coming slowly toward
them along the tow-path on the river-bank, was an old brown mule. She
was pulling a low, green river-boat by a towline, and a small boy, not
much bigger than Jan, was driving her. On the deck of the boat there
was a little cabin with white curtains in the tiny windows and two red
geraniums in pots standing on the sills. From a clothesline hitched to
the rigging there fluttered a row of little shirts, and seated on a box
near by there was a fat, friendly looking woman with two small children
playing by her side. The father of the family was busy with the tiller.

"There come the De Smets, as sure as you live!" cried Granny, rising
from the wheelbarrow, where she had been sitting. "I certainly am glad
to see them." And she started at once down the river to meet the boat,
with Jan and Marie and Fidel all following.

"Ship ahoy!" she cried gayly as the boat drew near. The boy who was
driving the mule grinned shyly. The woman on deck lifted her eyes from
her sewing, smiled, and waved her hand at Granny, while the two little
children ran to the edge of the boat; and held out their arms to her.

"Here we are again, war or no war!" cried Mother De Smet, as the boat
came alongside. Father De Smet left the tiller and threw a rope ashore.
"Whoa!" cried the boy driving the mule. The mule stopped with the
greatest willingness, the boy caught the rope and lifted the great loop
over a strong post on the river-bank, and the "Old Woman" for that was
the name of the boat was in port.

Soon a gangplank was slipped from the boat to the little wooden steps
on the bank, and Mother De Smet, with a squirming baby under each arm,
came ashore. "I do like to get out on dry land and shake my legs a bit
now and then," she said cheerfully as she greeted Granny. "On the boat
I just sit still and grow fat!"

"I shake my legs for a matter of ten miles every day," laughed Granny.
"That's how I keep my figure!"

Mother De Smet set the babies down on the grass, where they immediately
began to tumble about like a pair of puppies, and she and Granny talked
together, while the Twins went to watch the work of Father De Smet and
the boy, whose name was Joseph.

"I don't know whatever the country is coming to," said Mother De Smet
to Granny. "The Germans are everywhere, and they are taking everything
that they can lay their hands on. I doubt if we ever get our cargo safe
to Antwerp this time. We've come for a load of potatoes, but I