hare it with someone else. So, as soon
as he had finished his meal, he jumped up from the table and begged his
mother to let him go to see a poor blind man who lived not far away,
and to let him carry with him those cakes which had not been eaten.

His mother was pleased with this thought of Peter's for the poor old
man, and at once brought a basket and filled it with cakes for him to
carry to the invalid, while Peter's father was making him promise not
to stay out too late, and soon the boy was on his way to his friends,
happy in the beauty of the day, and in the thought of the pleasure his
present would give the blind man.

And he was not mistaken, the old man was delighted with the cakes, and
at once broke and ate one, while he began to tell Peter one of the
stories for which he was famous, and which he knew Peter loved to hear.
But Peter suddenly remembered his promise not to stay out late, and
finally became so uneasy that he told the old man he must not wait to
hear the end of the story, and, hastily bidding him farewell, started
towards home.

His path lay beside the dyke, and along its grassy banks grew beautiful
wild flowers of many varieties, so numerous and attractive that Peter
decided to pick a bunch of them to carry home to his mother, who was so
much of an invalid that she was seldom out of the house. So he picked a
few here and a few there--blue and yellow and pink, until he had a
handful of those varieties of which he knew his mother was most fond,
and as he walked on, to keep himself from feeling lonesome, he hummed a
gay little song.

Presently, he stopped, and neither sang nor smiled, as he looked at a
slender thread of water trickling through the grass. Where did it come
from? Surely not from the canal, and there was nowhere else for it to
come from unless it came from the dyke itself.

The thought was enough to make even a child turn pale and tremble. Only
the dykes stood between the boundless sea and the safety of little
Holland. He looked again, and to his imagination, the stream seemed
greater already. What could he do? Night was coming on, the road was a
solitary one. There was only the barest chance of anyone passing that
way whom he might hail, or of whom he could ask advice.

Then came a quick recollection of his promise to his father, and he
started homeward again, but a force as mighty as a giant's grasp, made
him turn back again to watch that trickling stream of water.

He was nea