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Updated: May 3, 2025
At breakfast Nanking found upon his bench a beautiful new gun. "It is thine, good child," said Ffob Oothout, "for sparing me those lashes. Thy churlish uncle felt so reproved by thy innocent words that he set me free. Widow, here is a spiegel for thee, a looking-glass to see, unseen, whoever passes up or down the street. That is a woman's high privilege everywhere.
Among these sages the veteran navigator, Hans Reinier Oothout, who had made such extensive discoveries during the time of Oloffe the Dreamer, was looked up to as an oracle in all matters of the kind; and he was ready to produce the very spy-glass with which he first spied the mouth of the Connecticut river from his masthead, and all the world knows that the discovery of the mouth of the river gives prior right to all the lands drained by its waters.
"Let him lose no time," muttered Ffob Oothout; "the English have doomed these Western Netherlands!" Amidst the festivity Nanking was in a condition of despair. He had seen Elsje on the street and she turned up her nose at him. Christmas was only one day off, and Santa Claus, the Swede boys insisted, never came to the sorrowing shores of New Amstel. "My uncle Gerrit was right," thought Nanking.
The room rang with the cry, "Incurable idiot!" and Gerrit Van Swearingen cried louder than any, "Go drown thyself, and spare thy mother shame!" "Then I shall not marry Elsje?" exclaimed Nanking, bursting into tears. "No!" stormed Peter Alrichs; "thou shalt marry a calf. Away!" When Nanking arrived home he found his mother sitting very close to Ffob Oothout. He told his tale with a broken heart.
Thou shalt be, erelong, the best-dressed wife in all New Amstel. Nanking, wouldst thou like to have a father?" "I would like you, Ffob Oothout, for a father." "Widow," said Ffob, "he has popped the question for me; wilt thou take an old pirate for thy man?" "They are all pirates here," replied the blushing widow, "and thou art the best pirate or man I have seen."
And when the Blue Cock comes to port you shall have more petticoats and high-heeled shoes than any beauty in New Amstel." Ffob Oothout stole a couple of kisses from the widow, like a bold sailor-man, and she promised that he should lodge in the river end of the Amsterdam warehouse. For the rest of that afternoon Nanking carried Elsje's beautiful doll, and his feelings were very much comforted.
This being admitted, the veteran Oothout, at a concerted signal, stepped forth in the assembly with the identical tarpaulin spy-glass in his hand with which he had discovered the mouth of the Connecticut, while the worthy Dutch commissioners lolled back in their chairs, secretly chuckling at the idea of having for once got the weather-gauge of the Yankees, but what was their dismay when the latter produced a Nantucket whaler with a spy-glass, twice as long, with which he discovered the whole coast, quite down to the Manhattoes: and so crooked that he had spied with it up the whole course of the Connecticut river.
Yet, surely Santa Claus had been there. After a time Nanking opened the top and side of this chimney as if they were two doors. He found it packed with goods of all kinds a ton at least. "I will run and awaken my mother," he thought. "But no. Did not Ffob Oothout tell me to blab no secrets and shut my teeth tight? I will tell nobody.
Ffob Oothout went around amongst the Swedes and the citizen Dutch, and prepared them to take the matter reasonably. One day in October of that same wonderful year, 1664, two mighty vessels of war, flying the English flag, came to anchor off New Amstel and the fort. They parleyed with the citizens for a surrender, and Ffob Oothout conducted the negotiations.
"No," cried Nanking, "I have yet the gifts of Santa Claus which I took from that chimney on the night before Christmas. Yours, father, may be burnt. Mine are all safe!" He sailed his father and mother to the island since called the Pea Patch, and Ffob Oothout recognized his property. "Wonderful Nanking!" he cried, "thy faith was all the wisdom we had. God protects the simple!
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