ce.

His father was a sluicer--that is, one whose employment it was to open
and shut the sluices or large oak gates which, placed at certain regular
distances, close the entrances of the canals, and secure Holland from
the danger to which it seems exposed, of finding itself under water,
rather than above it. When water is wanted, the sluicer raises the
sluices more or less, as required, as the cook turns the cock of a
fountain, and closes them again carefully at night; otherwise the water
would flow into the canals, then overflow them, and inundate the whole
country; so that even the little children in Holland are fully aware of
the importance of a punctual discharge of the sluicer's duties.

The boy was about eight years old when, one day, he asked permission to
take some cakes to a poor blind man, who lived at the other side of the
dike. His father gave him leave, but charged him not to stay too late.
The child promised, and set off on his little journey. The blind man
thankfully partook of his young friend's cakes, and the boy, mindful of
his father's orders, did not wait, as usual, to hear one of the old
man's stories, but as soon as he had seen him eat one muffin, took leave
of him to return home.

As he went along by the canals, then quite full, for it was in October,
and the autumn rains had swelled the waters,--the boy now stooped to
pull the little blue flowers which his mother loved so well, now, in
childish gaiety, hummed some merry song. The road gradually became more
solitary, and soon neither the joyous shout of the villager returning to
his cottage home, nor the rough voice of the carter grumbling at his
lazy horses, was any longer to be heard. The little fellow now perceived
that the blue of the flowers in his hands was scarcely distinguishable
from the green of the surrounding herbage, and he looked up in some
dismay. The night was falling; not, however, a dark, winter night, but
one of those beautiful, clear, moonlight nights, in which every object
is perceptible, though not as distinctly as by day.

The child thought of his father, of his injunction, and was preparing to
quit the ravine in which he was almost buried, and to regain the beach,
when suddenly a slight noise, like the trickling of water upon pebbles,
attracted his attention. He was near one of the large sluices, and he
now carefully examined it, and soon discovered a hole in the wood,
through which the water was flowing. With the instan