Kit let go and dropped to the ground just in time. In another minute he would have been carried clear over.
As it was, he sat down very hard on the ground, and had to have the dirt brushed off of his Sunday clothes.
"I am surprised at you," Father Vedder said, while he brushed him. "You are too small to swing on windmills, and besides it is the Sabbath day. Don't you ever do it again until you are big enough to be called Christopher!"
Sitting down so hard in the dirt had hurt Kit a little bit, and scared him a good deal, so he said, "No, father."
Then they walked all around the mill. They peeped inside a door which was open, and saw the pumps working away.
"Yes," said Father Vedder, "it is nip and tuck between wind and water in Holland. Let us sit down here on the canal bank, in the sunshine, and I will tell you what hard work has to be done to keep this good land of ours. And it is a good land! We should be thankful for it! Just see the rich green meadows over there, with the cows grazing in them!" Father Vedder pointed to the beautiful fields across the canal. "The grass is so rich and fresh, that the cows here give more milk than any other cows in the whole world!"
"That's what Mother says," said Kat.
"The Holland butter and cheese are famous everywhere," went on Father Vedder; "and we have all the good milk we want to drink, besides. The Dutch gardens, too, are the finest in the world."
"And ours is one of the best of Dutch gardens, isn't it, Father?" said Kit.
"It's a very good garden," said Father Vedder, proudly. "No one can raise better onions and cabbage and carrots than I can. And the Dutch bulbs! Our tulips and hyacinths make the whole world bloom!"