"now that your
father is all right, you will be in fine spirits for the race. That
will be the prettiest skating show ever seen in this part of the world.
Everybody is talking of it; you are to try for the prize, remember."

"I shall not be in the race, mynheer," said Hans, looking down.

"Not in the race! Why not, indeed!" And immediately Peter's thoughts
swept on a full tide of suspicion toward Carl Schummel.

"Because I cannot, mynheer," answered Hans as he bent to slip his feet
into his big shoes.

Something in the boy's manner warned Peter that it would be no
kindness to press the matter further. He bade Hans good-bye, and stood
thoughtfully watching him as he walked away.

In a minute Peter called out, "Hans Brinker!"

"Yes, mynheer."

"I'll take back all I said about Dr. Boekman."

"Yes, mynheer."

Both were laughing. But Peter's smile changed to a look of puzzled
surprise when he saw Hans kneel down by the canal and put on the wooden
skates.

"Very queer," muttered Peter, shaking his head as he turned to go into
the house. "Why in the world doesn't the boy wear his new ones?"

The Fairy Godmother

The sun had gone down quite out of sight when our hero--with
a happy heart but with something like a sneer on his countenance as
he jerked off the wooden "runners"--trudged hopefully toward the tiny
hutlike building, known of old as the "idiot's cottage."

Duller eyes than his would have discerned two slight figures moving near
the doorway.

That gray well-patched jacket and the dull blue skirt covered with an
apron of still duller blue, that faded close-fitting cap, and those
quick little feet in their great boatlike shoes, they were Gretel's of
course. He would have known them anywhere.

That bright coquettish red jacket, with its pretty skirt, bordered with
black, that graceful cap bobbing over the gold earrings, that dainty
apron, and those snug leather shoes that seemed to have grown with the
feet--why if the Pope of Rome had sent them to him by express, Hans
could have sworn they were Annie's.

The two girls were slowly pacing up and down in front of the cottage.
Their arms were entwined, of course, and their heads were nodding and
shaking as emphatically as if all the affairs of the kingdom were under
discussion.

With a joyous shout Hans hastened toward them.

"Huzza, girls, I've found work!"

This brought his mother to the cottage door.

She, too, had pleasant tidings. The fath