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Read Ebook: Hans Brinker; Or The Silver Skates by Dodge Mary Mapes Cooke Edna Illustrator
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Ebook has 548 lines and 23605 words, and 11 pages
o tuck behind the father's back and spread over his knees. Then she twitched the carved bench under his feet, and Hans kicked the fire to make it brighter.
The father was "sitting up" at last. What wonder that he looked about him like one bewildered. "Little Hans" had just been almost carrying him. "The baby" was over four feet long, and was demurely brushing up the hearth with a bundle of willow wisps. Meitje, the vrouw, winsome and fair as ever, had gained at least fifty pounds in what seemed to him a few hours. She also had some new lines in her face that puzzled him. The only familiar things in the room were the pine table that he had made before he was married, the Bible upon the shelf, and the cupboard in the corner.
Ah! Raff Brinker, it was only natural that your eyes should fill with hot tears even while looking at the joyful faces of your loved ones. Ten years dropped from a man's life are no small loss; ten years of manhood, of household happiness and care; ten years of honest labor, of conscious enjoyment of sunshine and outdoor beauty, ten years of grateful life--One day looking forward to all this; the next, waking to find them passed, and a blank. What wonder the scalding tears dropped one by one upon your cheek!
"God bless thee," sobbed Raff, kissing her again and again. "I had forgotten that!"
Soon he looked up again, and spoke in a cheerful voice: "I should know her, vrouw," he said, holding the sweet young face between his hands, and gazing at it as though he were watching it grow. "I should know her. The same blue eyes, and the lips, and, ah! me, the little song she could sing almost before she could stand. But that was long ago," he added, with a sigh, still looking at her dreamily, "long ago; it's all gone now."
"Not so, indeed," cried Dame Brinker, eagerly. "Do you think I would let her forget it? Gretel, child, sing the old song thou hast known so long!"
Raff Brinker's hands fell wearily and his eyes closed, but it was something to see the smile playing about his mouth, as Gretel's voice floated about him like an incense.
It was a simple air; she had never known the words.
With loving instinct she softened every note, until Raff almost fancied that his two-year-old baby was once more beside him.
As soon as the song was finished, Hans mounted a wooden stool and began to rummage in the cupboard.
"Have a care, Hans," said Dame Brinker, who through all her poverty was ever a tidy housewife. "Have a care, the wine is there at your right, and the white bread beyond it."
"Never fear, mother," answered Hans, reaching far back on an upper shelf, "I shall do no mischief."
Jumping down, he walked toward his father, and placed an oblong block of pine-wood in his hands. One of its ends was rounded off, and some deep cuts had been made on the top.
"Do you know what it is, father?" asked Hans.
Raff Brinker's face brightened. "Indeed I do, boy; it is the boat I was making you yest--alack, not yesterday, but years ago."
"I have kept it ever since, father; it can be finished when your hand grows strong again."
"Yes, but not for you, my lad. I must wait for the grandchildren. Why, you are nearly a man. Have you helped your mother, boy, through all these years?"
"Aye, and bravely," put in Dame Brinker.
"Let me see," muttered the father, looking in a puzzled way at them all, "how long is it since the night when the waters were coming in? 'Tis the last I remember."
"We have told thee true, Raff. It was ten years last Pinxter-week."
"Ten years--and I fell then, you say. Has the fever been on me ever since?"
Dame Brinker scarce knew how to reply. Should she tell him all? Tell him that he had been an idiot, almost a lunatic? The doctor had charged her on no account to worry or excite his patient.
Hans and Gretel looked astonished when the answer came.
The newly-awakened man bowed his head.
"Aye, well enough, mine vrouw," he said, after a moment's silence, "but my brain turns somehow like a spinning-wheel. It will not be right till I get on the dykes again. When shall I be at work, think you?"
"Hear the man!" cried Dame Brinker delighted, yet frightened, too, for that matter; "we must get him on the bed, Hans. Work, indeed!"
They tried to raise him from the chair--but he was not ready yet.
"Be off with ye!" he said, with something like his old smile ; "does a man want to be lifted about like a log? I tell you before three suns I shall be on the dykes again. Ah! there'll be some stout fellows to greet me. Jan Kamphuisen and young Hoogsvliet. They have been good friends to thee, Hans, I'll warrant."
Hans looked at his mother. Young Hoogsvliet had been dead five years. Jan Kamphuisen was in the jail at Amsterdam.
"Aye, they'd have done their share no doubt," said Dame Brinker, parrying the inquiry, "had we asked them. But what with working and studying, Hans has been busy enough without seeking comrades."
"Working and studying," echoed Raff, in a musing tone; "can the youngsters read and cipher, Meitje?"
"Here, lad, help a bit," interrupted Raff Brinker. "I must get me on the bed again."
THE THOUSAND GUILDERS
None seeing the humble supper eaten in the Brinker cottage that night would have dreamed of the dainty fare hidden away near by. Hans and Gretel looked rather wistfully toward the cupboard as they drank their cupful of water and ate their scanty share of black bread; but even in thought they did not rob their father.
Hans looked up anxiously, dreading lest his mother should grow agitated, as usual, when speaking of the lost money; but she was silently nibbling her bread and looking with a doleful stare toward the window.
"Thousand guilders," echoed a faint voice from the bed. "Ah, I am sure they have been of good use to you, vrouw, through the long years while your man was idle."
The poor woman started up. These words quite destroyed the hope that of late had been glowing within her.
"Are you awake, Raff?" she faltered.
"Yes, Meitje, and I feel much better. Our money was well saved, vrouw, I was saying. Did it last through all these ten years?"
"Remember what the meester told us; the father must not be worried."
"Speak to him, child," she answered, trembling.
Hans hurried to the bedside.
"I am glad you are feeling better," he said, leaning over his father; "another day will see you quite strong again."
"Aye, like enough. How long did the money last, Hans? I could not hear your mother. What did she say?"
"I said, Raff," stammered Dame Brinker in great distress, "that it was all gone."
"Well, well, wife, do not fret at that; one thousand guilders is not so very much for ten years, and with children to bring up; but it has helped to make you all comfortable. Have you had much sickness to bear?"
"N-no," sobbed Dame Brinker lifting her apron to her eyes.
"Tut--tut, woman, why do you cry?" said Raff, kindly; "we will soon fill another pouch, when I am on my feet again. Lucky I told you all about it before I fell."
"Told me what, man?"
"Why, that I buried the money. In my dream just now, it seemed I had never said aught about it."
Dame Brinker started forward. Hans caught her arm.
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