t perception which
every child in Holland would have, the boy saw that the water must soon
enlarge the hole through which it was now only dropping, and that utter
and general ruin would be the consequence of the inundation of the
country that must follow. To see, to throw away the flowers, to climb
from stone to stone till he reached the hole, and to put his finger into
it, was the work of a moment, and to his delight he found that he had
succeeded in stopping the flow of the water.

This was all very well for a little while, and the child thought only of
the success of his device. But the night was closing in, and with the
night came the cold. The little boy looked around in vain. No one came.
He shouted--he called loudly--no one answered. He resolved to stay there
all night, but alas! the cold was becoming every moment more biting, and
the poor finger fixed in the hole began to feel benumbed, and the
numbness soon extended to the hand, and thence throughout the whole arm.
The pain became still greater, still harder to bear, but yet the boy
moved not. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he thought of his father, of
his mother, of his little bed, where he might now be sleeping so
soundly; but still the little fellow stirred not, for he knew that did
he remove the small slender finger which he had opposed to the escape of
the water, not only would he himself be drowned, but his father, his
brothers, his neighbours--nay, the whole village.

We know not what faltering of purpose, what momentary failures of
courage there might have been during that long and terrible night; but
certain it is, that at daybreak he was found in the same painful
position by a clergyman returning from attendance on a deathbed, who, as
he advanced, thought he heard groans, and bending over the dike,
discovered a child seated on a stone, writhing from pain, and with pale
face and tearful eyes.

"In the name of wonder, boy," he exclaimed, "what are you doing there?"

"I am hindering the water from running out," was the answer, in perfect
simplicity, of the child, who, during that whole night, had been
evincing such heroic fortitude and undaunted courage.

The Muse of History has handed down to posterity many a warrior, the
destroyer of thousands of his fellow-men--but she has left us in
ignorance of the name of this real little hero of Haarlem.

SHARPE'S LONDON MAGAZINE

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a su