Now, of the first years of the life of good St. Nicholas, in like manner, we have been able to learn nothing until he was apprenticed to a baker in the famous city of Amsterdam, after which this metropolis was once called, but which my readers doubtless know was christened over again when the English usurped possession, in the teeth of the great right of discovery derived from the illustrious navigator, Henricus Hudson, who was no more an Englishman than I am.
“Whether the youth Nicholas was thus apprenticed to a baker on account of his mother's dream, or from his great devotion to Newyear cakes, which may be inferred from the bias of his after life, it is impossible to tell at this distant period. It is certain, however, that he was so apprenticed, and that is sufficient to satisfy all reasonable readers. As for those pestilent, curious, prying people, who want to know the why and wherefore of everything we refer them to the lives of certain famous persons, which are so intermingled and confounded with the lives of their contemporaries, and the events, great and small, which happened in all parts of the world during their sojourn on the earth, that it is utterly impossible to say whose life it is we are reading. Many people of little experience take the title page for a guide, not knowing, peradventure, they might almost as safely rely upon history for a knowledge of the events of past ages.
Little Nicholas, our hero, was a merry, sweet-tempered caitiff, which was, doubtless, somewhat owing to his living almost altogether upon sweet things. He was marvellously devoted to cakes, and ate up numberless gingerbread alphabets before he knew a single letter.
Passing over the intermediate years, of which, indeed, I know no more than the man in the moon, I come to the period when, being twenty-four, and the term of his apprenticeship almost out, he fell desperately in love with the daughter of his worthy master, who was a burgomaster of forty years standing. In those unprecocious times, the boys did not grow to be men and the girls women, so soon as they do now. It would have been considered highly indecent for the former to think of falling in love before they were out of their time, or the latter to set up for young women before they knew how to be anything else. But as soon as the worthy Nicholas arrived at the age of twenty-four, being, as I said, within a year of the expiration of his time, he thought to himself that Katrinchee, or Catharine, as the English call it, was a clever, notable little soul, and eminently calculated to make him a good wife. This was the main point in the times of which I am speaking, when people actually married without first running mad either for love or money.
Katrinchee was the toast of all the young bakers of Amsterdam, and honest Nicholas had as many rivals as there were loaves of bread in that renowned city. But he was as gallant a little Dutchman as ever smoked his way through the world pipe foremost, and did not despair of getting the better of his rivals, especially as he was a great favourite with the burgomaster, as, indeed, his conduct merited. Instead of going the vulgar way to work, and sighing and whining out romance in her ear, he cunningly, being doubtless inspired by Cupid himself, proceeded to insinuate his passion, and make it known by degrees, to the pretty little Katrinchee, who was as plump as a partridge, and had eyes of the colour of a clear sky.
First did he bake a cake in the shape of a heart pierced half through by a toasting fork, the which he presented her smoking hot, which she received with a blush and did eat, to the great encouragement of the worthy Nicholas. A month after, for he did not wish to alarm the delicacy of the pretty Katrinchee, he did bake another cake in the shape of two hearts, entwined prettily with a true lover's knot. This, too, she received with a blush, and did eat with marvellous content. After the expiration of a like period, he did contrive another cake in the shape of a letter, on which he had ingeniously engraven the following couplet:—
“Wer diesen glauben wöhlt hat die vernanft verschworen,
Dem denken abgesaght sein eigentham verlohren.”
The meaning of which, if the reader doth not comprehend, I do hereby earnestly advise him to set about studying the Dutch language forthwith, that he may properly appreciate its hidden beauties.
Little Katrinchee read this poesy with a sigh, and rewarded the good Nicholas with a look which, as he afterward affirmed, would have heated an oven.