en
Katrinka Flack. As soon as this last thought flashed upon him, his
resolve was made. If Gretel would not have the jacket, she should have
the skates.

"No, Gretel," he answered at last, "I can wait. Someday I may have money
enough saved to buy a fine pair. You shall have these."

Gretel's eyes sparkled, but in another instant she insisted, rather
faintly, "The young lady gave the money to YOU, Hans. I'd be real bad to
take it."

Hans shook his head resolutely as he trudged on, causing his sister to
half skip and half walk in her effort to keep beside him. By this time
they had taken off their wooden "rockers" and were hastening home to
tell their mother the good news.

"Oh! I know!" cried Gretel in a sprightly tone. "You can do this. You
can get a pair a little too small for you, and too big for me, and we
can take turns and use them. Won't that be fine?" Gretel clapped her
hands again.

Poor Hans! This was a strong temptation, but he pushed it away from him,
brave-hearted fellow that he was.

"Nonsense, Gretel. You could never get on with a big pair. You stumbled
about with these, like a blind chicken, before I curved off the ends.
No, you must have a pair to fit exactly, and you must practice every
chance you can get, until the twentieth comes. My little Gretel shall
win the silver skates."

Gretel could not help laughing with delight at the very idea.

"Hans! Gretel!" called out a familiar voice.

"Coming, Mother!"

They hastened toward the cottage, Hans still shaking the pieces of
silver in his hand.

On the following day there was not a prouder nor a happier boy in
all Holland than Hans Brinker as he watched his sister, with many a
dexterous sweep, flying in and out among the skaters who at sundown
thronged the canal. A warm jacket had been given her by the kind-hearted
Hilda, and the burst-out shoes had been cobbled into decency by Dame
Brinker. As the little creature darted backward and forward, flushed
with enjoyment and quite unconscious of the many wondering glances
bent upon her, she felt that the shining runners beneath her feet had
suddenly turned earth into fairyland while "Hans, dear, good Hans!"
echoed itself over and over again in her grateful heart.

"By den donder!" exclaimed Peter van Holp to Carl Schummel, "but that
little one in the red jacket and patched petticoat skates well. Gunst!
She has toes on her heels and eyes in the back of her head! See her! It
will be a joke if she g