"Oh, Jasper, do they really beat each other?" cried Phronsie, quite horrified, and slipping away from Grandpapa to regard him closely.
"Oh, no! I mean—they go ahead of everything that is most Dutch,"
Jasper hastened to say; "I haven't explained it very well."
"No, I should think not," laughed his father, in high good humour.
"Well, Phronsie, I think you will like the folks on the Island of
Marken, for they dress in funny quaint costumes, just as their
ancestors did, years upon years ago."
"Are there any little children there?" asked Phronsie, slipping back into her place again, and nestling close to his side.
"Hundreds of them, I suppose," replied Mr. King, with his arm around her and drawing her up to him, "and they wear wooden shoes or sabots, or klompen as they call them, and—"
"Wooden shoes!" cried Phronsie; "oh, Grandpapa," clasping her hands, "how do they stay on?"
"Well, that's what I've always wondered myself when I've been in Holland. A good many have left off the sabots, I believe, and wear leather shoes made just like other people's."
"Oh, Grandpapa," cried Phronsie, leaning forward to peer into his face, "don't let them leave off the wooden shoes, please."
"I can't make them wear anything but what they want to," said old Mr. King, with a laugh; "but don't be troubled, child, you'll see all the wooden shoes you desire, in Rotterdam, and The Hague, too, for that matter."
"Shall I?" cried Phronsie, nestling back again quite pleased. "Grandpapa, I wish I could wear wooden shoes," she whispered presently in a burst of confidence, sticking out her toes to look at them.