him out of school, on account of his patched clothes and scant leather breeches, were forced to yield him the post of honor in nearly every class. It was not long before he was the only youngster in the school who had not stood at least once in the corner of horrors, where hung a dreaded whip, and over it this motto:
"Leer, leer! jou luigaart, of dit endje touw zal je le ren!"6
It was only in winter that Gretel and Hans could be spared to attend school; and for the past month they had been kept at home because their mother needed their services. Raff Brinker required constant attention, and there was black bread to be made, and the house to be kept clean, and stockings and other things to be knitted and sold in the market-place.
While they were busily assisting their mother on this cold December morning, a merry troop of girls and boys came skimming down the canal. There were fine skaters among them, and as the bright medley of costumes flitted by, it looked from a distance as though the ice had suddenly thawed, and some gay tulip-bed were floating along on the current.
There was the rich burgomaster's daughter Hilda van Gleck, with her costly furs and loose-fitting velvet sack; and, near by, a pretty peasant girl, Annie Bouman, jauntily attired in a coarse scarlet jacket and a blue skirt just short enough to display the gray homespun hose to advantage. Then there was the proud Rychie Korbes, whose father, Mynheer van Korbes, was one of the leading men of Amsterdam; and, flocking closely around her, Carl Schummel, Peter and Ludwig7 van Holp, Jacob Poot, and a very small boy rejoicing in the tremendous name of Voostenwalbert Schimmelpenninck. There were nearly twenty other boys and girls in the party, and one and all seemed full of excitement and frolic.
Up and down the canal, within the space of a half mile they skated, exerting their racing powers to the utmost. Often the swiftest among them was seen to dodge from under the very nose of some pompous law-giver or doctor, who with folded arms was skating leisurely toward the town; or a chain of girls would suddenly break at the approach of a fat old burgomaster who, with gold-headed cane poised in air, was puffing his way to Amsterdam. Equipped in skates wonderful to behold, from their superb strappings, and dazzling runners curving over the instep and topped with gilt balls, he would open his fat eyes a little if one of the maidens chanced to drop him a courtesy, but would not dare to bow in return for fear of losing his balance.
Not only pleasure-seekers and stately men of note were upon the canal. There were work-people, with weary eyes, hastening to their shops and factories; market-women with loads upon their heads; peddlers bending with their packs; barge-men with shaggy hair and bleared faces, jostling roughly on their way; kind-eyed clergymen speeding perhaps to the bedsides of the dying; and, after a while, groups of children, with satchels slung over their shoulders, whizzing past, toward the distant school. One and all wore skates excepting, indeed, a muffled-up farmer whose queer cart bumped along on the margin of the canal.
Before long our merry boys and girls were almost lost in the confusion of bright colors, the ceaseless motion, and the gleaming of skates flashing back the sunlight. We might have known no more of them had not the whole party suddenly come to a standstill and, grouping themselves out of the way of the passers-by, all talked at once to a pretty little maiden, whom they had drawn from the tide of people flowing toward the town.
"Oh Katrinka!" they cried, in a breath, "have you heard of it? The race – We want you to join!"
"What race?" asked Katrinka, laughing – "Don't all talk at once, please, I can't understand."
Every one panted and looked at Rychie Korbes, who was their acknowledged spokeswoman.
"Why," said Rychie, "we are to have a grand skating match on the twentieth, on Meurouw8 van Gleck's birthday. It's all Hilda's work. They are going to give a splendid prize to the best skater."
"Yes," chimed in half a dozen voices, "a beautiful pair of silver skates – perfectly magnificent! with, oh! such straps and silver bells and buckles!"
"Who said they had bells?" put in the small voice of the boy with the big name.
"I say so, Master Voost," replied Rychie.
"So they have," – "No, I'm sure they haven't," – "Oh, how can you say so?" – "It's an arrow" – "And Mynheer van Korbes told my mother they had bells," – came from sundry of the excited group; but Mynheer Voostenwalbert Schimmelpenninck essayed to settle the matter with a decisive —
"Well, you don't any of you know a single thing about it; they haven't a sign of a bell on them, they – "
"Oh! oh!" and the chorus of conflicting opinion broke forth again.
"The girls' pair are to have bells," interposed Hilda, quietly, "but there is to be another pair for the boys with an arrow engraved upon the sides."
"There! I told you so!" cried nearly all the youngsters in a breath.
Katrinka looked at them with bewildered eyes.
"Who is to try?" she asked.
"All of us," answered Rychie. "It will be such fun! And you must, too, Katrinka. But it's school time now, we will talk it all over at noon. Oh! you will join of course."
Katrinka, without replying, made a graceful pirouette, and laughing out a coquettish – "Don't you hear the last bell? Catch me!" – darted off toward the schoolhouse, standing half a mile away, on the canal.
All started, pell-mell, at this challenge, but they tried in vain to catch the bright-eyed, laughing creature who, with golden hair streaming in the sunlight, cast back many a sparkling glance of triumph as she floated onward.
Beautiful Katrinka! Flushed with youth and health, all life and mirth and motion, what wonder thine image, ever floating in advance, sped through one boy's dreams that night! What wonder that it seemed his darkest hour when, years afterward, thy presence floated away from him forever.
IV
HANS AND GRETEL FIND A FRIEND
At noon our young friends poured forth from the schoolhouse intent upon having an hour's practicing upon the canal.
They had skated but a few moments when Carl Schummel said mockingly to Hilda:
"There's a pretty pair just coming upon the ice! The little rag-pickers! Their skates must have been a present from the king direct."
"They are patient creatures," said Hilda, gently. "It must have been hard to learn to skate upon such queer affairs. They are very poor peasants, you see. The boy has probably made the skates himself."
Carl was somewhat abashed.
"Patient they may be, but as for skating, they start off pretty well only to finish with a jerk. They could move well to your new staccato piece I think."
Hilda laughed pleasantly and left him. After joining a small detachment of the racers, and sailing past every one of them, she halted beside Gretel who, with eager eyes, had been watching the sport.
"What is your name, little girl?"
"Gretel, my lady," answered the child, somewhat awed by Hilda's rank, though they were nearly of the same age, "and my brother is called Hans."
"Hans is a stout fellow," said Hilda, cheerily, "and seems to have a warm stove somewhere within him, but you look cold. You should
(Learn! learn! you idler, or this rope's end shall teach you.)
Ludwig, Gretel, and Carl were named after German friends. The Dutch form would be Lodewyk, Grietje and Karel.
Mrs. or Madame (pronounced Meffrow).
