The Jonkheer says there are nearly three thousand inhabitants, and half of them were after Tibe on the dyke as we walked toward the hotel. The news of him seemed to fly, as they say tidings travel through the Indian bazaars. Faces appeared in windows; then quaint figures popped out of doors, and Tibe was actually mobbed. A procession trailed after him, shouting, laughing, calling.
Tibe was flattered at first, and preened himself for admiration; but presently he became worried, then disgusted, and ran before the storm of voices and wooden shoes. We were all glad to get him into the hotel.
Such a quaint hotel, with incredibly neat, box-like rooms, whose varnished, green wooden walls you could use for mirrors. I didn't know that it was famous, but it seems that it is; also the landlord and his many daughters. Every artist who has ever come to Volendam has painted a picture for the big room which you enter as you walk in from the street, and I saw half a dozen which I should love to own.
It was fun dining out-of-doors on a big, covered balcony looking over the Zuider Zee, and seeing the horizon populous with fishing-boats. In the falling dusk they looked like the flitting figures of tall, graceful ladies moving together hand in hand, with flowing skirts; some in gossiping knots, others hovering proudly apart in pairs like princesses.
It is wonderful how our chaperon makes friends with people, and gets them to do as she likes. If she were young and pretty it wouldn't be strange—at least, where men are concerned; but though her complexion (what one can see of it) looks fresh, if pale, and she has no hollows or wrinkles, her hair is gray, and she wears blue spectacles, with only a bit of face really visible. One hardly knows what she does look like. Nevertheless, the men of our party are her slaves; and it is the same at hotels. If at first landlords say Tibe can't live in the house, the next minute, when she has wheedled a little, they are patting his head, calling him "good dog," and telling his mistress that they will make an exception in his case.
The morning after we arrived in Volendam I got up early, because Mr. van Buren offered to show me the place if I cared to take a walk. It was only half-past eight when we strolled out of the hotel, and the first person I met was Lady MacNairne. She had been walking, and was on her way back, looking like the Old Woman in the Shoe, surrounded by children of all sizes. She had made friends with them, and taken their photographs, and their grown-up sisters had told her lots of things about Volendam.
She had found out that as soon as the fisherfolk's sons begin to dress like boys, they are given their buckles and neck-buttons: the gold or silver knobs which are different for each fishing-village of Holland; so that, if a man is found drowned, you can tell where he comes from by his buttons.
She had learned that the trousers are baggy, because in storms the men don't get as wet as in tight ones. That the women wear eight petticoats, not only because it's "the mode," but because it's considered beautiful for a girl to look stout; and besides, it's not thought modest to show how you are shaped.
Another thing she learned was that, just as the boys must have their buckles and buttons (and ear-rings, if they can get them), each Volendam girl, if she wishes to be anybody, must have a coral necklace with a gold cross; several silver rings; a silver buckle for her purse; and a scent-bottle with a silver top and foot. No girl could hope to marry well, Lady MacNairne said, without these things; and as the ones who told her had no rings or scent-bottles in their collections, she would get her nephew to buy them. It wouldn't do for him to make the presents himself, as the girls were proud, though their fathers earned only five gulden a week; but she would give them, and then it would be all right. One of the girls was unhappy, as she was in love with a young fisherman, and they were too poor to marry, so she expected to go to Rotterdam as a nursemaid.
"It seems," said Lady MacNairne, "that Volendam girls are in demand all over Holland, as nurses; they're so good to children and animals. But this one won't have to go, for dear Ronny must supply her dot."