“I'll swim you a match to the other side,” said the King. “It's a go,” said dad, and they started porpoising across the little lake, and then I thought it was time there was something doing; so I got busy and tied their clothes in knots so tight you couldn't get them untied without an act of parliament. They went ashore on the opposite side of the lake, cause some women were driving through the grounds, and then I found a flock of goats grazing on the lawn, and the dog and I drove them to where the clothes were tied in knots, and when the goats began to chew the clothes I took the dog and went back to the entrance of the park, and dad and the King swam back to where the clothes and the goats were, and when they drove the goats away, and couldn't untie the knots, the King gave the grand hailing sign of distress, or something, and the guards of the palace and some cavalry came on the run, and the park seemed filled with an army, and I bid the dog good-bye, and went back to the hotel alone and waited for dad.
Dad didn't get back till after dark, and when he came he had on a suit of the King's clothes, too tight around the stomach, and too long in the legs, cause dad is pusey, and the King is long-geared. “Did you have a good time, dad?” says I, and he said, “Haven't you got any respect for age, condemn you? The King has ordered that you be fed to the animals in the zoo.” I told him I didn't care a darn what they did with me; I had been brought up to tie knots in clothes when I saw people in swimming, and I didn't care whether they were crowned heads or just plain dubs, and I asked dad how they got along when their clothes were chewed up. He said the soldiers covered them with pouches and got them to the palace, and they had supper, he and the King, and the servants brought out a lot of clothes and he got the best fit he could. I asked him if the King was actually mad, and he said no, that he always enjoyed such things, and wanted dad and I to come the next day and go fishing with him, barefooted. Say, dad can go, but I wouldn't be caught by that King on a bet. He would get even, sure, cause he has a look in his eye like they have in a sanitarium. Not any king business for your little Hennery.
CHAPTER XXX.
The Bad Boy's Delayed Letter about Holland and Cuba—Dad and
the Boy go for a Drive in a Dogcart—They have a Great Time—
Land in Cuba and See the Island t we Fought for.
Havana, Cuba. My Dear Old Greaser: We stopped in Holland for a couple of days after we left Belgium, and it was the most disappointing country we visited on our whole trip. We expected to be walked on with wooden shoes, and from what we had heard of that Duke that married Queen Wilhelmina, we thought we were going to a country where men were cruel to their wives, and swatted them over the head when things didn't go right, but when we saw the queen riding with her husband, as free, from ostentation as a department store clerk would ride out with his cash girl wife, and saw happiness beaming on the face of the queen and her husband, and saw them squeeze hands and look lovingly into each other's eyes, we made up our minds that you couldn't believe these newspaper scandals. And when we saw the broad-shouldered, broad-chested and broad-everywhere women of Holland we concluded that it would be a brave or reckless husband who would be unkind to one of them, and mighty dangerous because the women are stronger than the men, and any woman could whip four men at the drop of the hat, because she could take off her wooden shoes and strike out and a man would think he had been hit by a railroad tie.
Illustration: Any woman could whip four men at the drop of the hat 388
I do not know what makes Hollanders wear wooden shoes, unless they are sentenced to do it, or that they are unruly, and have to be hobbled, to keep them from jumping fences, but the people are so good and honest that after you have met them you forget the vaudeville feature of their costumes, and love them, and wish the people of other countries were as honest as they. For two or three days we were not robbed, and I do not believe there is a dishonest man or woman in Holland, except one. There was one woman that played it on dad in Amsterdam, but I think she only played him for a sucker for a joke, for she laughed all the time.