on in New
Amstel (or Newcastle) who could go out into the woods fearlessly among
the Minquas Indians; for the Indians all believed that feeble-minded
people were the Great Spirit's especial friends, and saw beyond the
boundaries of this world into that better heaven where shad ran all
the year in the celestial rivers, and the oysters walked upon the
land to be eaten. Nanking believed all this, too. It was his confiding
nature which made him useless for worldly business. Hobgoblins and
genii, charms and saints, and whatever he had heard in earnest, he
held in earnest to be true.

"Dear me!" thought Nanking, when he was done playing marbles, "can't I
be of use to somebody? Perhaps if I could do something useful my uncle
would not think me a big idiot. Then, besides, little Elsje Alrichs
might let me be her sweetheart and carry her doll!"

Elsje was the daughter of Peter Alrichs, the late great director's
son, whose father slept in the graveyard of the little log church on
Sand Hook, beside Dominie Welius, the holy psalm-tune leader. Nanking
believed that when the weathercock on the church tingled in the wind,
it was Dominie Welius in the grave striking his tuning-fork to catch
the key-note. Peter Alrichs inherited the well-cleared farm of his
papa, and had the best estate in all New Amstel except Gerrit Van
Swearingen, who was accused of getting rich by smuggling, peculating,
and slave-catching. Little Elsje liked Nanking, but her father too,
said he was a big idiot. So Nanking had a hard time.

"Elsje," cried Nanking one day, "don't tell anybody if I give you a
secret."

"No, big sweetheart!"

"I'm going to catch a stork!"

"We don't have storks in New Netherlands, Nanking."

"That's just where I'm going to be smart," exclaimed Nanking. "Because
there are no storks here I'm going to catch one. Then uncle Gerrit
cannot call me a big idiot."

Elsje gave Nanking her doll to hold. He sat there as big as a soldier,
and handled the doll tenderly; for he believed it to be alive as much
as she did, and she was a little girl.

"In Holland," said Nanking, "there is a stork on every happy chimney.
The farmers put a wagon-wheel on the chimney-top, and along comes your
stork and his family, and they build a nest on the wagon-wheel. There
it is, Elsje, all twigs and grass, warm as pie, heated by the
chimney-fire, and such a squawking you never heard. It keeps the devil
away! The old stork sits up on one long straight leg,