On the contrary, the young ladies seated themselves demurely in their rush-bottomed chairs, and knit their own woolen stockings; nor ever opened their lips, excepting to say "Yah, Mynheer," or "Yah, yah, Vrouw," to any question that was asked them; behaving in all things like decent, well-educated damsels. As to the gentlemen, each of them tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seemed lost in contemplation of the blue and white tiles with which the fireplaces were decorated; wherein sundry passages of Scripture were piously portrayed. Tobit and his dog figured to great advantage; Haman swung conspicuously on his gibbet; and Jonah appeared most manfully leaping from the whale's mouth, like Harlequin through a barrel of fire.
FOOTNOTE:
[19] From Diedrich Knickerbocker's, "History of New York," by Washington Irving.
Notes: More than two hundred and fifty years have passed since the "good old days" described in this selection. New York in 1660 was a small place. It was called New Amsterdam, and its inhabitants were chiefly Dutch people from Holland. Knickerbocker's "History of New York" gives a delightfully humorous account of those early times.
The festival of St. Nicholas occurs on December 6, and with the Dutch colonists was equivalent to our Christmas.
Word Study: sanctum sanctorum, a Latin expression meaning "holy of holies," a most sacred place.
noblesse, persons of high rank.
olykoeks (ŏl´ y cooks), doughnuts, or crullers.
Mynheer (mīn hār´), sir, Mr.
Vrouw (vrou), madam, lady.
Tobit, a pious man of ancient times whose story is related in "The Book of Tobit."
Haman (ha´ man), the prime minister of the king of Babylon, who was hanged on a gibbet which he had prepared for another. See "The Book of Esther."
Har´ le quin, a clown well known in Italian comedy.
Look in the dictionary for: gorgeous, rhomboids, primeval, patriarchal, burgher, crone, porpoises, beverage, divertisements.
A WINTER EVENING IN OLD NEW ENGLAND
Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draft
The great throat of the chimney laughed.