Annie laughed, "Yes, I know him, and it's all the worse for him that I do. Now, please, Hans, don't ever talk any more to me about Janzoon. I hate him!""Hate him! YOU hate anybody, Annie?"She shook her head saucily. "Yes, and I'll hate you, too, if you persist in calling him one of my friends. You boys may like him because he caught the greased goose at the kermis last summer and climbed the pole with his great, ugly body tied up in a sack, but I don't care for such things. I've disliked him ever since Isaw him try to push his little sister out of the merry-go-round at Amsterdam, and it's no secret up OUR way who killed the stork on your mother's roof. But we mustn't talk about such a bad, wicked fellow. Really, Hans, I know somebody who would be glad to buy your skates. You won't get half a price for them in Amsterdam. Please give them to me. I'll take you the money this very afternoon."If Annie was charming even when she said HATE, there was no withstanding her when she said PLEASE; at least Hans found it to be so.
"Annie," he said, taking off the skates and rubbing them carefully with a snarl of twine before handing them to her, "I am sorry to be so particular, but if your friend should not want them, will you bring them back to me today? I must buy peat and meal for the mother early tomorrow morning.""My friend WILL want them," Annie laughed, nodding gaily, and skated off at the top of her speed.
As Hans drew forth the wooden "runners" from his capricious pockets and fastened them on as best he could, he did not hear Annie murmur, "I wish I had not been so rude. Poor, brave Hans.
What a noble boy he is!" And as Annie skated homeward, filled with pleasant thoughts, she did not hear Hans say, "I grumbled like a bear. But bless her! Some girls are like angels!"Perhaps it was all for the best. One cannot be expected to know everything that is going on around the world.
Looking For WorkLuxuries unfit us for returning to hardships easily endured before. The wooden runners squeaked more than ever. It was as much as Hans could do to get on with the clumsy old things;still, he did not regret that he had parted with his beautiful skates, but resolutely pushed back the boyish trouble that he had not been able to keep them just a little longer, at least until after the race.
Mother surely will not be angry with me, he thought, for selling them without her leave. She has had care enough already. It will be full time to speak of it when I take home the money.
Hans went up and down the streets of Amsterdam that day, looking for work. He succeeded in earning a few stivers by assisting a man who was driving a train of loaded mules into the city, but he could not secure steady employment anywhere. He would have been glad to obtain a situation as porter or errand boy, but though he passed on his way many a loitering shuffling urchin, laden with bundles, there was no place for him. Some shopkeepers had just supplied themselves; others needed a trimmer, more lightly built fellow (they meant better dressed but did not choose to say so);others told him to call again in a month or two, when the canals would probably be broken up; and many shook their heads at him without saying a word.
At the factories he met with no better luck. It seemed to him that in those great buildings, turning out respectively such tremendous quantities of woolen, cotton, and linen stuffs, such world-renowned dyes and paints, such precious diamonds cut from the rough, such supplies of meal, of bricks, of glass and china--that in at least one of these, a strong-armed boy, able and eager to work, could find something to do. But no--nearly the same answer met him everywhere. No need of more hands just now. If he had called before Saint Nicholas's Day they might have given him a job as they were hurried then; but at present they had more boys than they needed. Hans wished they could see, just for a moment, his mother and Gretel. He did not know how the anxiety of both looked out from his eyes, and how, more than once, the gruffest denials were uttered with an uncomfortable consciousness that the lad ought not be turned away. Certain fathers, when they went home that night, spoke more kindly than usual to their youngsters, from memory of a frank, young face saddened at their words, and before morning one man actually resolved that he would instruct his head man Blankert to set the boy from Broek at something if he should come in again.
But Hans knew nothing of all this. Toward sundown he started on his return to Broek, uncertain whether the strange, choking sensation in his throat arose from discouragement or resolution.
There was certainly one more chance. Mynheer van Holp might have returned by this time. Master Peter, it was reported, had gone to Haarlem the night before to attend to something connected with the great skating race. Still, Hans would go and try.
Fortunately Peter had returned early that morning. He was at home when Hans reached there and was just about starting for the Brinker cottage.
"Ah, Hans!" he cried as the weary boy approached the door. "You are the very one I wished to see. "You are the very one I wished to see. Come in and warm yourself."After tugging at his well-worn hat, which always WOULD stick to his head when he was embarrassed, Hans knelt down, not by way of making a new style of oriental salute, nor to worship the goddess of cleanliness who presided there, but because his heavy shoes would have filled the soul of a Broek housewife with horror. When their owner stepped softly into the house, they were left outside to act as sentinels until his return.
Hans left the Van Holp mansion with a lightened heart. Peter had brought word from Haarlem that young Brinker was to commence working upon the summer-house doors immediately. There was a comfortable workshop on the place and it was to be at his service until the carving was done.
