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Updated: May 25, 2025
"May Heaven bless you, too, mynheer, and may you soon find the young gentleman," said Dame Brinker earnestly, after hurriedly wiping her eyes upon the corner of her apron. Raff uttered a hearty, "Amen!" and Gretel threw such a wistful, eager glance at the doctor that he patted her head as he turned to leave the cottage. Hans went out also. "When I can serve you, mynheer, I am ready."
"Aye, like enough. How long did the money last, Hans? I could not hear your mother. What did she say?" "I said, Raff," stammered Dame Brinker in great distress, "that it was all gone." "Well, well, wife, do not fret at that; one thousand guilders is not so very much for ten years and with children to bring up... but it has helped to make you all comfortable. Have you had much sickness to bear?"
I declare, Mother, the bodice is tight for you. You're growing! You're surely growing!" Dame Brinker laughed. "This was made long ago, lovey, when I wasn't much thicker about the waist than a churn dasher. And how do you like the cap?" she asked, turning her head from side to side. "Oh, EVER so much, Mother. It's b-e-a-u-tiful! See, the father is looking!" Was the father looking?
"I will," he answered, and the light from his clear blue eyes seemed to settle and sparkle under Annie's lashes. Dame Brinker was delighted at the sight of so much silver, but when she learned that Hans had parted with his treasures to obtain it, she sighed and then exclaimed, "Bless thee, child! That will be a sore loss for thee!"
Meanwhile Gretel looked on in trembling silence, but when she saw the doctor open a leather case and take out one sharp, gleaming instrument after another, she sprang forward. "Oh, Mother! The poor father meant no wrong. Are they going to MURDER him?" "I do not know, child," screamed Dame Brinker, looking fiercely at Gretel. "I do not know." "This will not do, jufvrouw," said Dr.
Certain it is that our eccentric doctor looked hurriedly about him, muttered something about "an extraordinary case," bowed, and disappeared before Dame Brinker had time to say another word. Strange that the visit of their good benefactor should have left a cloud, yet so it was. Gretel frowned, an anxious, childish frown, and kneaded the bread dough violently without looking up.
"It might be, Raff," persisted Dame Brinker timidly, "that the meester knows somebody in that country, though I'm told they are mostly savages over there. If he could get the watch to the Boomphoffens with the poor lad's message, it would be a most blessed thing." "Tut, vrouw, why pester the good meester, and dying men and women wanting him everywhere? How do ye know ye have the true name?"
She was so sleepy that it seemed nothing strange to her that Hilda van Gleck should be leaning over her, looking with kind, beautiful eyes into her face. She had often dreamed it before. But she had never dreamed that Hilda was shaking her roughly, almost dragging her by main force; never dreamed that she heard her saying, "Gretel! Gretel Brinker! You MUST wake!" This was real. Gretel looked up.
At last he said, "Ah, I remember this! Why, you've been rubbing it, vrouw, till it shines like a new guilder." "Aye," said Dame Brinker, nodding her head complacently. Raff looked at it again. "Poor boy!" he murmured, then fell into a brown study. This was too much for the dame. "'Poor boy!" she echoed, somewhat tartly.
They had scarcely cared to eat during the past few days, scarcely realized their condition. Dame Brinker had felt so sure that she and the children could earn money before the worst came that she had given herself up to the joy of her husband's recovery. She had not even told Hans that the few pieces of silver in the old mitten were quite gone.
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