Hans Brinker/Silver Skates/etc | Page 6

Had the cottage been a mile away, it would still have seemed
near. In that flat country every object stands out plainly in the distance;
the chickens show as distinctly as the windmills. Indeed, were it not for
the dikes and the high banks of the canals, one could stand almost
anywhere in middle Holland without seeing a mound or a ridge
between the eye and the "jumping-off place."
None had better cause to know the nature of these same dikes than
Dame Brinker and the panting youngsters now running at her call. But
before stating WHY, let me ask you to take a rocking-chair trip with
me to that far country where you may see, perhaps for the first time,
some curious things that Hans and Gretel saw every day.

Holland

Holland is one of the queerest countries under the sun. It should be
called Odd-land or Contrary-land, for in nearly everything it is different
from the other parts of the world. In the first place, a large portion of
the country is lower than the level of the sea. Great dikes, or bulwarks,
have been erected at a heavy cost of money and labor to keep the ocean
where it belongs. On certain parts of the coast it sometimes leans with
all its weight against the land, and it is as much as the poor country can
do to stand the pressure. Sometimes the dikes give way or spring a leak,
and the most disastrous results ensue. They are high and wide, and the
tops of some of them are covered with buildings and trees. They have
even fine public roads on them, from which horses may look down

upon wayside cottages. Often the keels of floating ships are higher than
the roofs of the dwellings. The stork clattering to her young on the
house peak may feel that her nest is lifted far out of danger, but the
croaking frog in neighboring bulrushes is nearer the stars than she.
Water bugs dart backward and forward above the heads of the chimney
swallows, and willow trees seem drooping with shame, because they
cannot reach as high as the reeds nearby.
Ditches, canals, ponds, rivers, and lakes are everywhere to be seen.
High, but not dry, they shine in the sunlight, catching nearly all the
bustle and the business, quite scorning the tame fields stretching
damply beside them. One is tempted to ask, "Which is Holland--the
shores or the water?" The very verdure that should be confined to the
land has made a mistake and settled upon the fish ponds. In fact, the
entire country is a kind of saturated sponge or, as the English poet,
Butler, called it,
A land that rides at anchor, and is moor'd, In which they do not live, but
go aboard.
Persons are born, live, and die, and even have their gardens on
canal-boats. Farmhouses, with roofs like great slouched hats pulled
over their eyes, stand on wooden legs with a tucked-up sort of air, as if
to say, "We intend to keep dry if we can." Even the horses wear a wide
stool on each hoof as if to lift them out of the mire. In short, the
landscape everywhere suggests a paradise for ducks. It is a glorious
country in summer for barefoot girls and boys. Such wading! Such
mimic ship sailing! Such rowing, fishing, and swimming! Only think of
a chain of puddles where one can launch chip boats all day long and
never make a return trip! But enough. A full recital would set all young
America rushing in a body toward the Zuider Zee.
Dutch cities seem at first sight to be a bewildering jungle of houses,
bridges, churches, and ships, sprouting into masts, steeples, and trees.
In some cities vessels are hitched like horses to their owners' doorposts
and receive their freight from the upper windows. Mothers scream to
Lodewyk and Kassy not to swing on the garden gate for fear they may
be drowned! Water roads are more frequent there than common roads
and railways; water fences in the form of lazy green ditches enclose
pleasure-ground, farm, and garden.
Sometimes fine green hedges are seen, but wooden fences such as we

have in America are rarely met with in Holland. As for stone fences, a
Dutchman would lift his hands with astonishment at the very idea.
There is no stone there, except for those great masses of rock that have
been brought from other lands to strengthen and protect the coast. All
the small stones or pebbles, if there ever were any, seem to be
imprisoned in pavements or quite melted away. Boys with strong, quick
arms may grow from pinafores to full beards without ever finding one
to start the water rings or set the