Stories by English Authors: Germany (Selected by Scribners) | Page 8

he shook his head.
"Little wild bird," he said, "you have given me a great idea, and I will
tell you what it is: to tame you. So good-bye for the present."
"Good-bye," she said. "But wild birds are not so easily tamed."
Then she waved her hand over her head, and went on her way singing.

KOOSJE: A STUDY OF DUTCH LIFE, by John Strange Winter
Her name was Koosje van Kampen, and she lived in Utrecht, that most
quaint of quaint cities, the Venice of the North.
All her life had been passed under the shadow of the grand old Dom
Kerk; she had played bo-peep behind the columns and arcades of the
ruined, moss-grown cloisters; had slipped up and fallen down the steps
leading to the grachts; had once or twice, in this very early life, been
fished out of those same slimy, stagnant waters; had wandered under

the great lindens in the Baan, and gazed curiously up at the stork's nest
in the tree by the Veterinary School; had pattered about the
hollow-sounding streets in her noisy wooden klompen; had danced and
laughed, had quarrelled and wept, and fought and made friends again,
to the tune of the silver chimes high up in the Dom--chimes that were
sometimes old Nederlandsche hymns, sometimes Mendelssohn's
melodies and tender "Lieder ohne Worte."
But that was ever so long ago, and now she had left her romping
childhood behind her, and had become a maid-servant--a very dignified
and aristocratic maid-servant indeed--with no less a sum than eight
pounds ten a year in wages.
She lived in the house of a professor, who dwelt on the Munster
Kerkhoff, one of the most aristocratic parts of that wonderfully
aristocratic city; and once or twice every week you might have seen her,
if you had been there to see, busily engaged in washing the red tile and
blue slate pathway in front of the professor's house. You would have
seen that she was very pleasant to look at, this Koosje, very comely and
clean, whether she happened to be very busy, or whether it had been
Sunday, and, with her very best gown on, she was out for a promenade
in the Baan, after duly going to service as regularly as the Sabbath
dawned in the grand old Gothic choir of the cathedral.
During the week she wore always the same costume as does every
other servant in the country: a skirt of black stuff, short enough to show
a pair of very neat-set and well-turned ankles, clad in cloth shoes and
knitted stockings that showed no wrinkles; over the skirt a bodice and a
kirtle of lilac, made with a neatly gathered frilling about her round
brown throat; above the frilling five or six rows of unpolished garnet
beads fastened by a massive clasp of gold filigree, and on her head a
spotless white cap tied with a neat bow under her chin--as neat, let me
tell you, as an Englishman's tie at a party.
But it was on Sunday that Koosje shone forth in all the glory of a black
gown and her jewellery--with great ear-rings to match the clasp of her
necklace, and a heavy chain and cross to match that again, and one or
two rings; while on her head she wore an immense cap, much too big to

put a bonnet over, though for walking she was most particular to have
gloves.
Then, indeed, she was a young person to be treated with respect, and
with respect she was undoubtedly treated. As she passed along the
quaint, resounding streets, many a head was turned to look after her;
but Koosje went on her way like the staid maiden she was, duly
impressed with the fact that she was principal servant of Professor van
Dijck, the most celebrated authority on the study of osteology in
Europe. So Koosje never heeded the looks, turned her head neither to
the right nor to the left, but went sedately on her business or pleasure,
whichever it happened to be.
It was not likely that such a treasure could remain long unnoticed and
unsought after. Servants in the Netherlands, I hear, are not so good but
that they might be better; and most people knew what a treasure
Professor van Dijck had in his Koosje. However, as the professor
conscientiously raised her wages from time to time, Koosje never
thought of leaving him.
But there is one bribe no woman can resist--the bribe that is offered by
love. As Professor van Dijck had expected and feared, that bribe ere
long was held out to Koosje, and Koosje was too weak to resist it. Not
that he wished her to do so. If the girl had a chance of settling well and
happily for life,