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Updated: September 3, 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.
When Trientje saw her sister coming home in the distance, she put out her little arms and then would not let her go. For mother, Horieneke had to wash the dishes, darn the stockings and, when the baby cried, sit for hours rocking it in the cradle or dandling it on her lap, like a little young mother.
Then she drew him closer to her and whispered: "Mother said I might stay at home and help her ... and afterwards, when I am grown up ... I shall become a nun, Doorke, in a convent; but first mother must get another baby, a new Horieneke.... And you?" The boy didn't know. "And you, Doorke, must learn to be a priest; then you and I will both go to Heaven."
The hostess of "The Four Winds" had been unable to take her eyes off Horieneke all through mass. "Damned pretty, like a little angel!" said Stiene Sagaer. "And a curly head of hair like a ball of gold! It made one's mouth water! And that wreath!" squealed the farmer's wife from the Rent Farm. "Mam'selle Julie had a hand in it." "And such pretty manners!
On the way, Horieneke came upon her brothers playing in the sand. They had scooped it up in their wooden shoes and poured it into a heap in the middle of the road and then wetted it; and now they were boring all sorts of holes in it and tunnels and passages and making it into a rats'-castle. She let them be, gathered up her little skirts, so as not to dirty them, and passed by on one side.
The boys, in their new red-brown, fustian breeches, standing stiff with the tailor's crease in them, and their thick, wide jackets and shiny hats, held father's hand or skipped round Horieneke, whom they could not admire enough. In the village square they hid themselves and went to the booth to see how they could best spend their pennies.
She took off her hooded cloak, put on a clean apron and turned up her sleeves. Horieneke was washed all over again while mother poured out the coffee. Then they sat down. Horieneke kept her lips tight-closed so as not to forget that she must remain fasting. She slowly pulled on her new stockings and stretched out her hand to the bench on which the white slippers lay.
Horieneke suddenly appeared in the middle of the floor in her little nightgown; and, before father and mother had got over their surprise, the child was on her knees, asking: "Forgive me, father and mother, for all the wrong that I have done you in my life; and I promise you now to be always good and obedient...."
Mother called her and Horieneke came down. Mam'selle Julie was there, who had promised to come and curl the child's hair. Mam'selle put on a great apron and began to undress Horieneke; then a great tub of rain-water was carried in and the girl was scrubbed and washed with scented soap till the whole tub was full of suds.
Mother's heavy shoes clattered over the floor outside and in again; she put on and took off the iron pots with the goats' food, drew fresh water and made the coffee. Mam'selle Julie was coming along the rough road. "You're in good time!" cried mother from the doorway. "Good-morning, Frazie. Up already, Horieneke? It'll be a fine day to-day."
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