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Updated: June 9, 2025
Mother was busy with the baby in the cradle; Horieneke was showing her new holy pictures to Trientje; and Bertje and the other boys had gone out to play in the road. The bells rang again, this time for high mass. Many small things had still to be rummaged out, clothes to be pinned and buttoned; and the boys, with their Sunday penny in their pocket, marched up the wide road to high mass.
Fonske hid his in the drawer, next to the canary-seed, Dolfke his in the cupboard and Bertje shoved his portion into his pockets. It was not long before three or four of them were fighting like thieves and robbers, while Stanse and Frazie went to look at the baby, which lay sleeping quietly in the cradle. First one more drop of cherry-gin apiece and then to dinner.
Cousin stood staring bashfully amid all those peasant-lads and all that jollity, while Bertje, Fonske and the others too did not come near, but stood looking at the little gentleman with his fine clothes and his thin, peaky face; they trotted and turned, whispered to one another, went outside and came back again, laughed and said nothing. "But the first-communicant!
Bertje stood erect and issued his commands: all the boys must get out; he would remain sitting on the front seat, with Horieneke and Doorke side by side behind him, between two leafy branches, like a bride and bridegroom! Fonske cut two branches from an alder-tree and fastened them to either side of the cart.
The other youngsters had now eaten their fill and began to feel terribly bored at table. Bertje gave Fonske a kick on the shin and they went outside together, whispering like boys with some roguery in view. Wartje, Dolfke and the others followed them outside. When it was all well planned, they beckoned behind the door to Doorke; and, when the little man came out at last: "Is it true, Doorke?
Doorke did the same with the other dog and with the third; and they were now all three harnessed. Bertje took the cart by the shafts and drew it very softly, without a sound, under the windows and through the little gate into the road. The other boys bit their fingers, held their breaths and followed on tip-toe.
"Father, we've been out with cousin," said Bertje. They had to take their coffee and their cakebread-and-butter in a hurry: it was time to put the dogs in, said uncle. Doorke said they were put in. Frazie helped her sister on with her things: "You'll find the looking-glass hanging in the window, Stanse. I must go and put on another skirt too and come a bit of the way with you."
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