Hans Brinker; Or, The Silver Skates

by Mary Mapes Dodge

It was hard to break up so pleasant a party, but the Van Gend household moved with the regularity of clockwork. There was no lingering at the threshold when the cordial "good-night!" was spoken. Even while our boys were mounting the stairs, the invisible household fairies again clustered around them, whispering that system and regularity had been chief builders of the master's prosperity.

Beautiful chambers with three beds in them, were not to be found in this mansion. Some of the rooms contained two, but each visitor slept alone. Before morning, the motto of the party evidently was, "every boy his own chrysalis"—and Peter, at least, was not sorry to have it so.

Tired as he was, Ben after noting a curious bell-rope in the corner, began to examine his bedclothes. Each article filled him with astonishment—the exquisitely fine pillow-spread trimmed with costly lace and embroidered with a gorgeous crest and initial, the dekbed cover (a great silk bag, large as the bed, stuffed with swan's-down) and the pink satin quilts, embroidered with garlands of flowers. He could scarcely sleep for thinking what a queer little bed it was, so comfortable and pretty, too, with all its queerness. In the morning he examined the top coverlet with care, for he wished to send home a description of it in his next letter. It was a Japanese spread, marvelous in texture as well as in its variety of brilliant coloring, and worth, as Ben afterward learned, not less than three hundred dollars.

The floor was of polished wooden mosaic, nearly covered with a rich carpet bordered with thick, black fringe. Another room displayed a margin of satin-wood around the carpet. Hung with tapestry, its walls of crimson silk were topped with a gilded cornice which shot down gleams of light far into the polished floor.

Over the doorway of the room in which Jacob and Ben slept was a bronze stork who, with outstretched neck, held a lamp to light the guests into the apartment. Between the two narrow beds, of carved white-wood and ebony, stood the household treasure of the Van Gends, a massive oaken chair upon which the Prince of Orange had once sat, during a council meeting. Opposite, stood a quaintly carved clothes-press, waxed and polished to the utmost, and filled with precious stores of linen; beside it a table holding a large Bible, whose great golden clasps looked poor compared with its solid, ribbed binding made to outlast six generations.

There was a ship model on the mantel-shelf, and over it hung an old portrait of Peter the Great, who, you know, once gave the dockyard cats of Holland a fine chance to look at a king, which is one of the special prerogatives of cats. Peter, though czar of Russia, was not too proud to work as a common shipwright in the dockyards of Saardam and Amsterdam, that he might be able to introduce among his countrymen Dutch improvements in ship-building. It was this willingness to be thorough in even the smallest beginnings that earned for him the title of Peter the Great.

Peter the little (comparatively speaking) was up first, the next morning; knowing the punctual habits of his brother-in-law, he took good care that none of the boys should oversleep themselves. A hard task he found it to wake Jacob Poot; but after pulling that young gentleman out of bed, and, with Ben's help, dragging him about the room for a while, he succeeded in arousing him.

While Jacob was dressing, and moaning within him, because the felt slippers, provided him as a guest, were too tight for his swollen feet, Peter wrote to inform their friends at Broek of the safe arrival of his party at the Hague. He also begged his mother to send word to Hans Brinker that Dr. Boekman had not yet reached Leyden, but that a letter containing Hans' message had been left at the hotel, where the doctor always lodged during his visits to the city. "Tell him, also," wrote Peter, "that I shall call there again, as I pass through Leyden. The poor boy seemed to feel sure that 'the meester' would hasten to save his father, but we, who know the gruff old gentleman better, may be confident he will do no such thing. It would be a kindness to send a visiting physician from Amsterdam to the cottage at once, if Jufvrouw[25] Brinker will consent to receive any but the great king of the meesters, as Dr. Boekman certainly is.

"You know, mother," added Peter, "that I have always considered sister Van Gend's house as rather quiet and lonely; but I assure you, it is not so now. Sister says our presence has warmed it for the whole winter. Brother van Gend is very kind to us all. He says we make him wish that he had a houseful of boys of his own. He has promised to let us ride on his noble black horses. They are gentle as kittens, he says, if one have but a firm touch at the rein. Ben, according to Jacob's account, is a glorious rider, and your son Peter is not a very bad hand at the business; so we two are to go out together this morning mounted like knights of old. After we return, brother van Gend says he will lend Jacob his English pony and obtain three extra horses; and all of the party are to trot about the city, in a grand cavalcade, led on by him. He will ride the black horse which father sent him from Friesland. My sister's pretty roan with the long white tail is lame and she will ride none other; else she would accompany us. I could scarce close my eyes last night after sister told me of the plan. Only the thought of poor Hans Brinker and his sick father checked me—but for that I could have sung for joy. Ludwig has given us a name already—the Broek Cavalry. We flatter ourselves that we shall make an imposing appearance, especially in single file...."

The Broek Cavalry were not disappointed. Mynheer van Gend readily procured good horses; and all the boys could ride, though none were as perfect horsemen (or horseboys) as Peter and Ben. They saw the Hague to their hearts' content; and the Hague saw them—expressing its approbation, loudly, through the mouths of small boys and cart-dogs; silently, through bright eyes that, not looking very deeply into things, shone as they looked at the handsome Carl, and twinkled with fun as a certain portly youth with shaking cheeks rode past "bumpetty, bumpetty, bump!"