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There'll be some stout fellows to greet me. Jan Kamphuisen and young Hoogsvliet. They have been good friends to thee, Hans, I'll warrant." Hans looked at his mother. Young Hoogsvliet had been dead five years. Jan Kamphuisen was in the jail at Amsterdam. "Aye, they'd have done their share no doubt," said Dame Brinker, parrying the inquiry, "had we asked them.
George was not afraid of tainted money, and the school got a new library, which included "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn," as well as "Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates" for the boys, and all the "Pansy" books for the girls. It was a quaint old lot of books, and George Kirwin was nearly a year getting it together.
So saying, the good woman bustled into the cottage. She soon came out again, but Hans had forgotten to wait, and the rabbit, after taking a cool survey of the premises, had scampered off to unknown quarters. Turning the corner of the cottage, Dame Brinker came upon the children. Hans and Gretel were standing before Annie, who was seated carelessly upon a stump.
Their adventures for the evening were unfortunately not yet at an end; for just as they entered Tower Street they saw Henry Brinker, one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber to the Duke of York. Now it happened this courtier had been dining with a citizen of worth and wealth, whose house he was about to leave the moment the maids of honour drove by.
"Hear the man!" Dame Brinker laughed "talking like any other Christian! Why, you're only weak from the fever, Raff. Here's the chair, all fixed snug and warm. Now, sit thee down hi-di-didy there we are!" With these words Dame Brinker let her half of the burden settle slowly into the chair. Hans prudently did the same.
Dame Brinker hurried to her husband's bedside, leaned over him, and fell into silent but passionate weeping. In a moment Hans entered. "Why, Mother," he whispered in alarm, "what ails thee? Is the father worse?" She turned her quivering face toward him, making no attempt to conceal her distress. "Yes. He is starving perishing. A meester said it." Hans turned pale. "What does this mean, Mother?
"Never!" cried Dame Brinker, taking the last stitch from her needle with a jerk and laying the unfinished knitting heavily upon her lap. "There is no chance! One thousand guilders and all gone in a day! One thousand guilders. Oh, what ever DID become of them? If they went in an evil way, the thief would have confessed it on his dying bed. He would not dare to die with such guilt on his soul!"
Mother!" cried Gretel in high glee, "soon you will be busied with the father, and now you are only knitting. Do tell us all about Saint Nicholas!" Dame Brinker laughed to see Hans hang up his hat and prepare to listen. "Nonsense, children," she said. "I have told it to you often." "Tell us again!
And how they shall yet brighten and droop at the coming of one whom she knows of now only as the boy who wore a red cap on that wonderful day when she found the silver skates in her apron! But the doctor and Laurens are going. Dame Brinker is making her best curtsy. Raff stands beside her, looking every inch a man as he grasps the meester's hand.
Dame Brinker and her children had a fine supper, I can assure you. No need of saving the delicacies now. "We'll get Father some nice fresh things tomorrow," Dame Brinker said as she brought forth cold meat, wine, bread, and jelly, and placed them on the clean pine table. "Sit by, children, sit by."
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