whip four men at the drop of the hat, because she could take off
her wooden shoes and strike out and a man would think he had been hit by
a railroad tie.

Illustration: Any woman could whip four men at the drop of the hat 388

I do not know what makes Hollanders wear wooden shoes, unless they are
sentenced to do it, or that they are unruly, and have to be hobbled,
to keep them from jumping fences, but the people are so good and honest
that after you have met them you forget the vaudeville feature of their
costumes, and love them, and wish the people of other countries were as
honest as they. For two or three days we were not robbed, and I do not
believe there is a dishonest man or woman in Holland, except one. There
was one woman that played it on dad in Amsterdam, but I think she only
played him for a sucker for a joke, for she laughed all the time.

Dad was much struck at seeing the women selling milk from little carts,
hauled by teams of big dogs, and he negotiated with a woman for a dog
team and cart, and all one day dad and I put on wooden shoes, and Dutch
clothes and drove the dog team around town, and we had the time of
our lives, more fun than I ever had outside of a circus, but the shoes
skinned our feet, and when the dogs laid down to rest, and dad couldn't
talk dog language to make them get up and go ahead, he kicked the off
dog with his wooden shoe, and the dog got up and grabbed a mouthful of
dad's ample pants and shook dad till his teeth were loose.

[Illustration: Grabbed a mouthful of dad's ample pants 386]

A woman driving another mess of dogs had to come and choke the off dog
so he wouldn't swallow dad, pants and all. Dad gave her a dollar for
rescuing him, and what do you think? Say, she pulled an old stocking of
money out of her bosom and counted out ninety-six cents in change and
gave it back to dad, and only charged four cents for saving his life,
and that couldn't occur in any other country, cause in most places they
would take the dollar and strike him for more.

Dad wanted to take the dog team and cart to Milwaukee to give it to a
friend who sells red hot weiners, and so we arranged to have the team
loaded on the boat, but just before the boat sailed, the dog team was
lying down on the dock, sleeping and scratching flees, when the woman
dad bought the team of came along and spoke to the dogs in Dutch, and,
say, those dogs woke up and started on a regular runaway down the dock,
after the lau