As Hans drew forth the wooden "runners" from his capacious pockets and fastened them on as best he could, he did not hear Annie murmur, "I wish I had not been so rude; poor, brave Hans; what a noble boy he is!" And as Annie skated homeward filled with pleasant thoughts, she did not hear Hans say, "I grumbled like a bear—but bless her! some girls are like angels!"
Perhaps it was all for the best. One cannot be expected to know everything that is going on in the world.
XL
LOOKING FOR WORK
Luxuries unfit us for returning to hardships easily endured before. The wooden runners squeaked more than ever. It was as much as Hans could do to get on with the clumsy old things; still he did not regret that he had parted with his beautiful skates—but resolutely pushed back the boyish trouble that he had not been able to keep them just a little longer, at least until after the race.
"Mother surely will not be angry with me," he thought, "for selling them without her leave. She has had care enough already. It will be full time to speak of it when I take home the money."
Hans went up and down the streets of Amsterdam that day, looking for work. He succeeded in earning a few stivers by assisting a man who was driving a train of loaded mules into the city, but he could not secure steady employment anywhere. He would have been glad to obtain a situation as porter or errand-boy, but though he passed, on his way, many a loitering, shuffling urchin, laden with bundles, there was no place for him. Some shopkeepers had just supplied themselves; others needed a trimmer, more lightly-built fellow (they meant better dressed, but did not choose to say so); others told him to call again in a month or two, when the canals would probably be broken up; and many shook their heads at him without saying a word.
At the factories he met with no better luck. It seemed to him that in those great buildings, turning out respectively such tremendous quantities of woolen, cotton and linen stuffs, such world-renowned dyes and paints, such precious diamonds cut from the rough, such supplies of meal, of bricks, of glass and china—that in at least one of these, a strong-armed boy, able and eager to work, could find something to do. But no—nearly the same answer met him everywhere, "no need of more hands just now. If he had called before Nicholas' day they might have given him a job, as they were hurried then; but at present they had more boys than they needed." Hans wished they could see, just for a moment, his mother and Gretel. He did not know how the anxiety of both looked out from his eyes, and how more than once, the gruffest denials were uttered with an uncomfortable consciousness that the lad ought not to be turned away. Certain fathers, when they went home that night, spoke more kindly than usual to their own youngsters, from memory of a frank, young face saddened at their words; and before morning one man actually resolved that if the Broek boy came in again he would instruct his head man Blankert to set him at something.