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Updated: May 25, 2025
There they were, some of them birthday gifts and Christmases, and he had liked nothing better than a new book which he always carried over to be read in the company. Oh, those years! How the books marked their going! Even way back in his little boyhood! "Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates." He touched its worn blue back and silver letters scarcely discernible. "The Call of the Wild."
That evening Raff Brinker felt so much better that he insisted upon sitting up for a while on the rough high-backed chair by the fire. For a few moments there was quite a commotion in the little cottage. Hans was all-important on the occasion, for his father was a heavy man and needed something firm to lean upon.
On the following day there was not a prouder nor a happier boy in all Holland than Hans Brinker as he watched his sister, with many a dexterous sweep, flying in and out among the skaters who at sundown thronged the canal. A warm jacket had been given her by the kind-hearted Hilda, and the burst-out shoes had been cobbled into decency by Dame Brinker.
Dear me, thought Dame Brinker as she bobbed up and down like a churn dasher, it's lucky I learned to curtsy at Heidelberg! Raff was content to return the boys' salutations with a respectful nod. "Pray be seated, young masters," said the dame as Gretel bashfully thrust a stool at them.
"Then we should have a chapter," said Raff Brinker, speaking slowly and with difficulty. "I do not know how it is. I am very, very weak. Mayhap the minister will read it to us." Gretel lifted the big Dutch Bible from its carved shelf. Dr. Boekman, rather dismayed at being called a minister, coughed and handed the volume to his assistant. "Read," he murmured.
"Aye, but it was of no use," moaned the dame. "'HIDERS make best finders." Hans started. "Do you think the father could tell aught?" "Aye, indeed," said Dame Brinker, nodding her head. "I think so, but that is no sign. I never hold the same belief in the matter two days. Mayhap the father paid it off for the great silver watch we have been guarding since that day. But, no I'll never believe it."
You would have been more so had you been with them on the evening of that merry twentieth of December. To see the Brinker cottage standing sulkily alone on the frozen marsh, with its bulgy, rheumatic-looking walls and its slouched hat of a roof pulled far over its eyes, one would never suspect that a lively scene was passing within.
I said it wasn't for me, a good Hollander, to cheat the laws of my country by helping him off that way, but he kept saying, 'God knows I am innocent! And he looked at me in the starlight as fair, now, and clear-eyed as our little Hans might and I just pulled away faster." "It must have been Jan Kamphuisen's boat," remarked Dame Brinker dryly.
Poor little Gretel! Her home was sad and dark enough now. Raff Brinker lay moaning upon his rough bed, and his vrouw, forgetting and forgiving everything, bathed his forehead, his lips, weeping and praying that he might not die. Hans, as we know, had started in desperation for Leyden to search for Dr. Boekman and induce him, if possible, to come to their father at once.
One snowy day in January Laurens Boekman went with his father to pay his respects to the Brinker family. Raff was resting after the labors of the day; Gretel, having filled and lighted his pipe, was brushing every speck of ash from the hearth; the dame was spinning; and Hans, perched upon a stool by the window, was diligently studying his lessons.
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