The Dutch Twins | Page 7

once; and they ran as fast
as their wooden shoes would take them out into the garden.
They found their father cutting cabbages and gathering them into piles.
He was stopping to light his pipe, when they reached him.
"O Father!" said Kit and Kat both together. "May we go on the boat to
market with you to-morrow morning? Mother said we might ask!"
Father Vedder blew two puffs from his pipe without answering.
"We'll help you load the boat," said Kit.
"Yes," said Kat, "I can carry a cabbage."

"I can carry two," said Kit. "We'll both be good," said Kat.
"Very well," said Father, at last. "We'll see how you work! And
to-morrow morning, if it's fair, I'll see! But you must go to bed early
to-night, because you'll have to get up very early in the morning, if you
go with me! Now you each take a cabbage and run along."
Father Vedder went back to his work.
Kit and Kat ran to the cabbage-pile. Kat took one, and Kit took
two--just to show that he could.
"When Father says 'I'll see,' he always means 'yes,'" Kat said to Kit.
Perhaps it seems queer to you that they should go to market in a boat,
but it didn't seem queer at all to the Twins.
Your see, in Holland there are a great many canals. They cross the
fields like roadways of water, and that is what they really are. Little
canals open into big ones, and big ones go clear to the sea.
It is very easy for farmers to load their vegetables for market right on a
boat. They can pull the boat out into the big canal, and then away they
go to sell their produce in the town.
The canals flow through the towns, too, and make water streets, where
boats go up and down as carriages go here.
The Twins and their father worked like beavers, washing the vegetables
and packing them in baskets, until their good old boat was filled with
cabbages and onions and beets and carrots and all sorts of good things
to eat.
By that time it was nearly dark, and they were all three very hungry; so
they went home.
They found that Mother Vedder had made buttermilk porridge for
supper. The Twins loved buttermilk porridge. They each ate three
bowls of it, and then their mother put them to bed.

This is a picture of the bed! It opened like a cupboard right into the
kitchen, and it was like going to bed on a shelf in the pantry.
The very next thing the Twins knew, it was morning, and there was
Vrouw Vedder calling to them.
"It's market day, and the sun is almost up. Come Kit and Kat, if you
want to go with Father," she said.
The Twins bounced out like two rubber balls. They ate some breakfast
and then ran to the boat.
Father was there before them. He helped them into the boat and put
them both on one seat, and told them to sit still. Then he got in and took
the pole and pushed off.
Vrouw Vedder stood on the canal bank to see them pass.
"Be good children; mind Father, and don't get lost," she called after
them.
Kit and Kat were very busy all the way to town, looking at the things to
be seen on each side of the canal.
It was so early in the morning that the grass was all shiny with dew.
Black and white cows were eating the rich green grass, and a few
laborers were already in the fields.
They passed little groups of farm buildings, their red-tiled roofs shining
in the morning sun; and the windmills threw long, long shadows across
the fields.
The blue blossoms of the flax nodded to them from the canal bank; and
once, they saw a stork fly over a mossy green roof, to her nest on the
chimney, with a frog in her mouth.
They went under bridges and by little canals that opened into the main
canal. They passed so close to some of the houses that Kit and Kat
could see the white curtains blowing in the windows, and the pots of

red geraniums standing on the sill. In one house the family waved their
hands to Kit and Kat from the breakfast table, and a little farther on
they passed a woman who was washing clothes in the canal. Other
boats filled with vegetables and flowers of all colors passed them. And
they were going to market too. Only no other boat had twins in it.
"Good day, neighbor Vedder," one man called out. "Are you taking a
pair of fat pigs to market?"
By and by they came to the town. There were