"Wilhelmina and I have already had ours, so hurry up with yours, and then come down to the canal; we are going to see the cheeses loaded on to the boats."
Along the canal were drawn up the boats, with their brown sails, and steamers and barges and all kinds of craft. When the boys appeared again, they all stopped to watch a pile of round, red cheeses which were piled up like shot, ready to be loaded.
A man picked one up in either hand and tossed them to another man, who was standing beside the ship's hatch; and he, in turn, tossed them to another who was down in the hold and who was stacking them up in neat rows.
"I'd like to play that kind of ball; it looks as easy as can be," said Pieter.
"It's not as easy as you think," said his father; "just pick up one of these cheeses, and try its weight."
Pieter tried and so did Theodore; but they thought better of it as a game, and the cheese man himself laughed at their unsuccessful efforts to grasp a cheese in one hand.
"Just look at our hands," exclaimed Theodore, after they had finished handling the cheeses; "they are quite red."
"THE CHILDREN STOOD IN THE BOWS"
"That is the red colouring matter which is put on the outside to preserve them," said Mynheer.