CHAPTER III

WINTER AND SUMMER

HEN the coldest days of winter come, and

 

the little songsters—and their greedy cou-

 

sins, the storks—have flown away in search
of warmer climes, the country still is in a glitter, for its
waters are frozen. Then all Holland puts on its skates,
and gets atop of its beloved water, in which before it has
only dabbled. Everybody, young and old, little and big,
goes skimming and sliding along the canals, over the lakes,
and on the rivers.

The entire country seems one vast skating-rink. No
“need of red balls to tell the people that everything is
ready for the sport. They know that, in their land, a
cold winter means ice,—and good solid ice, too,— some-
times for weeks together. Then come out the skaters ;
and the sleighs; and the happy, sliding-chair folk who
are pushed swiftly over the ice by friends, or by liveried
lackeys, gliding close behind. Then appear,—swiftest,
most dazzling of all,—the ice-boats, perhaps with merry
loads of laughing boys and singing school-children. Lis-
tening to these sweet choruses, as they suddenly burst

2 iv