The Dutch Twins | Page 8

a great many boats in the
canal here, and people calling back and forth to each other from them.
Kit and Kat saw a boat that the Captain's family lived in. It was like a
floating house.
The Twins thought it must be grand to live on a boat like that, just
going about from town to town, seeing new sights every day.
"We should never have to go to school at all," said Kit.
They wished their own boat were big enough to move about in; but
Father told them they must sit very, very still all the time.
There were houses on each side of the canal, in the town, and people
were clattering along over the pavement in their wooden shoes.
The market-place was an open square in the middle of the town. It had
little booths and stalls all about it. The farmers brought their fresh
vegetables and flowers, or whatever they had to sell, into these stalls,
and then sat there waiting for customers.
Kit and Kat helped their father to unload the boat. Then they sat down
on a box, and Father gave them each some bread and cheese to eat; for
they were hungry again. They put the cheese between slices of bread
and took bites, while they looked about.
Soon there were a good many people in the square. Most of them were
women with market baskets on their arms. They went to the different

stalls to see what they would buy for dinner.
A large woman with a big basket on her arm came along to the stall
where Kit and Kat were sitting.
"Bless my heart!" she said. "Are you twins?"
"Yes, Ma'am," said Kit and Kat. And Kat said, "We're five years old."
"O my soul!" said the large woman. "So you are! What are your
names?"
"Christopher aid Katrina, but they call us Kit and Kat for short." It was
Kat who said this. And Kit said,
"When we are four feet and a half high, we are going to be called
Christopher and Katrina."
"Well, well, well!" said the large woman. "So you are! Now my name
is Vrouw Van der Kloot. Are you helping Father?"
"Yes," said the Twins. "We're going to help him sell things."
"Then you may sell me a cabbage and ten onions," said Vrouw Van der
Kloot.
Father Vedder's eyes twinkled, and he lit his pipe. Kit got a cabbage for
the Vrouw.
"You can get the ten onions," he said to Kat. You see, really Kit
couldn't count ten and be sure of it. So he asked Kat to do it.
Kat wasn't afraid. She took out a little pile of onions in a measure, and
said to Vrouw Van der Kloot,
"Is that ten?"
Then Vrouw Van der Kloot counted them with Kat, very carefully.
There were eleven, and so she gave back one. Theca she gave Kat the

money for the onions, and Kit the money for the cabbage.
Father Vedder said, "Now Kit and Kat, by and by, when you get hungry
again, you can go over to Vrouw Van der Kloot's stall and buy
something from her. She keeps the sweetie shop."
"Oh! Oh!" cried Kit and Kat. "We're hungry yet! Can't we go now?"
"No, not now," said Father. "We must do some work first."
The Twins helped Father Vedder a long time. They learned to count ten
and to do several other things. Then their father gave them the money
for the cabbage and the ten onions they had sold to Vrouw Van der
Kloot, and said,
"You may walk around the market and look in all the stalls, and buy the
thing you like best that costs just two cents. Then come back here to
me."
Kit and Kat set forth on their travels, to see the world. They each held
the money tightly shut in one hand, and with the other hand they held
on to each other.
"The world is very large," said Kit and Kat.
They saw all sorts of strange things in the market. There were tables
piled high with flowers. There was a stall full of birds in cages, singing
away with all their might. One cage had five little birds in it, sitting in a
row.
"O Kit," cried Kat, "let's buy the birds!"
They asked the woman if the birds cost two cents, and she said,
"No, my angels; they cost fifty cents."
You see, now that the Twins could count ten, they knew they couldn't
get the birds for two cents when they cost fifty. So they went to the
next place.

There, there were chickens and ducks for sale. But the Twins had
plenty of those at home. There were stalls and stalls of vegetables just
like Father's,