from his capricious pockets and
fastened them on as best he could, he did not hear Annie murmur, "I wish
I had not been so rude. Poor, brave Hans. What a noble boy he is!" And
as Annie skated homeward, filled with pleasant thoughts, she did not
hear Hans say, "I grumbled like a bear. But bless her! Some girls are
like angels!"

Perhaps it was all for the best. One cannot be expected to know
everything that is going on around the world.

Looking For Work

Luxuries unfit us for returning to hardships easily endured before. The
wooden runners squeaked more than ever. It was as much as Hans could do
to get on with the clumsy old things; still, he did not regret that he
had parted with his beautiful skates, but resolutely pushed back the
boyish trouble that he had not been able to keep them just a little
longer, at least until after the race.

Mother surely will not be angry with me, he thought, for selling them
without her leave. She has had care enough already. It will be full time
to speak of it when I take home the money.

Hans went up and down the streets of Amsterdam that day, looking for
work. He succeeded in earning a few stivers by assisting a man who was
driving a train of loaded mules into the city, but he could not
secure steady employment anywhere. He would have been glad to obtain a
situation as porter or errand boy, but though he passed on his way many
a loitering shuffling urchin, laden with bundles, there was no place
for him. Some shopkeepers had just supplied themselves; others needed
a trimmer, more lightly built fellow (they meant better dressed but did
not choose to say so); others told him to call again in a month or two,
when the canals would probably be broken up; and many shook their heads
at him without saying a word.

At the factories he met with no better luck. It seemed to him that
in those great buildings, turning out respectively such tremendous
quantities of woolen, cotton, and linen stuffs, such world-renowned dyes
and paints, such precious diamonds cut from the rough, such supplies of
meal, of bricks, of glass and china--that in at least one of these, a
strong-armed boy, able and eager to work, could find something to do.
But no--nearly the same answer met him everywhere. No need of more hands
just now. If he had called before Saint Nicholas's Day they might have
given him a job as they were hurried then; but at present they had more
boys than they needed. Hans wished they