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HANS BRINKER OR THE SILVER SKATES
HANS BRINKER OR THE SILVER SKATES MARY MAPES DODGE To my father
James J. Mapes
this book is dedicated
in gratitude and love
Preface
This little work aims to combine the instructive features of a
book of travels with the interest of a domestic tale. Throughout
its pages the descriptions of Dutch localities customs and
general characteristics have been given with scrupulous care.
Many of its incidents are drawn from life and the story of Raff
Brinker is founded strictly upon fact.
While acknowledging my obligations to many well-known writers on
Dutch history literature and art I turn with especial
gratitude to those kind Holland friends who with generous zeal
have taken many a backward glance at their country for my sake
seeing it as it looked twenty years ago when the Brinker home
stood unnoticed in sunlight and shadow.
Should this simple narrative serve to give my young readers a
just idea of Holland and its resources or present true pictures
of its inhabitants and their every-day life or free them from
certain current prejudices concerning that noble and enterprising
people the leading desire in writing it will have been
satisfied.
Should it cause even one heart to feel a deeper trust in God's
goodness and love or aid any in weaving a life wherein through
knots and entanglements the golden thread shall never be
tarnished or broken the prayer with which it was begun and ended
will have been answered.
--M.M.D.
A LETTER FROM HOLLAND
Amsterdam July 30 1873
DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS AT HOME:
If you all could be here with me today what fine times we might
have walking through this beautiful Dutch city! How we should
stare at the crooked houses standing with their gable ends to
the street; at the little slanting mirrors fastened outside of
the windows; at the wooden shoes and dogcarts nearby; the
windmills in the distance; at the great warehouses; at the
canals doing the double duty of streets and rivers and at the
singular mingling of trees and masts to be seen in every
direction. Ah it would be pleasant indeed! But here I sit in
a great hotel looking out upon all these things knowing quite
well that not even the spirit of the Dutch which seems able to
accomplish anything can bring you at this moment across the
moment. There is one comfort however in going through these
wonderful Holland towns without you--it would be dreadful to have
any of the party tumble into the canals; and then these lumbering
Dutch wagons with their heavy wheels so very far apart; what
should I do if a few dozen of you were to fall under THEM? And
perhaps one of the wildest of my boys might harm a stork and
then all Holland would be against us! No. It is better as it
is. You will be coming one by one as years go on to see the
whole thing for yourselves.
Holland is as wonderful today as it was when more than twenty
years ago Hans and Gretel skated on the frozen Y. In fact
more wonderful for every day increases the marvel of its not
being washed away by the sea. Its cities have grown and some of
its peculiarities have been washed away by contact with other
nations; but it is Holland still and always will be--full of
oddity courage and industry--the pluckiest little country on
earth. I shall not tell you in this letter of its customs its
cities its palaces churches picture galleries and museums--for
these are described in the story--except to say that they are
here still just the same in this good year 1873 for I have
seen them nearly all within a week.
Today an American boy and I seeing some children enter an old
house in the business part of Amsterdam followed them in--and
what do you think we found? An old woman here in the middle of
summer selling hot water and fire! She makes her living by it.
All day long she sits tending her great fires of peat and keeping
the shining copper tanks above them filled with water. The
children who come and go carry away in a curious stone pail their
kettle of boiling water and their blocks of burning peat. For
these they give her a Dutch cent which is worth less than half
of one of ours. In this way persons who cannot afford to keep a
fire burning in hot weather may yet have their cup of tea or
coffee and bit of boiled fish and potato.
After leaving the old fire woman who nodded a pleasant good-bye
to us and willingly put our stivers in her great outside pocket
we drove through the streets enjoying the singular sights of a
public washing day. Yes in certain quarters of the city away
from the canals the streets were lively with washerwomen hard at
work. Hundreds of them in clumsy wooden shoes with their
tucked-up skirts bare arms and close-fitting caps were bending
over tall wooden tubs that reached as high as their
waists--gossiping and rubbing rubbing and gossiping--with
perfect unconcern in the public thoroughfare and all washing
with cold water instead of using hot as we do. What a grand
thing it would be for our old fire woman if boiling water were
suddenly to become the fashion on these public washing days!
And now goodbye. Oh! I must tell you one more thing. We found
today in an Amsterdam bookstore this story of Hans Brinker told
in Dutch. It is a queer-looking volume beautifully printed and
with colored pictures but filled with such astounding words that
it really made me feel sorry for the little Hollanders who are to
read them.
Good-bye again in the touching words of our Dutch translator
with whom I'm sure you'll heartily agree: Toch ben ik er mijn
landgenooten dank baar voor die mijn arbeid steeds zoo
welwillend outvangen en wier genegenheid ik voortdurend hoop te
verdienen.
Yours affectionately
The Author.
Contents
Hans and Gretel
Holland
The Silver Skates
Hans and Gretel Find a Friend
Shadows in the Home
Sunbeams
Hans Has His Way
Introducing Jacob Poot and His Cousin
The Festival of Saint Nicholas
What the Boys Saw and Did in Amsterdam
Big Manias and Little Oddities
On the Way to Haarlem
A Catastrophe
Hans
Homes
Haarlem--The Boys Hear Voices
The Man with Four Heads
Friends in Need
On the Canal
Jacob Poot Changes the Plan
Mynheer Kleef and His Bill of Fare
The Red Lion Becomes Dangerous
Before the Court
The Beleaguered Cities
Leyden
The Palace in the Wood
The Merchant Prince and the Sister-Princess
Through the Hague
A Day of Rest
Homeward Bound
Boys and Girls
The Crisis
Gretel and Hilda
The Awakening
Bones and Tongues
A New Alarm
The Father's Return
The Thousand Guilders
Glimpses
Looking for Work
The Fairy Godmother
The Mysterious Watch
A Discovery
The Race
Joy in the Cottage
Mysterious Disappearance of Thomas Higgs
Broad Sunshine
Conclusion
Hans and Gretel
On a bright December morning long ago two thinly clad children
were kneeling upon the bank of a frozen canal in Holland.
The sun had not yet appeared but the gray sky was parted near
the horizon and its edges shone crimson with the coming day.
Most of the good Hollanders were enjoying a placid morning nap.
Even Mynheer von Stoppelnoze that worthy old Dutchman was still
slumbering "in beautiful repose".
Now and then some peasant woman poising a well-filled basket
upon her head came skimming over the glassy surface of the
canal; or a lusty boy skating to his day's work in the town
cast a good-natured grimace toward the shivering pair as he flew
along.
Meanwhile with many a vigorous puff and pull the brother and
sister for such they were seemed to be fastening something to
their feet--not skates certainly but clumsy pieces of wood
narrowed and smoothed at their lower edge and pierced with
holes through which were threaded strings of rawhide.
These queer-looking affairs had been made by the boy Hans. His
mother was a poor peasant woman too poor even to think of such a
thing as buying skates for her little ones. Rough as these were
they had afforded the children many a happy hour upon the ice.
And now as with cold red fingers our young Hollanders tugged at
the strings--their solemn faces bending closely over their
knees--no vision of impossible iron runners came to dull the
satisfaction glowing within.
In a moment the boy arose and with a pompous swing of the arms
and a careless "Come on Gretel" glided easily across the canal.
"Ah Hans" called his sister plaintively "this foot is not well
yet. The strings hurt me on last market day and now I cannot
bear them tied in the same place."
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