h to the rescue, eager to combine against their common foe. As,
everywhere else, straw is supposed to be of all things the most helpless
in the water, of course, in Holland, it must be rendered the mainstay
against a rushing tide. Huge straw mats are pressed against the
embankments, fortified with clay and heavy stone, and once adjusted, the
ocean dashes against them in vain.

Raff Brinker, the father of Gretel and Hans, had for years been employed
upon the dikes. It was at the time of a threatened inundation, when
in the midst of a terrible storm, in darkness and sleet, the men were
laboring at a weak spot near the Veermyk sluice, that he fell from the
scaffolding and became insensible. From that hour he never worked again;
though he lived on, mind and memory were gone.

Gretel could not remember him otherwise than as the strange, silent man
whose eyes followed her vacantly whichever way she turned, but Hans had
recollections of a hearty, cheerful-voiced father who was never tired
of bearing him upon his shoulder and whose careless song still seemed
echoing near when he lay awake at night and listened.

The Silver Skates

Dame Brinker earned a scant support for her family by raising
vegetables, spinning, and knitting. Once she had worked on board the
barges plying up and down the canal and had occasionally been harnessed
with other women to the towing rope of a pakschuyt plying between Broek
and Amsterdam. But when Hans had grown strong and large, he had insisted
on doing all such drudgery in her place. Besides, her husband had become
so very helpless of late that he required her constant care. Although
not having as much intelligence as a little child, he was yet strong
of arm and very hearty, and Dame Brinker had sometimes great trouble in
controlling him.

"Ah! children, he was so good and steady," she would sometimes say,
"and as wise as a lawyer. Even the burgomaster would stop to ask him a
question, and now, alack! he doesn't know his wife and little ones. You
remember the father, Hans, when he was himself--a great brave man--don't
you?"

"Yes, indeed, Mother, he knew everything and could do anything under the
sun--and how he would sing! Why, you used to laugh and say it was enough
to set the windmills dancing."

"So I did. Bless me! how the boy remembers! Gretel, child, take that
knitting needle from your father, quick; he'll get it in his eyes maybe;
and put the shoe on him. His poor feet are