"Holland is really the greatest country there is; isn't it?" said Kit.
"Well, not in point of size, perhaps," Father Vedder admitted; "but in pluck, my boy, it is! Did you know that sometimes people call Holland the Land of Pluck?"
"I don't see why," said Kat. "I'm Dutch, but I'm afraid of lots of things! I'm afraid of spiders and of cross geese, and of falling into the water!"
"You're a girl, if you are Dutch," said Kit. "Boys are always pluckier than girls; aren't they, Father?"
"Really plucky people never boast," said Father Vedder.
Kit looked the other way and dug the toe of his shoe into the dirt. Kat snuggled up to her Father and sniffed at Kit.
"So there, Kit!" was all she said.
"There's pluck enough to go round," said Father Vedder mildly, "and we all need it boys and girls, and men and women too. It was pluck that made Holland, and it's pluck that keeps her from slipping back into the sea."
"How did pluck make Holland?" asked Kit.
"There wasn't any Holland in the first place," Father Vedder answered. "There were only some marshes and some lands under water. But people built a wall of earth around these flats; and then they pumped out the water from the space inside the wall, and made canals through the land, and drained it. And after all that work, we have our rich fields."