WINTER AND SUMMER Q7

may have been handed down from father to son for gener-
ations. Nearly every garden in Broek has its zomerhwis
and its pond. Some of these ponds have queer automata

 

—or self-moving figures—upon them: sometimes a duck
that paddles about and flaps its wooden wings; some-
times a wooden sportsman standing upon the shore, jerkily
taking aim at the duck, but never quite succeeding in
getting his range accurate enough to warrant firing; and
sometimes a dog stands among the shrubbery and snaps
his jaws quite fiercely when he is not too damp to work.
Queer things, too, are seen in the growing box, which is
trimmed so as to fail in resembling peacocks and wolves.
Altogether, Broek is a very remarkable place. The
dairy-ly inclined inhabitants regard their kine as friends
and fellow-lodgers, and so the very cattle there live in
fine style. Pet cows, it is said, sometimes rejoice in
pretty blue ribbons tied to their tails,
they not uncommonly find themselves daintily housed

 

and in winter

beneath the family roof.

In some Dutch houses the rooms are covered with two
or three carpets, laid one over the other, and others have
no carpets at all, but the floors are polished, or perhaps
made of tiles laid in regular patterns. Sometimes doors
are curtained like the windows, and the beds are nearly
concealed by heavy draperies. Many among the poorer
classes sleep in rough boxes, or on shelves fixed in recesses
against the wall; so that sometimes the best bed in the
cottage looks more like a cupboard than anything else.

Whether having so much water about suggested the

idea or not, T cannot say, but certain it is that big blocks