WINTER AND SUMMER 19

twenty or even thirty horses. There is no little excite-
ment among the boys and girls when a big ice-breaker
comes out for the first time in the season. The great
crashing thing inspires them with wonder and admiration;
yet with all its power it cuts only a narrow pathway for
the boats. The main face of the country belongs to the
skaters.

For miles and miles the glassy ice spreads its mirror
under the blinking and dazzled sun. Everywhere is one
shining network of slippery highway. Who would walk
or ride then? Not one. Doctors skate to their patients;
clergymen to their parishioners; marketwomen to town
with baskets upon their heads. Laborers go skimming by,
with tools on their shoulders; and tradespeople, busily
planning the day’s affairs; fat old burgomasters, too, with
gold-headed canes cautiously flourished to keep them in
balance ; laughing girls with arms entwined ; long files of
young men, shouting as they pass; children with school-
satchels slung over their shoulders,— all whizzing by, this
way and that, until you can see nothing but the flashing
of skates, and a rushing confusion of color.

And while all this is happening in the open air, the
simple indoor life is steadily going on, in the homes, the
shops, the churches, the schools, the workshops, the
picture-galleries.

Ah, the picture-galleries! All Hollanders, from the very
richest and most cultivated to almost the very humblest,
visit and enjoy the rare collections of paintings that en-
noble their principal towns and cities. And what pictures
those old Dutchmen have painted! The Dutchmen of to-