 if it is so bad for the children? " questioned Marta. 
 
 " Because it is their life, .child," her uncle an- 
 swered. " Their fathers ■ lived that way before 
 them, and their father's fathers. You'll not find a 
 happier, more prosperous people anywhere than the 
 boat owners and their familiesT 
 
92 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 " What are you going to do with yourself, now 
 that the scrubbing is all over? " he added, with a 
 merry twinkle in his eyes. 
 
 " Oh, it will have to be done again next week," 
 Marta answered. " Nothing ever keeps clean 
 very long, you know. But I'm going to stay on 
 deck all I can, and get you and Hendrik to tell me 
 about everything we see." 
 
 " I suppose you haven't seen anything but 
 brushes and pails since we left Rotterdam." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I have," Marta replied eagerly. " Hen- 
 drik called me on deck a dozen times a day. I saw 
 Delfshaven, and the little church where the Pilgrim 
 Fathers went to pray before they set sail for North 
 America in 1620. Then I came out to beat some 
 cushions just as we turned from the Maas into the 
 River Schie, and I saw Schiedam; and I came out 
 again to see Delft." 
 
 Uncle Peter took his pipe from his mouth and 
 gave a great hearty laugh. " You're for all the 
 world like your brother Hendrik," he said. " Every 
 time we stop anywhere on the Rhine, he gets out 
 his map and an old guide-book, and goes to work 
 to learn all he can about the town; and if there is 
 time, he goes on shore to see the sights." 
 
 " It is like father, too," added Marta soberly. 
 " He could tell all sorts of interesting stories about 
 the cities he had seen. 
 
UNCLE PETER'S BOAT 93 
 
 " Uncle Peter," she added, after a moment, 
 putting her hand on his and looking earnestly into 
 his face, " sometimes I wake up in the night and 
 he awake a long time thinking about father. Do 
 you believe he was reaUy drowned? Don't you 
 think he might possibly come home again some 
 day? " 
 
 Her uncle shook his head. " I'm afraid not," he 
 said. "It is a long time since his boat was lost. 
 If he had been coming home you would have seen 
 him weeks ago." 
 
 " But perhaps something happened to him so 
 that he couldn't come right away," Marta urged. 
 
 " That may be so," replied her uncle; " but it is 
 not at all likely. Look! There are the red roofs 
 of Leiden, where we are going to leave our freight. 
 Run and blow the horn for the bridge-tender. 
 He'll have to raise the bridge to let us pass 
 through." 
 
 Marta blew a good blast on the horn, and then 
 ran to the rail to watch the man come out to raise 
 the bridge. First he let down a little wooden shoe 
 on the end of a long fish-line, and waited while 
 Uncle Peter took a coin from his pocket and slipped 
 it into the toe of the klompje to pay his toll. Then 
 the man drew the shoe up carefully by the heel, 
 and put the coin in bis own pocket before he 
 opened the bridge. 
 
94 MA&TA IN HOLLAND 
 
 Slowly in the gathering darkness the boat, with 
 its great sail set to catch the breeze, moved into the 
 still waters of the Old Rhine, passed the Zyl Gate, 
 and entered the broad Rhine Haven, where lights 
 were already twinkling from a hundred masts. 
 
 When at last it had found a place at one of the 
 crowded docks, and was tied up safely for the 
 night, Uncle Peter lighted his pipe and smoked 
 contentedly at the cabin door, while Hendrik 
 rattled a pair of wooden clappers, and Marta and 
 Betje bobbed and curtsied in a quaint, old-fash- 
 ioned dance. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 BRAVE LITTLE HOLLAND 
 
 " Oh, Hendrik! " called Marta from the deck 
 of the canal-boat to her brother on the dyke; " I'm 
 tired of sitting still. Please let me come and help 
 you tow the boat." 
 
 " Me, too," begged Betje, catching her doll by 
 one arm, and running to her sister's side. 
 
 "And me!" barked Schnitz, who was always 
 ready to follow Betje wherever she went. 
 
 " Wait until we come to the next landing," called 
 back Hendrik, plodding along with a steady pull at 
 the rope, which drew the boat slowly through the 
 quiet waters of the canal. 
 
 It was two days since they had left their load of 
 freight at Leiden, and turned from the River Schie 
 into one of the hundreds of canals that thread their 
 way across the heart of Holland; and now the great 
 brown sail hung idly in the breeze, while Hendrik 
 towed the boat and his uncle pushed it and steered 
 it with a long pole. 
 
 The canal was banked on either side with strong 
 dykes to keep the water from flooding the fields. 
 These dykes that border the great Haarlem polders 
 
96 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 are high and narrow, just wide enough at the top 
 for. ?a roadway and a row of tiny houses, and from 
 the deck of the boat it was impossible to see any- 
 thing but an occasional windmill or a red-tiled roof. 
 No wonder the children grew tired of sitting quietly 
 on deck, watching the green bank slip slowly by. 
 
 But it was not long before Hendrik found a good 
 stopping-place and lifted Marta and Betje up beside 
 him, where they could look off at miles and miles 
 of flat green pastures, with black and white cows 
 grazing peacefully, and windmills beckoning to 
 each other with their swinging arms. 
 
 Marta insisted on taking her place at the tow- 
 rope, and she trudged sturdily along beside her 
 brother, tugging harder than there was any need 
 in her eagerness to help; but Betje scrambled up 
 and down the green bank to gather a handful of 
 flowers for her mother, or caught up a stick for a 
 frolic with Schnitz. 
 
 Now and then they met a high-backed, two- 
 wheeled cart, jolting along to market, or they 
 passed a girl who was knitting as she walked beside 
 her milk-wagon which was drawn by the family dog; 
 and once a great red automobile rolled over the 
 smooth highway, its loud honk, honk! drawing a 
 crowd of curious children, who clattered along for 
 a little way behind it, their wooden shoes rattling 
 like castanets on the brick-paved road. 
 
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N Y. 
 
 The Road on the Dyke 
 * They passed a girl who was knitting as she walked beside her milk wagon " 
 
 Page 96 
 
BRAVE LITTLE HOLLAND 97 
 
 " Look, Marta! " said Hendrik suddenly, point- 
 ing beyond the green pastures to broad polders with 
 their fields of rye, oats, wheat, barley and buck- 
 wheat marked off in checkerboard squares by the 
 silver threads of the canals; " over there where you 
 see those beautiful farms there was once a great 
 sheet of water. When the Spaniards were trying 
 to capture Haarlem a whole fleet of sixty Spanish 
 ships floated in the lake which has since been 
 drained to make more land for Holland." 
 
 " Why were the Spaniards trying to capture 
 Haarlem? " questioned Marta, waiting a moment 
 for Betje to catch up with them. 
 
 " They were trying to conquer the whole of the 
 Netherlands," replied her brother, " and Haarlem 
 was one of the chief cities. 
 
 " In olden times," he continued, " Spain was one 
 of the most powerful nations in Europe, and it held 
 sway over many countries that have since thrown 
 off its yoke. The Spanish king ruled the Nether- 
 lands with a rod of iron. He was so cruel and un- 
 just that at last the people could bear his oppression 
 no longer, so they rose up in rebellion. After 
 eighty years of warfare and terrible suffering, they 
 finally drove the Spaniards out of the country and 
 established their freedom and independence." 
 
 " I know who helped them gain their victory over 
 Spain," spoke up Marta. " It was William the 
 
98 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 Silent. He was the father of our country. Uncle 
 Peter always calls him ' Father William.' " 
 
 " That is true," said Hendrik; " and the Spanish 
 general who was sent here by King Philip to govern 
 us, or murder us, just as he chose, was the Duke of 
 Alva. The stories of his cruelty are too horrible 
 to repeat." 
 
 " Aunt Emma told me once how the people of 
 Haarlem resisted the attack of the Spanish troops," 
 said Marta. " The city was protected by a wall, 
 and when the soldiers tried to break down the wall 
 and enter the city a company of three hundred 
 women came out to help the men drive them back. 
 Those who had no firearms used bricks, or boiling 
 water, or hlazing hoops of tar which they threw 
 over the heads of the enemy." 
 
 " Haarlem made a good fight, and so did Am- 
 sterdam, and Alkmaar, and Leiden, and ever^so 
 many other cities in our brave little land," Hendrik 
 declared; " but if it hadn't been for the sea, we 
 might never have won at last." 
 
 " How was that? " questioned Marta; but 
 Hendrik had to stop to straighten out the rope, 
 which had become tangled with the tow-rope of 
 another boat, and did not answer at once. 
 
 " It was this way," he said, when they were 
 again trudging along side by side. " In those days 
 the provinces of the Netherlands were not united 
 
BRAVE LITTLE HOLLAND 99 
 
 as they are now, and every city had to fight its 
 own battles. 
 
 " The Spaniards besieged one city after another, 
 and several times, when they were almost certain 
 of victory, the Dutch people cut the dykes and the 
 sea came marching up to the very walls of the city, 
 flooding the Spanish camps and driving back the 
 defeated army. 
 
 " At last William of Orange brought about the 
 union of the provinces, and on July 26, 1581, the 
 Netherlands declared themselves a free and in- 
 dependent republic." | 
 
 " I hope they will never have to cut the dykes 
 again, and flood all these beautiful farms," Marta 
 exclaimed, stopping for a moment to gaze across the 
 broad green polders. 
 
 " Oh, Hendrik! " she cried suddenly, " do see 
 that dear little house," and she pointed to a tiny 
 dwelling in a rushy cove of a branch canal. 
 
 The house, not much larger than Uncle Peter's 
 cabin, had been built on the old hulk of a boat, and 
 two little bridges connected it with each bank. 
 There were also wooden floats on which were 
 chicken-coops and duck-pens, and even a tiny 
 flower-garden. Around the whole was a low fence 
 of lattice-work, and it was all so snug and cosy that 
 it seemed more like a toy house than a grown-up 
 dwelling. 
 
IOO MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 " How I should love to live there! " Marta ex- 
 claimed, looking back for a last glimpse of the tiny 
 house, as they turned a bend in the canal; but 
 before their travels were over she had declared^that 
 she should " just love to live " in ever so many 
 places. 
 
 And all through the bright autumn weather, as 
 they wound in and out of the canals, carrying great 
 loads of vegetables from the farms to the city 
 markets, the children spent many happy hours on 
 the deck of the boat, watching the changing scenes. 
 
 They passed low farmhouses cuddled beneath a 
 group of trees, with gray-thatched barns amid the 
 green. Rows of milk-pails hung on the walls 
 beside the doors, all brass-bound and gaily painted, 
 and in the early morning strong-armed peasant 
 girls went out to the fields to milk the cows. 
 
 Now and then they glided slowly through a 
 little village, the houses bright with many colors, 
 the red-tiled roofs glistening in the sun; and toward 
 night the tinkle of the cow-bells and the sweet 
 chimes from the church belfries floated out to them 
 on the still evening air. 
 
 But no matter how often Marta chose a place 
 for a new home, she still held loyally to her love 
 forVolendam; and when at last the cold November 
 nights brought heavy frosts, and the canals were 
 frozen over so that the boat could no longer do its 
 
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 
 
 Dutch Milkmaids 
 
 Page 100 
 
BRAVE LITTLE HOLLAND IOI 
 
 work, Uncle Peter and Schnitz, and all the family, 
 went back once more to the little house at the head 
 of the dyke. 
 
 Marta slipped in before the others to take down 
 the note, which was still fastened to the back of the 
 great oak settle, and, as she read the words of her 
 brave little motto, she tried to think of all that 
 Uncle Peter and Hendrik had done to make their 
 summer happy. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 SANT NIKXAAS EVE 
 
 " I DO believe skating is more fun than any- 
 thing else in the whole world," cried Marta, running 
 into the kitchen to find her mother, her blue eyes 
 sparkling with happiness, her cheeks red from her 
 exercise in the keen December air. 
 
 " Where have you been? " her mother ques- 
 tioned, stooping to take a pan of little round 
 cakes from the oven. 
 
 , " Brenda and I have been all the way to Edam 
 and back since school closed," Marta answered. 
 " The ice is as smooth as glass, and I could just 
 fly with my new skates," and she held up a fine 
 pair of polished steel which were a present from 
 Uncle Peter. 
 
 " Where's Betje? " she asked, after she had wiped 
 the skates and put them away in the big chest. 
 
 " Your uncle took her over to Edam in the push- 
 chair," her mother told her. " He wanted her to 
 see the windows full of gifts, and thought she might 
 even catch a glimpse of the good Sant Niklaas 
 himself in one of the shops. It's a wonder you 
 didn't meet them." 
 
SANT NIKLAAS EVE IO3 
 
 " Oh, there were crowds of people on the ice," 
 Marta answered, " and we were in such a hurry 
 that we didn't stop a minute in Edam. I wanted 
 to try my new skates, but I knew there was ever 
 so much work to do at home before we could be 
 ready for Sant Niklaas," and she buttoned on her 
 big apron and began washing and wiping the dishes, 
 chattering all the time about the smooth ice, and the 
 good skating, and the people she had met on the 
 way. 
 
 Holland is indeed a very paradise for skaters. 
 Ice forms on the still waters of the canals early in 
 the winter and almost never thaws until spring, 
 and for three or four months young and old, rich 
 and poor, skim over the frozen waterways. 
 
 A few are shod with silver, some have skates of 
 sharpest steel, and many there are who have noth- 
 ing better than clumsy wooden skates fastened on 
 with a stout cord; but how they fly over the ice! 
 Rosy-cheeked boys and girls race by on their way 
 to school, and the merchant glides along to his 
 business. It is easier to skate than to walk, and 
 the peddler with his pack, the school-master with 
 his books, the housewife with her market basket, 
 all skim up and down the canals instead of plodding 
 soberly along the highway. 
 
 Then there are the push-chairs, low box-like 
 sleds with a high back and sharp steel runners; 
 
104 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 and the ice-boats that glide swiftly over the frozen 
 waterways like white-winged birds. On the lakes 
 they skim up and down, and come about with a 
 swift turn, their sails flapping loosely for an in- 
 stant'and then quickly filling for another long race 
 over the smooth ice. 
 
 " Oh, Mother," said Marta suddenly, in the 
 midst of her dish-washing; " I met our old postman 
 over in Edam, and he told me that a letter came for 
 me from New York more than a month ago. He 
 sent it to Rotterdam, and it must be waiting there 
 now. Who could it be from? Do you know any 
 one in New York? " 
 
 Her mother stood still for a moment, with a 
 puzzled look on her face. " No," she said at last, 
 " I can't think of any one I know in New York, 
 unless it is your cousin Frederik." 
 
 " It might be from the boy who bought my 
 shoes," said Marta, with a laugh; " but of course it 
 isn't, because he didn't know my name. Perhaps 
 it is from my fairy godmother, and she is going to 
 grant me three wishes. Let's send for it right away 
 this afternoon." 
 
 " There's no hurry," replied her mother, going 
 on with her baking. " To-morrow will do just as 
 well. I must get this gingerbread into the oven 
 now. When you have finished the dishes you can 
 set the table, and we'll have supper as soon as Betje 
 
SANT NIKLAAS EVE 105 
 
 and Uncle Peter come home. Sant Niklaas might 
 be here early this evening, and we wouldn't want to 
 keep him waiting." 
 
 " There's Betje now," cried Marta. " I can hear 
 Schnitz barking," and she ran to open the door. 
 
 " Yes, here we are," cried her uncle's hearty 
 voice. " And here's Hendrik, too. We saw Sant 
 Niklaas in Edam, and he promised to be here soon 
 after supper. But he'll find no naughty children in 
 this house, will he, Betje? " and he lifted the little 
 maid up on the settle, and began taking off her 
 coat and hood with his clumsy fingers. 
 
 It was a quiet group that gathered around the 
 table to eat the simple supper of bread and cheese 
 and tea. Now and then a sad look flitted across 
 Vrouw van Vranken's face, when she thought of 
 the good husband who had always been with them 
 on Sant Niklaas Eve, and once Marta's eyes filled 
 with tears as she remembered some of her father's 
 pranks; but when a plateful of little round cakes 
 was brought from the cupboard, each one contain- 
 ing a tiny gift, there was plenty of fun and laughter. 
 
 Then, as soon as the table was cleared, the chairs 
 were pushed back and the floor was covered with a 
 clean cloth, ready for " strooiavond," or " strewing 
 evening " as it is called, because on the night before 
 his birthday, which is the sixth of December, Sant 
 Niklaas comes early, before the children are tucked 
 
106 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 into bed, and strews the floor with apples, oranges, 
 cakes and sweetmeats from his big sack. 
 
 He comes later, galloping over the roofs on a 
 great white horse, to bring gifts for the good chil- 
 dren and a birch rod for those who have been 
 naughty. All the boys and girls in Holland set 
 out their wooden shoes for him, tucking in a carrot 
 or a wisp of hay for the good saint's horse, and no 
 matter how poor and humble the dwelling may be, 
 there is always a row of klompen in front of the 
 fire or on the window-sill, waiting for gifts from the 
 Dutch gift-giver. 
 
 " Oh, Betje! " exclaimed Marta, as her sister 
 pattered across the floor in her white stockings to 
 set her tiny klompje at the end of the row; " that's 
 not half big enough for all Sant Niklaas will bring 
 for you. Get an old shoe of Uncle Peter's, and we 
 will write your name on it so that there'll be no 
 mistake." 
 
 " Here's the good saint now," cried Vrouw van 
 Vranken, suddenly, as Schnitz stood up and began 
 to bark. " He's knocking on the door and we're not 
 nearly ready for him. Hurry, Hendrik, and help me 
 spread the cloth! Run, Marta, and open the door! " 
 and she bustled about the little room, setting back 
 a chair here, and pulling out the cloth there, while 
 all the time the knocking continued, softly at first, 
 and then louder and louder. 
 
SANT NIKLAAS EVE 107 
 
 " Come, Betje," said her mother, lifting the 
 child from the floor and setting her on her shoulder, 
 " we'll be the first to greet Sant Niklaas," and she 
 crossed the room just as Marta lifted the latch and 
 set wide the door. 
 
 But who was this on the threshold? Surely not 
 the good Sant Niklaas, with his white beard and his 
 sackful of sweets. It was a tall, broad-shouldered 
 man, with a bundle under his arm. He stepped 
 quickly into the room and pulled off his cap so 
 that the light from the flickering fire shone full 
 on his face. 
 
 " It's father! " cried Marta, her own face as 
 white as the sheet that covered the floor. " Oh, 
 Father, I knew you would come home. I knew 
 it! " and she threw herself into his arms, crying for 
 very joy, while her mother, with Betje and Hendrik, 
 and Uncle Peter, clustered around them at the door, 
 eager to welcome the brave fisher and hear the 
 story of his safe return. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A SILVER LINING 
 
 The winter sun never shone brighter than on that 
 sixth of December, — Sant Niklaas Day in Hol- 
 land. It glittered on the smooth ice of the frozen 
 Zuyder Zee, it sparkled on the snow-clad meadows, 
 and it peeped in at all the windows to catch a 
 glimpse of the children. 
 
 But nowhere in all Volendam did it find a happier 
 group than the one in the little house at the head 
 of the dyke. Almost before it was daylight Marta 
 and Betje had crept out of bed to see what Sant 
 Niklaas had left in their wooden shoes, and it was 
 not long before the whole family was stirring, 
 wakened by their whispering and merry laughter. 
 
 Never had the little kitchen heard such rejoicing 
 in the fisherman's family! In the midst of it all in 
 walked Jan, come from Alkmaar to spend the holi- 
 day at home; and before half the greetings were 
 over, the door opened again and Aunt Emma and 
 Nieltje came in, all unseen, upon the noisy group. 
 Then there was greater rejoicing than ever. 
 Everybody kissed everybody else, and happy tears 
 were mingled with the laughter. The black cat, 
 
A SILVER LINING 109 
 
 from a safe seat on the window-sill, fixed big eyes 
 on little Schnitz, who seemed quite mad with joy. 
 
 But after the three new-comers had explained 
 how they managed to arrive so early in the morn- 
 ing, what did Aunt Emma do but pass her hand- 
 bag over to Marta! 
 
 " Take out my caps, child," she said, just as she 
 had always said it before; and Marta opened the 
 bag and took them out, eager to find the gifts she 
 felt sure were stowed among them. 
 
 " One for mother, and one for father, and one for 
 me! " and she held a box with her own name on it 
 high above her head. 
 
 " Let us see what it is, Marta," urged her father, 
 holding his own package unopened; but Marta in- 
 sisted on taking every cap and every gift from the 
 bag before she opened her box. 
 
 Then, while they all waited to see what it held, 
 she took off the paper wrappings, her cheeks grow- 
 ing pinker and pinker all the time. 
 
 At last she lifted the cover, and from everyone 
 rose a cry of surprise and pleasure, for Marta had 
 received her coral necklace. There it lay on its 
 white cushion, a beautiful string of pink beads, 
 matching the pink in her rosy cheeks. 
 
 " Oh, oh, oh! There isn't another girl in all Hol- 
 land so happy as I am to-day," she cried, throwing 
 her arms about Aunt Emma's neck. 
 
IIO MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 But her aunt brushed her off with, " There, 
 there, child! I must put an iron on the stove and 
 press my caps." 
 
 While she did so, all the others began opening 
 and exclaiming over their gifts, and again the little 
 kitchen was filled with noise and confusion. 
 
 But at last Jacob van Vranken took his seat 
 beside the table to watch his sister iron her caps, 
 as he had done once before on that spring day 
 which seemed so long ago. 
 
 " Where have you been all this time, Jacob? " 
 she asked, and looked lovingly at his thin, weather- 
 worn face. 
 
 " It is a long story," he answered. " The others 
 have heard it, — " 
 
 " No, no! " and Jan and Nieltje stood close be- 
 side him, while Uncle Peter urged, " Tell it again. 
 We can't hear it too often." 
 
 " Well, then," he began, " the three of us, 
 Dirck Vroom, Frans Cuyp and I, were out in the 
 small boat setting the trawls, when a dense fog 
 shut down on us and we could not find our way 
 back to the fleet. Before the fog cleared away, a 
 great storm drove us far out into the open sea, and 
 for eleven days we were tossed about at the mercy 
 of the winds and waves, with nothing to eat, and 
 only a small jug of water to drink. 
 
 " When it seemed as if we could not hold out 
 
A SILVER LINING III 
 
 another hour, we were sighted by an ocean steamer 
 on its way from Hammerfest to New York. We 
 were barely alive when it picked us up, and for 
 weeks I lay between life and death in a New York 
 hospital; but my two friends did not have strength 
 enough left to pull through. As soon as I was able 
 I wrote Marta a letter, telling the whole story, and 
 saying I should be at home early in December." 
 
 Vrouw van Vranken nodded her head. " That 
 was the letter that was sent to Rotterdam after 
 us," she said. " The postman told Marta about 
 it only yesterday." 
 
 " It is an ill wind that blows nobody good,' as 
 Marta's motto has it," her father continued, point- 
 ing to the words on the back of the old settle, " and 
 the wind that drove me away from the fleet brought 
 me a wonderful piece of good luck, after all." 
 
 " What was that? " questioned Aunt Emma. 
 
 Her brother crossed the room and took from the 
 cupboard a small leather pouch; then he came 
 back and sat down once more beside the table. 
 
 " The passengers on the steamer that picked us 
 up made up a purse for us," he said, " and when I 
 left the hospital the doctor gave me my share." 
 
 Then he opened the pouch and poured out a 
 shining heap of golden coins. " It is more money 
 than I ever had in my life," he said, and looked 
 into the faces around him with honest pleasure. 
 
112 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 But the little group fell suddenly silent. He had 
 not spoken of this good fortune before, and their 
 hearts were filled with thankfulness too deep for 
 any words. 
 
 " What are you going to do with so much 
 money? " questioned Uncle Peter at last. 
 
 Jacob van Vranken lifted little Betje up on his 
 knee. "lam going to build a boat with it," he 
 said, — "a boat that will take me up to the fishing 
 banks and bring me home again so that I can 
 spend every Sunday with my family." And then, 
 while they all listened eagerly, he told about the 
 motor boats that are being used more and more 
 by the fishermen all along the American coast. 
 
 " So you mean to have a boat with an engine in 
 it," said Aunt Emma, taking up her iron again. 
 " It will look strange chugging across the Zuyder 
 Zee." 
 
 " Not the boat that I mean to have," answered 
 her brother. " If Peter and Hendrik will help me, 
 we will build a boat that will show these Volendam 
 fishers a new way to go fishing." 
 
 " I'll help you gladly," said Uncle Peter heartily. 
 
 " And I," added Hendrik. " We'll build a boat 
 to be proud of." 
 
 " Father," said Jan suddenly, and everyone 
 looked at him, expecting to hear him say that he 
 wished to help build the boat, too. 
 
A SILVER LINING 113 
 
 " Father," he repeated, " I, also, have learned 
 something by going away from home." 
 
 " Now, that is good, too ! " and they all clapped 
 Jan on the back, and laughed, and said one to 
 another that Jan was a boy who would make a 
 place for himself yet. 
 
 " What is it that you have learned, my son? " 
 questioned Vrouw van Vranken, as soon as she 
 could make herself heard in the midst of the noise 
 and confusion. 
 
 " I have learned that I don't want to be a dyke- 
 man," Jan replied. " I would rather learn the 
 cheese business in Alkmaar. It is a good trade for 
 a man." 
 
 " You shall do as you wish," said his father. 
 " And now that you have decided, all our troubles 
 are at an end. Is it not so? " and he pinched the 
 boy's cheek with a smile. 
 
 " How about little me? " spoke up Marta from 
 the settle, where she had gone to look at her beads 
 once more. " Everybody seems to have forgotten 
 me and my little green pig," and she peeped around 
 the corner of the seat to show her merry face. 
 
 " I suppose that means that I must put a stiver 
 into the pig's mouth to keep him quiet," said her 
 father, sweeping the money back into the leather 
 pouch. 
 
 But he took a guilder, instead of a stiver, from his 
 
114 MARTA IN HOLLAND 
 
 pocket, and tossed it into her lap. " Don't let 
 your little pig go hungry another minute," he said. 
 " Now that you have a coral necklace there'll be 
 something more that you want." 
 
 Aunt Emma brought one of her caps to hang 
 beside the fire. " I want Marta to come and live 
 with me this winter," she said. " She can go to 
 school in Haarlem and learn to be industrious. 
 There is a society there which teaches little girls 
 all kinds of industry, and Marta must begin to 
 think about something besides china pigs and coral 
 necklaces." 
 
 " Oh, Aunt Emma! " and Marta slipped the 
 guilder quickly into her bank, and threw her arms 
 about her aunt's neck once more; " that was the 
 only one left of all my three wishes. I wished for 
 a string of coral beads, and I wished for more 
 money for my china pig, and I wished for a chance 
 to go to school; but try as hard as I would, I 
 didn't see how it could all come true." 
 
 " There, there ! everything comes true with a 
 little planning," answered her aunt; but she really 
 meant that every cloud has a silver lining. 
 
PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY 
 AND DICTIONARY 
 
 Alk maar', a town in North Holland. 
 
 Al'va, Duke of, a Spanish general, 1508— 1582. 
 
 Am'stSl, the river on which Amsterdam is situated. 
 
 Am ster dam', a city in North Holland. 
 
 Bgt'je (ye), a girl's name. 
 
 bobmp'jes (yez), little trees. 
 
 dank, thank. 
 
 Dglfs haven, a seaport in South Holland, a suburb of 
 
 Rotterdam. 
 Dglft, a town in South Holland. 
 dub'bSl tje (daib'b'l tye), one-tenth of a guilder; four 
 
 cents, 
 dyk'graaf (dik), an inspector of dykes. 
 E dam (a dam'), a seaport in North Holland, 
 guil der (gil'der), a silver coin worth about forty cents. 
 Haarlem, the capital of the province of North Holland. 
 Hals, Frans, a Dutch portrait painter, 1580— 1666. 
 Huyn (hine), a surname. 
 Ik, I. 
 
 la ra 61s' (es), Josef, a Dutch painter, born in 1824. 
 Jan (yan), John. 
 Joost (yoost), a surname. 
 kin' der meid, a nursemaid for children. 
 klSmp'eu, wooden shoes. 
 klSmp'je (ye), a little shoe. 
 Lei'dgn (li), a manufacturing city of South Holland. 
 
Il6 VOCABULARY 
 
 Maaa, the river on which Rotterdam is situated. 
 
 me vrquw' (frqu), a woman ; a housewife ; Mrs. 
 
 myn heer 7 (har), sir ; Mr. 
 
 N6th'er lands, often called Holland. It comprises eleven 
 provinces, two of which are North and South Holland. 
 
 Nielt je (nelt'ye), a girl's name. 
 
 pof'fert jes (yez), little fried cakes. 
 
 pol'dSr, a tract of low land protected by dykes. 
 
 Rgm'brandt, a Dutch painter, 1606— 1669. 
 
 RSt ter dam', a commercial city of South Holland. 
 
 R^ks, a museum in Amsterdam. 
 
 Sant Nik'laas, the patron saint of children, his birthday 
 is December sixth. 
 
 Schie (Ske), the river on which Delft and Schiedam are 
 situated. 
 
 Schie dam' (ske), a manufacturing town of South Holland. 
 
 Schnltz, a name. 
 
 stiVer, one- twentieth of a guilder ; worth about two cents. 
 
 strdb'l a vSnd, " strewing evening." 
 
 Thobft, a surname. 
 
 Vol en dam', a town on the Zuyder Zee. 
 
 vrouw (frpji), Mrs. 
 
 wn hel mi na (vil hSl me'na), Queen of the Netherlands, 
 born in 1880. 
 
 Wil'liam I, Prince of Orange, called William the Silent ; 
 founder of the Dutch Republic, 1533—1584. 
 
 Zaan dam', a town of North Holland on the River Zaan. 
 
 Zdbn, a surname. 
 
 Zuy'dSr Zee' (ze), a shallow arm of the North Sea, eighty- 
 five miles long and about forty miles wide. 
 
LITTL^fTOFL 
 
 r?> 
 
EVERYWHERE 
 
HliU