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Updated: May 20, 2025
"Father De Smet told me especially to keep away from Netteke's hind legs." "Pooh!" said Jan; "he didn't tell me that. I'm not afraid of any mule alive. I guess if I can harness a horse and drive home a load of grain from the field, there isn't much I can't do with a mule!" To prove his words he shouted "U U" at Netteke and slapped her flank with a long branch of willow.
And that is how it happened that, when she trudged off with her barrow the next morning, the Twins ran down to the boat and spent the day rolling on the grass with the babies, and helping Father De Smet and Joseph to load the boat with bags of potatoes which had been brought to the dock in the night by neighboring farmers.
In the winter months the coast of Flanders is bleak and stormy, but the air in these solitudes is as health-giving as in any other part of Europe. Of late years the Government, represented by Comte de Smet de Naeyer, has bestowed much attention on the development of the littoral, and King Leopold II. has applied his great business talents to the subject.
This over ornate chef d'oeuvre was designed by Lancelot Blondel and Guyot de Beauregrant, and its carving was the combined work of three craftsmen celebrated in their day, Herman Glosencamp, André Rash and Roger de Smet.
"Can't you think of anything mulisher than a mule?" he said. "There isn't a thing," answered his father. "Well," answered Joseph, "there are a whole lot of other things beside balky mules in this world that I wish had never been made. There are spiders, and rats, and Germans. They are all pests. I don't see why they were ever born." Father De Smet became serious at once.
Already England had begun to organize for the relief of the Belgian refugees, and it was in the office of the British Consul at Rotterdam that Father De Smet finally took leave of Jan and Marie.
Jan clattered at once across the deck to Father De Smet, and Marie gladly followed his wife to the open space in front of the cabin where the babies had room to roll about. Half an hour later, when Mother De Smet went back to get some potatoes for the soup, she found Jan proudly steering the boat by himself. "Oh, my soul!" she cried in astonishment.
Much in the same spirit, Father Smet writes "The Indians are in general little known in the civilized world. People judge by those whom they see on the frontiers, the mere wrecks and remnants of once powerful tribes. Among these the 'fire-water' and the degrading vices of the whites have wrought sad ruin.
"Get aboard! Get aboard!" Joseph and Jan instantly stopped the mule and, dropping the reins, raced up the gangplank, almost before the end of it rested safely on the ground. Father De Smet snatched up the reins. On went the boat at Netteke's best speed, which seemed no better than a snail's pace to the fleeing family.
When it passed out of sight, it seemed as if the voice of the city itself must rise in anguish at the terrible destruction left in its wake. Just what that destruction was, Father De Smet did not wish to see. "This is a good place to get away from," he said to the frightened group cowering on the deck of the "Old Woman" after the bright terror had disappeared.
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