On the Way to Haarlem

On approaching the door of the farmhouse the boys suddenly found themselves in the midst of a lively domestic scene. A burly Dutchman came rushing out, closely followed by his dear vrouw, and she was beating him smartly with her long-handled warming pan. The expression on her face gave our boys so little promise of a kind reception that they prudently resolved to carry their toes elsewhere to be warmed.

The next cottage proved to be more inviting. Its low roof of bright red tiles extended over the cow stable that, clean as could be, nestled close to the main building. A neat, peaceful-looking old woman sat at one window, knitting. At the other could be discerned part of the profile of a fat figure that, pipe in mouth, sat behind the shining little panes and snowy curtain. In answer to Peter’s subdued knock, a fair-haired, rosy-cheeked lass in holiday attire opened the upper half of the green door (which was divided across the middle) and inquired their errand.

“May we enter and warm ourselves, jufvrouw?” asked the captain respectfully.

“Yes, and welcome,” was the reply as the lower half of the door swung softly toward its mate. Every boy, before entering, rubbed long and faithfully upon the rough mat, and each made his best bow to the old lady and gentleman at the window. Ben was half inclined to think that these personages were automata like the moving figures in the garden at Broek; for they both nodded their heads slowly, in precisely the same way, and both went on with their employment as steadily and stiffly as though they worked by machinery. The old man puffed, puffed, and his vrouw clicked her knitting needles, as if regulated by internal cog wheels. Even the real smoke issuing from the motionless pipe gave no convincing proof that they were human.

But the rosy-cheeked maiden. Ah, how she bustled about. How she gave the boys polished high-backed chairs to sit upon, how she made the fire blaze as if it were inspired, how she made Jacob Poot almost weep for joy by bringing forth a great square of gingerbread and a stone jug of sour wine! How she laughed and nodded as the boys ate like wild animals on good behavior, and how blank she looked when Ben politely but firmly refused to take any black bread and Sauerkraut! How she pulled off Jacob’s mitten, which was torn at the thumb, and mended it before his eyes, biting off the thread with her white teeth, and saying “Now it will be warmer” as she bit; and finally, how she shook hands with every boy in turn and, throwing a deprecating glance at the female automaton, insisted upon filling their pockets with gingerbread!

All this time the knitting needles clicked on, and the pipe never missed a puff.

When the boys were fairly on their way again, they came in sight of the Zwanenburg Castle with its massive stone front, and its gateway towers, each surmounted with a sculptured swan.

“Halfweg, boys,” said Peter, “off with your skates.”

“You see,” explained Lambert to his companions, “the Y and the Haarlem Lake meeting here make it rather troublesome. The river is five feet higher than the land, so we must have everything strong in the way of dikes and sluice gates, or there would be wet work at once. The sluice arrangements are supposed to be something extra. We will walk over them and you shall see enough to make you open your eyes. The spring water of the lake, they say, has the most wonderful bleaching powers of any in the world; all the great Haarlem bleacheries use it. I can’t say much upon that subject, but I can tell you ONE thing from personal experience.”

“What is that?”

“Why, the lake is full of the biggest eels you ever saw. I’ve caught them here, often – perfectly prodigious! I tell you they’re sometimes a match for a fellow; they’d almost wriggle your arm from the socket if you were not on your guard. But you’re not interested in eels, I perceive. The castle’s a big affair, isn’t it?”

“Yes. What do those swans mean? Anything?” asked Ben, looking up at the stone gate towers.

“The swan is held almost in reverence by us Hollanders. These give the building its name – Zwanenburg, swan castle. That is all I know. This is a very important spot; for it is here that the wise ones hold council with regard to dike matters. The castle was once the residence of the celebrated Christian Brunings.”

“What about HIM?” asked Ben.

“Peter could answer you better than I,” said Lambert, “if you could only understand each other, or were not such cowards about leaving your mother tongues. But I have often heard my grandfather speak of Brunings. He is never tired of telling us of the great engineer – how good he was and how learned and how, when he died, the whole country seemed to mourn as for a friend. He belonged to a great many learned societies and was at the head of the State Department intrusted with the care of the dikes and other defences against the sea. There’s no counting the improvements he made in dikes and sluices and water mills and all that kind of thing. We Hollanders, you know, consider our great engineers as the highest of public benefactors. Brunings died years ago; they’ve a monument to his memory in the cathedral of Haarlem. I have seen his portrait, and I tell you, Ben, he was right noble-looking. No wonder the castle looks so stiff and proud. It is something to have given shelter to such a man!”

“Yes, indeed,” said Ben. “I wonder, Van Mounen, whether you or I will ever give any old building a right to feel so proud. Heigh-ho! There’s a great deal to be done yet in this world and some of us, who are boys now, will have to do it. Look to your shoe latchet, Van. It’s unfastened.”

A Catastrophe

It was nearly one o’clock when Captain van Holp and his command entered the grand old city of Haarlem. They had skated nearly seventeen miles since morning and were still as fresh as young eagles. From the youngest (Ludwig van Holp, who was just fourteen) to the eldest, no less a personage than the captain himself, a veteran of seventeen, there was but one opinion – that this was the greatest frolic of their lives. To be sure, Jacob Poot had become rather short of breath during the last mile of two, and perhaps he felt ready for another nap, but there was enough jollity in him yet for a dozen. Even Carl Schummel, who had become very intimate with Ludwig during the excursion, forgot to be ill-natured. As for Peter, he was the happiest of the happy and had sung and whistled so joyously while skating that the staidest passersby had smiled as they listened.

“Come, boys! It’s nearly tififn hour,” he said as they neared a coffeehouse on the main street. “We must have something more solid than the pretty maiden’s gingerbread,” – and the captain plunged his hands into his pockets as if to say, “There’s money enough here to feed an army!”

“Halloo!” cried Lambert. “What ails the man?”

Peter, pale and staring, was clapping his hands upon his breast and sides. He looked like one suddenly becoming deranged.

“He’s sick!” cried Ben.

“No, he’s lost something,” said Carl.

Peter could only gasp, “The pocketbook with all our money in it – it’s gone!”

For an instant all were too much startled to speak.

Carl at last came out with a gruff, “No sense in letting one fellow have all the money. I said so from the first. Look in your other pocket.”

“I did. It isn’t there.”

“Open your underjacket.”

Peter obeyed mechanically. He even took off his hat and looked into it, then thrust his hand desperately into every pocket.

“It’s gone, boys,” he said at last in a hopeless tone. “No tififn for us, nor dinner, either. What is to be done? We can’t get on without money. If we were in Amsterdam, I could get as much as we want, but there is not a man in Haarlem from whom I can borrow a stiver. Doesn’t one of you know anyone here who would lend us a few guilders?”

Each boy looked into five blank faces. Then something like a smile passed around the circle, but it got sadly knotted up when it reached Carl.

“That wouldn’t do,” he said crossly. “I know some people here, rich ones, too, but father would flog me soundly if I borrowed a cent from anyone. He has ‘An honest man need not borrow’ written over the gateway of his summer house.”

“Humph!” responded Peter, not particularly admiring the sentiment just at that moment.

The boys grew desperately hungry at once.

“It wash my fault,” said Jacob, in a penitent tone, to Ben. “I say first, petter all de boys put zair pursh into Van Holp’s monish.”

“Nonsense, Jacob. You did it all for the best.”

Ben said this in such a sprightly tone that the two Van Holps and Carl felt sure that he had proposed a plan that would relieve the party at once.

“What? what? Tell us, Van Mounen,” they cried.

“He says it is not Jacob’s fault that the money is lost – that he did it for the best when he proposed that Van Holp should put all of our money into his purse.”

“Is that all?” said Ludwig dismally. “He need not have made such a fuss in just saying THAT. How much money have we lost?”

“Don’t you remember?” said Peter. “We each put in exactly ten guilders. The purse had sixty guilders in it. I am the stupidest fellow in the world; little Schimmelpenninck would have made you a better captain. I could pommel myself for bringing such a disappointment upon you.”

“Do it, then,” growled Carl. “Pooh,” he added, “we all know that it was an accident, but that doesn’t help matters. We must have money, Van Holp – even if you have to sell your wonderful watch.”

“Sell my mother’s birthday present! Never! I will sell my coat, my hat, anything but my watch.”

“Come, come,” said Jacob pleasantly, “we are making too much of this affair. We can go home and start again in a day or two.”

“YOU may be able to get another ten-guilder piece,” said Carl, “but the rest of us will not find it so easy. If we go home, we stay home, you may depend.”

Our captain, whose good nature had not yet forsaken him for a moment, grew indignant.

“Do you think that I will let you suffer for my carelessness?” he exclaimed. “I have three times sixty guilders in my strong box at home!”

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Carl hastily, adding in a surlier tone, “Well, I see no better way than to go back hungry.”

“I see a better plan than that,” said the captain.

“What is it?” cried all the boys.

“Why, to make the best of a bad business and go back pleasantly and like men,” said Peter, looking so gallant and handsome as he turned his frank face and clear blue eyes upon them that they caught his spirit.

“Ho for the captain!” they shouted.

“Now, boys, we may as well make up our minds, there’s no place like Broek, after all – and that we mean to be there in two hours. Is that agreed to?”

“Agreed!” cried all as they ran to the canal.

“On with your skates! Are you ready? Here, Jacob, let me help you.”

“Now. One, two, three, start!”

And the boyish faces that left Haarlem at that signal were nearly as bright as those that had entered it with Captain Peter half an hour before.