would flow into the
canals, then overflow them, and inundate the whole country; so that even
the little children in Holland are fully aware of the importance of a
punctual discharge of the sluicer's duties. The boy was about eight
years old when, one day, he asked permission to take some cakes to a
poor blind man, who lived at the other side of the dyke. His father gave
him leave, but charged him not to stay too late. The child promised, and
set off on his little journey. The blind man thankfully partook of his
young friend's cakes, and the boy, mindful of his father's orders, did
not wait, as usual, to hear one of the old man's stories, but as soon as
he had seen him eat one muffin, took leave of him to return home.

As he went along by the canals, then quite full, for it was in October,
and the autumn rains had swelled the waters, the boy now stopped to pull
the little blue flowers which his mother loved so well, now, in childish
gayety, hummed some merry song. The road gradually became more solitary,
and soon neither the joyous shout of the villager, returning to his
cottage-home, nor the rough voice of the carter, grumbling at his lazy
horses, was any longer to be heard The little fellow now perceived that
the blue of the flowers in his hand was scarcely distinguishable from
the green of the surrounding herbage, and he looked up in some dismay.
The night was falling; not, however, a dark winter-night, but one of
those beautiful, clear, moonlight nights, in which every object is
perceptible, though not as distinctly as by day. The child thought of
his father, of his injunction, and was preparing to quit the ravine in
which he was almost buried, and to regain the beach, when suddenly a
slight noise, like the trickling of water upon pebbles, attracted his
attention. He was near one of the large sluices, and he now carefully
examines it, and soon discovers a hole in the wood, through which the
water was flowing. With the instant perception which every child in
Holland would have, the boy saw that the water must soon enlarge the
hole through which it was now only dropping, and that utter and general
ruin would be the consequence of the inundation of the country that must
follow. To see, to throw away the flowers, to climb from stone to stone
till he reached the hole, and to put his finger into it, was the work of
a moment, and, to his delight, he finds that he has succeeded in
stopping the flow of the water.

This was a