58 THE LAND OF PLUCK

fish-eating tribe, living like beavers on mounds of their
own raising.

What could have tempted outsiders to disturb them ?
What, indeed, unless it were the same feeling that often
makes a small boy holding either a kaleidoscope, or a puzzle,
an object of persecution to all the big boys around him.

“Let me take a look!” they ery; “I want my turn” ;
or, “Give me the puzzle! Let ’s see what I can make out
of it!”

You know how it is too apt to be. First, their attention
is arrested by seeing the small boy peculiarly happy and
absorbed. They begin to nudge, then to bully him. Small
Boy shakes his head and tries to enjoy himself in peace
and quietness. Bullying increases—the nudges become
dangerous. In despair he soon gives in, or, rather, gives
up, and the big boys slide into easy possession.

But suppose the small boy is plucky, and will not give
up? Suppose he would see the puzzle crushed to atoms
first? Suppose only positive big-boy power can overcome
his as positive resistance? What then ?

So began the history of Holland.

The first who held possession of Dutch soil—not the
first who ever had lived upon it, but the first who had per-
sistently enjoyed the kaleidoscope, and busied themselves
with the puzzle—were a branch of the great German race.
Driven by circumstances from their old home, they had
settled upon an empty island in the river Rhine, which,
you know, after leaving its pleasant southern country,
strageles through Holland in a bewildered search for the
sea. This island they called Betauw, or “Good Meadow,”