Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks | Page 4

coats of arms. Instead of the
Mermaid's Pool is now a cheese farm of fifty cows, a fine house and
barn, and a family of pink-cheeked, yellow-haired children who walk
and play in wooden shoes.
So this particular mermaid, all because of her entanglement in the fence,
was more famous when stuffed than when living, while all her young
friends and older relatives were forgotten.

THE BOY WHO WANTED MORE CHEESE
Klaas Van Bommel was a Dutch boy, twelve years old, who lived
where cows were plentiful. He was over five feet high, weighed a
hundred pounds, and had rosy cheeks. His appetite was always good
and his mother declared his stomach had no bottom. His hair was of a
color half-way between a carrot and a sweet potato. It was as thick as
reeds in a swamp and was cut level, from under one ear to another.
Klaas stood in a pair of timber shoes, that made an awful rattle when he
ran fast to catch a rabbit, or scuffed slowly along to school over the

brick road of his village. In summer Klaas was dressed in a rough, blue
linen blouse. In winter he wore woollen breeches as wide as coffee
bags. They were called bell trousers, and in shape were like a couple of
cow-bells turned upwards. These were buttoned on to a thick warm
jacket. Until he was five years old, Klaas was dressed like his sisters.
Then, on his birthday, he had boy's clothes, with two pockets in them,
of which he was proud enough.
Klaas was a farmer's boy. He had rye bread and fresh milk for breakfast.
At dinner time, beside cheese and bread, he was given a plate heaped
with boiled potatoes. Into these he first plunged a fork and then dipped
each round, white ball into a bowl of hot melted butter. Very quickly
then did potato and butter disappear "down the red lane." At supper, he
had bread and skim milk, left after the cream had been taken off, with a
saucer, to make butter. Twice a week the children enjoyed a bowl of
bonnyclabber or curds, with a little brown sugar sprinkled on the top.
But at every meal there was cheese, usually in thin slices, which the
boy thought not thick enough. When Klaas went to bed he usually fell
asleep as soon as his shock of yellow hair touched the pillow. In
summer time he slept till the birds began to sing, at dawn. In winter,
when the bed felt warm and Jack Frost was lively, he often heard the
cows talking, in their way, before he jumped out of his bag of straw,
which served for a mattress. The Van Bommels were not rich, but
everything was shining clean.
There was always plenty to eat at the Van Bommels' house. Stacks of
rye bread, a yard long and thicker than a man's arm, stood on end in the
corner of the cool, stone-lined basement. The loaves of dough were put
in the oven once a week. Baking time was a great event at the Van
Bommels' and no men-folks were allowed in the kitchen on that day,
unless they were called in to help. As for the milk-pails and pans, filled
or emptied, scrubbed or set in the sun every day to dry, and the cheeses,
piled up in the pantry, they seemed sometimes enough to feed a small
army.
But Klaas always wanted more cheese. In other ways, he was a good
boy, obedient at home, always ready to work on the cow-farm, and

diligent in school. But at the table he never had enough. Sometimes his
father laughed and asked him if he had a well, or a cave, under his
jacket.
Klaas had three younger sisters, Trintjé, Anneké and Saartjé; which is
Dutch for Kate, Annie and Sallie. These, their fond mother, who loved
them dearly, called her "orange blossoms"; but when at dinner, Klaas
would keep on, dipping his potatoes into the hot butter, while others
were all through, his mother would laugh and call him her Buttercup.
But always Klaas wanted more cheese. When unusually greedy, she
twitted him as a boy "worse than Butter-and-Eggs"; that is, as
troublesome as the yellow and white plant, called toad-flax, is to the
farmer--very pretty, but nothing but a weed.
One summer's evening, after a good scolding, which he deserved well,
Klaas moped and, almost crying, went to bed in bad humor. He had
teased each one of his sisters to give him her bit of cheese, and this,
added to his own slice, made his stomach feel as heavy as lead.
Klaas's bed was up in the garret. When the house was first built, one of
the red tiles of the roof had been