106 THE LAND OF PLUCK

wall built to keep back the sea that was forever trying to
spread itself over Holland, though Holland by no means
intended to allow it to do any such thing. And _ they
knew also, as did all Volendam, that Jan van Riper had
been out over long in his little fishing-boat, and that there had
been heavy winds

after he started;

also that his wife,

Oo
s

who was continually
scolding him, was
now going about,
her eyes red with
weeping, telling the
neighbors how good
and easy he was,
and how he would
n't harm a kitten
Jan would n’t!

 

They knew, more-

over, that Adrian

 

Runckel’s tulip-bed

“CHE WOULD N’T HARM A KITTEN— JAN WOULD N’T.””

 

was a show; hardly

 

another man in the
village had a flower worth looking at, if you went in for
size, color, and stiffness. They knew, besides, that ever
so many queer flapping and squirming things had been
hauled in that very morning by Peter Loop’s big net
only he was dreadfully cross, and would n’t let a body
come near it—that is, a little body. Above all, they
knew that the mother of Ludoff Kleef was coming to join