At night the loyal settlers lay
Betwixt their feather-beds;
In hose and breeches walked by day,
And smoked, and wagged their heads.
No changeful fashions came from France,
The freulen to bewilder,
And cost the burgher's purse, perchance,
Its every other guilder.
In petticoats of linsey-red,
And jackets neatly kept,
The vrouws their knitting-needles sped
And deftly spun and swept.
Few modern-school flirtations there
Set wheels of scandal trundling,
But youths and maidens did their share
Of staid, old-fashioned bundling.
—The New Year opened clear and cold;
The snow, a Flemish ell
In depth, lay over Beeckman's Wold
And Wolfert's frozen well.
Each burgher shook his kitchen-doors,
Drew on his Holland leather,
Then stamped through drifts to do the chores,
Beshrewing all such weather.
But—after herring, ham, and kraut—
To all the gathered town
The Dominie preached the morning out,
In Calvinistic gown;
While tough old Peter Stuyvesant
Sat pewed in foremost station,—
The potent, sage, and valiant
Third Governor of the nation.
Prayer over, at his mansion hall,
With cake and courtly smile,
He met the people, one and all,
In gubernatorial style;
Yet missed, though now the day was old,
An ancient fellow-feaster,—
Heer Govert Loockermans, that bold
Brewer and burgomeester;
Who, in his farmhouse, close without
The picket's eastern end,
Sat growling at the twinge of gout
That kept him from his friend.
But Peter strapped his wooden peg,
When tea and cake were ended
(Meanwhile the sound remaining leg
Its high jack-boot defended),
A woolsey cloak about him threw,
And swore, by wind and limb,
Since Govert kept from Peter's view,
Peter would visit him;
Then sallied forth, through snow and blast,
While many a humbler greeter
Stood wondering whereaway so fast
Strode bluff Hardkoppig Pieter.
Past quay and cowpath, through a lane
Of vats and mounded tans,
He puffed along, with might and main,
To Govert Loockermans;
Once there, his right of entry took,
And hailed his ancient crony:
"Myn Gód! in dese Manhattoes, Loock,
Ve gets more snow as money!"
To which, and after whiffs profound,
With doubtful wink and nod,
There came at last responsive sound:
"Yah, Peter; yah, Myn Gód!"
Then goedevrouw Marie sat her guest
Beneath the chimney-gable,
And courtesied, bustling at her best
To spread the New Year's table.
She brought the pure and genial schnapps,
That years before had come—
In the "Nieuw Nederlandts," perhaps—
To cheer the settlers' home;
The long-stemmed pipes; the fragrant roll
Of pressed and crispy Spanish;
Then placed the earthen mugs and bowl,
Nor long delayed to vanish.