The one she liked most to see was not among the newcomers. Indeed he was not upon the canal at all. She had not been near Broek before, since the Eve of St. Nicholas, for she was staying with her sick grandmother in Amsterdam, and had been granted a brief resting-spell, as the grandmother called it, because she had been such a faithful little nurse night and day.
Annie had devoted her resting-spell to skating with all her might toward Broek, and back again, in the hope of meeting her mother or some of her family on the canal, or, it might be, Gretel Brinker—Not one of them had she seen—and she must hurry back, without ever catching a glimpse of her mother's cottage—for the poor helpless grandmother, she knew, was by this time moaning for some one to turn her upon her cot.
Where can Gretel be? thought Annie, as she flew over the ice; she can almost always steal a few moments from her work at this time of day—poor Gretel—what a dreadful thing it must be to have a dull father—I should be wofully afraid of him, I know—So strong, and yet so strange!
Annie had not heard of his illness. Dame Brinker and her affairs received but little notice from the people of the place.
If Gretel had not been known as a goose-girl she might have had more friends among the peasantry of the neighborhood. As it was, Annie Bouman was the only one who did not feel ashamed to avow herself by word and deed the companion of Gretel and Hans.
When the neighbors' children laughed at her for keeping such poor company, she would simply flush when Hans was ridiculed, or laugh in a careless, disdainful way; but to hear little Gretel abused always awakened her wrath.
"Goose-girl, indeed!" she would say. "I can tell you any of you are fitter for the work than she. My father often said last summer that it troubled him to see such a bright-eyed, patient little maiden tending geese. Humph! She would not harm them, as you would, Janzoon Kolp; and she would not tread upon them, as you might, Kate Wouters."
This would be pretty sure to start a laugh at the clumsy, ill-natured Kate's expense; and Annie would walk loftily away from the group of young gossips. Perhaps some memory of Gretel's assailants crossed her mind as she skated rapidly toward Amsterdam, for her eyes sparkled ominously and she more than once gave her pretty head a defiant toss. When that mood passed, such a bright, rosy, affectionate look illumined her face, that more than one weary working man turned to gaze after her, and to wish that he had a glad contented lass like that for a daughter.
There were five joyous households in Broek that night.