No wonder they all had to talk it over between many sips of coffee and puffs from the long pipes. It was a great event for the Joost family. As for Pieter and Wilhelmina, they could talk and think of nothing else, and Wilhelmina went about all the time murmuring to herself, "How do you do?" and "I am very pleased to see you," and "I hope you had a pleasant voyage," so as to be sure to say it correctly when her American cousin should arrive.
"How old is Cousin Theodore, mother?" asked Wilhelmina, as she was helping to give the "show-room" its weekly cleaning. "Just twelve, I believe," said her mother.
"And coming all by himself! I should be frightened nearly to death," said Wilhelmina, who was polishing the arm of a chair so hard that the little gold ornaments on her cap bobbed up and down.
Wilhelmina was short and chubby, and her short blue dress, gathered in as full around her waist as could be, made her look chubbier still. Over her tight, short-sleeved bodice was crossed a gaily flowered silk handkerchief, and around her head, like a coronet, was a gold band from which hung on either side a gold ornament, which looked something like a small corkscrew curl of gold. On top of all this she wore a pretty little lace cap; and what was really funny, her earrings were hung in her cap instead of in her ears! To-day she had on a big cotton working-apron, instead of the fine silk one which she usually wore.
Wilhelmina and her mother were dressed just alike, only Mevrouw's dress was even more bunchy, for she had on about five heavy woollen skirts. This is a Dutch fashion, and one wonders how the women are able to move around so lively.
"Oh, mother, you are putting away another roll of linen!" and Wilhelmina even forgot the coming of her new cousin for the moment, so interested was she as she saw the mother open the great linen-press. This linen-press was the pride of Mevrouw Joost's heart, for piled high on its shelves were rolls and rolls of linen, much of it made from the flax which grew upon their place. Mevrouw Joost herself had spun the thread on her spinning-wheel which stood in one corner of the room, and then it had been woven into cloth.
Some of these rolls of linen were more than a hundred years old, for they had been handed down like the china and silver. The linen of a Dutch household is reckoned a very valuable belonging indeed, and Wilhelmina watched her mother smooth the big rolls which were all neatly tied up with coloured ribbons, with a feeling of awe, for she knew that they were a part of their wealth, and that some day, when she had a house of her own, some of this old family linen would be given her, and then she, too, would have a big linen-press of which to be proud.
Just as Mevrouw Joost closed up the big "show-room" there came a cry from the road of "Eggs, eggs, who'll give us eggs?" "There come the children begging for Easter eggs," said Wilhelmina as she ran to the door.
At the gate were three little children waving long poles on which were fastened evergreen and flowers, and singing a queer Dutch song about Easter eggs.
"May I give them some, mother?"