Hans Brinker; Or, The Silver Skates

by Mary Mapes Dodge

  XI

  BIG MANIAS AND LITTLE ODDITIES

  While skating along at full speed, they heard the cars from Amsterdamcoming close behind them.

  "Hollo!" cried Ludwig, glancing toward the rail-track--"who can't beat alocomotive? Let's give it a race!"

  The whistle screamed at the very idea--so did the boys--and at it theywent.

  For an instant the boys were ahead, hurrahing with all their might--onlyfor an instant, but even _that_ was something.

  This excitement over, they began to travel more leisurely, and indulgein conversation and frolic. Sometimes they stopped to exchange a wordwith the guards who were stationed at certain distances along the canal.These men, in Winter, attend to keeping the surface free fromobstruction and garbage. After a snow-storm they are expected to sweepthe feathery covering away before it hardens into a marble pretty tolook at but very unwelcome to skaters. Now and then the boys so farforgot their dignity as to clamber among the ice-bound canal-boatscrowded together in a widened harbor off the canal, but the watchfulguards would soon spy them out and order them down with a growl.

  Nothing could be straighter than the canal upon which our party wereskating, and nothing straighter than the long rows of willow trees thatstood, bare and wispy, along the bank. On the opposite side, lifted highabove the surrounding country, lay the carriage road on top of thegreat dyke built to keep the Haarlem Lake within bounds; stretching outfar in the distance until it became lost in a point, was the glassycanal with its many skaters, its brown-winged ice-boats, its push-chairsand its queer little sleds, light as cork, flying over the ice by meansof iron-pronged sticks in the hands of the riders. Ben was in ecstasywith the scene.

  Ludwig van Holp had been thinking how strange it was that the Englishboy should know so much of Holland. According to Lambert's account heknew more about it than the Dutch did. This did not quite please ouryoung Hollander. Suddenly he thought of something that he believed wouldmake the "Shon Pull" open his eyes; he drew near Lambert with atriumphant:

  "Tell him about the tulips!"

  Ben caught the word "_tulpen_."

  "Oh! yes," said he eagerly, in English, "the Tulip Mania--are youspeaking of that? I have often heard it mentioned, but know very littleabout it. It reached its height in Amsterdam, didn't it?"

  Ludwig moaned; the words were hard to understand, but there was nomistaking the enlightened expression on Ben's face; Lambert, happily,was quite unconscious of his young countryman's distress as he replied:

  "Yes, here and in Haarlem, principally; but the excitement ran high allover Holland, and in England too for that matter."

  "Hardly in England,[18] I think," said Ben, "but I am not sure, as I wasnot there at the time."

  [Footnote 18: Although the Tulip Mania did not prevail in England as inHolland, the flower soon became an object of speculation and broughtvery large prices. In 1636, Tulips were publicly sold on the Exchange ofLondon. Even as late as 1800, a common price was fifteen guineas for onebulb. Ben did not know that in his own day a single Tulip plant, calledthe "Fanny Kemble" had been sold in London for more than 70 guineas.

  Mr. Mackay in his "Memoirs of Popular Delusions" tells a funny story ofan English botanist who happened to see a tulip bulb lying in theconservatory of a wealthy Dutchman. Ignorant of its value, he took outhis penknife and, cutting the bulb in two, became very much interestedin his investigations. Suddenly the owner appeared, and pouncingfuriously upon him, asked him if he knew what he was doing. "Peeling amost extraordinary onion," replied the philosopher. "Hundert tousanttuyvel!" shouted the Dutchman, "it's an Admiral Vander Eyk!" "Thankyou," replied the traveler, immediately writing the name in his notebook; "pray are these very common in your country?" "Death and thetuyvel!" screamed the Dutchman, "come before the Syndic and you shallsee!" In spite of his struggles the poor investigator, followed by anindignant mob, was taken through the streets to a magistrate. Soon helearned to his dismay that he had destroyed a bulb worth 4,000 florins($1,600). He was lodged in prison until securities could be procured forthe payment of the sum.]

  "Ha! ha! that's true, unless you are over two hundred years old. Well, Itell you, sir, there was never anything like it before nor since. Why,persons were so crazy after tulip bulbs in those days, that they paidtheir weight in gold for them."

  "What, the weight of a man?" cried Ben, showing such astonishment in hiseyes, that Ludwig fairly capered.

  "No, no, the weight of a _bulb_. The first tulip was sent here fromConstantinople about the year 1560. It was so much admired that the richpeople of Amsterdam sent to Turkey for more. From that time they grew tobe the rage, and it lasted for years. Single roots brought from one tofour thousand florins; and one bulb, the Semper Augustus, broughtfifty-five hundred."

  "That's more than four hundred guineas of our money," interposed Ben.

  "Yes, and I know I'm right, for I read it in a translation fromBeckman, only day before yesterday. Well, sir, it was great. Every onespeculated in Tulips, even the barge-men and rag-women, andchimney-sweeps. The richest merchants were not ashamed to share theexcitement. People bought bulbs and sold them again at a tremendousprofit without ever seeing them. It grew into a kind of gambling. Somebecame rich by it in a few days, and some lost everything they had.Land, houses, cattle and even clothing went for Tulips when people hadno ready money. Ladies sold their jewels and finery to enable them tojoin in the fun. Nothing else was thought of. At last the States-generalinterfered. People began to see what geese they were making ofthemselves, and down went the price of Tulips. Old tulip debts couldn'tbe collected. Creditors went to law, and the law turned its back uponthem; debts made in gambling were not binding, it said. Then, there wasa time! Thousands of rich speculators reduced to beggary in an hour. Asold Beckman says, 'the bubble was burst at last.'"

  "Yes, and a big bubble it was," said Ben, who had listened with greatinterest. "By the way, did you know that the name Tulip came from aTurkish word, signifying turban?"

  "I had forgotten that," answered Lambert, "but it's a capital idea. Justfancy a party of Turks in full head-gear, squatted upon a lawn--perfecttulip bed! Ha! ha! capital idea!"

  ["There," groaned Ludwig to himself, "he's been telling Lambertsomething wonderful about Tulips--I knew it!"]

  "The fact is," continued Lambert, "you can conjure up quite a humanpicture out of a tulip bed in bloom, especially when it is nodding andbobbing in the wind. Did you ever notice it?"

  "Not I. It strikes me, Van Mounen, that you Hollanders are prodigiouslyfond of the flower to this day."

  "Certainly. You can't have a garden without them, prettiest flower thatgrows, _I_ think. My uncle has a magnificent bed of the finest varietiesat his summer-house on the other side of Amsterdam."

  "I thought your uncle lived in the city?"

  "So he does; but his summer-house, or pavilion, is a few miles off. Hehas another one built out over the river. We passed near it when weentered the city. Everybody in Amsterdam has a pavilion somewhere, if hecan."

  "Do they ever live there?" asked Ben.

  "Bless you, no! They are small affairs, suitable only to spend a fewhours in on Summer afternoons. There are some beautiful ones on thesouthern end of the Haarlem Lake--now that they've commenced to drain itinto polders, it will spoil _that_ fun. By the way, we've passed somered-roofed ones since we left home. You noticed them I suppose withtheir little bridges, and ponds and gardens, and their mottoes over thedoor-way."

  Ben nodded.

  "They make but little show, now," continued Lambert, "but in warmweather they are delightful. After the willows sprout, uncle goes to hissummer-house every afternoon. He dozes and smokes; aunt knits, with herfeet perched upon a foot-stove, never mind how hot the day; my cousinRika and the other girls fish in the lake from the windows, or chat withtheir friends rowing by; and the youngsters tumble about, or hang uponthe little bridges over the ditch. Then they have coffee and cakes;besides a great bunch of water-lilies on the table--it's very fine, Ican tell you
; only (between ourselves) though I was born here, I shallnever fancy the odor of stagnant water that hangs about most of thesummer-houses. Nearly every one you see is built over a ditch. ProbablyI feel it more, from having lived so long in England."

  "Perhaps I shall notice it, too," said Ben, "if a thaw comes. This earlywinter has covered up the fragrant waters for my benefit--much obligedto it. Holland without this glorious skating wouldn't be the same thingto me at all."

  "How very different you are from the Poots!" exclaimed Lambert, who hadbeen listening in a sort of brown study, "and yet you are cousins--Icannot understand it."

  "We _are_ cousins, or rather we have always considered ourselves such,but the relationship is not very close. Our grandmothers werehalf-sisters. _My_ side of the family is entirely English, while his isentirely Dutch. Old Great-grandfather Poot married twice, you see, and Iam a descendant of his English wife. I like Jacob, though, better thanhalf of my English cousins put together. He is the truest-hearted,best-natured boy I ever knew. Strange as you may think it, my fatherbecame accidentally acquainted with Jacob's father while on a businessvisit to Rotterdam. They soon talked over their relationship--in French,by the way--and they have corresponded in that language ever since.Queer things come about in this world. My sister Jenny would open hereyes at some of Aunt Poot's ways. Aunt is a thorough lady, but sodifferent from mother--and the house, too, and furniture, and way ofliving, everything is different."

  "Of course," assented Lambert, complacently, as if to say, "you couldscarcely expect such general perfection anywhere else than in Holland,""but you will have all the more to tell Jenny when you go back."

  "Yes, indeed. I can say one thing--if cleanliness is, as they claim,next to godliness, Broek is safe. It is the cleanest place I ever saw inmy life. Why, my Aunt Poot, rich as she is, scrubs half the time, andher house looks as if it were varnished all over. I wrote to motheryesterday that I could see my double always with me, feet to feet, inthe polished floor of the dining-room."

  "Your _double_! that word puzzles me; what do you mean?"

  "Oh, my reflection, my apparition. Ben Dobbs number two."

  "Ah, I see," exclaimed Van Mounen. "Have you ever been in your AuntPoot's grand parlor?"

  Ben laughed. "Only once, and that was on the day of my arrival. Jacobsays I shall have no chance of entering it again until the time of hissister Kenau's wedding, the week after Christmas. Father has consentedthat I shall remain to witness the great event. Every Saturday AuntPoot, and her fat Kate, go into that parlor and sweep, and polish, andscrub; then it is darkened and closed until Saturday comes again; not asoul enters it in the meantime; but the _schoonmaken_, as she calls it,must be done, just the same."

  "That is nothing. Every parlor in Broek meets with the same treatment,"said Lambert. "What do you think of these moving figures in herneighbor's garden?"

  "Oh, they're well enough; the swans must seem really alive gliding aboutthe pond in summer; but that nodding Mandarin in the corner, under thechestnut trees, is ridiculous, only fit for children to laugh at. Andthen the stiff garden patches, and the trees all trimmed and painted.Excuse me, Van Mounen, but I shall never learn to admire Dutch taste."

  "It will take time," answered Lambert, condescendingly, "but you aresure to agree with it at last. I saw much to admire in England, and Ihope I shall be sent back with you, to study at Oxford; but takeeverything together, I like Holland best."

  "Of course you do," said Ben, in a tone of hearty approval, "youwouldn't be a good Hollander if you didn't. Nothing like loving one'scountry. It is strange, though, to have such a warm feeling for such acold place. If we were not exercising all the time we should freezeoutright."

  Lambert laughed.

  "That's your English blood, Benjamin. _I'm_ not cold. And look at theskaters here on the canal--they're red as roses, and happy as lords.Hallo! good Captain van Holp," called out Lambert in Dutch, "what sayyou to stopping at yonder farmhouse and warming our toes?"

  "Who is cold?" asked Peter, turning around.

  "Benjamin Dobbs."

  "Benjamin Dobbs shall be warmed," and the party was brought to a halt.