Did you ever hear the story of the little boy and the hole in the dike? The little boy's name was Hans. He lived near the great dikes along the sea. One day his mother sent him on an errand.
When he was coming home, he saw water flowing from a small hole in the dike. He knew that the water came from the sea. Then he said to himself, "If that water is not stopped, the hole will get larger. Then the sea will break in, and we shall all be drowned."
So Hans went up to the dike and put his hand against the hole, and stopped the water. This was very hard to do. But the little fellow held bravely on.
When night came and Hans did not come home, his father and some of the people who lived close by went to search for him. After many hours they found him at the dike, keeping the water back with his hand. Then his father took him home, and the men stopped up the hole in the dike. Everybody praised Hans for what he had done.
The little children in Holland are very pretty. They have round, fat faces, golden hair, and blue eyes. The boys wear wide trousers and little round caps. The girls wear jackets and skirts and little caps with gold braid.
Both boys and girls wear wooden shoes. And what a noise they do make with their wooden shoes when they run around! They have great fun playing their shoes are boats. They sit on the sides of the canals and take off their shoes and sail them on the water like little boats. They tie strings to the shoes so that they can draw them in whenever they like.
[Illustration: Dutch Girl with Wooden Shoes.]
Dutch children do not wear shoes in the house, but wear slippers. When they go home after playing or from school they take off their shoes. They leave them outside the door. Would you not think it strange to see rows of little shoes outside the doors?
Every Saturday the children clean their shoes. But they do not shine them as we do. They wash them with soap and water, and dry them at the fire. If the sun shines, they hang them on a bush to dry. When they are dry, they are almost as white as snow.