"There is Zaandam," said Mynheer; "they say that most of the people who live there are millionaires. It is a wealthy little town."
"You would not think so from the looks of the houses," remarked Pieter; "they seem mostly to be small brick cottages of one story, with a tiny yard in front."
As the steamer glides along, between green meadows as flat as one's hand, they could see on all sides innumerable windmills. The boys tried to count them, but soon gave up the task. It is said that there are over six hundred of them in this one short stretch of country.
"Why are some of the windmills built on top of the houses?" asked Theodore.
"For the reason that they are made to turn the machinery which is situated in the buildings below," said Mynheer; "not all the windmills are used for pumping water, by any means."
They were now in the midst of the cheese country, one of the richest sections of Holland. There were everywhere to be seen trim little villas and neat farmhouses, while the meadows were full of the curiously marked black and white cows called "Holsteins." These are the favourite cows throughout Holland for furnishing the milk for the famous butter and cheeses of the country.
They were at Alkmaar before they knew it. The two old women, who had never stopped knitting for a moment, picked up their little foot-stoves and waddled off; Wilhelmina bade her little Marken friends good-bye; and Mynheer's party hurried off to a little inn on the market-place, for the sun was setting and the children said they were nearly starved, in spite of the gingerbread which they had eaten.
Outside the inn was a row of fat, sleepy-looking old men sitting on a long bench, watching a game of "skittles" which was going on in the square, for both "grown-ups" and children usually play their games in the village square. Each had his long pipe and a glass of "schnapps" just under his part of the bench, and when he wanted a drink all he had to do was to reach down and get it. Not one of them said a word; they just sat there and looked, and smoked and drank.
In a cosy room, with a floor of red bricks, neatly covered with sand, a rosy-cheeked girl soon set out a real Dutch supper for our hungry little travellers.