108 THE LAND OF PLUCK

Zuyder Zee, wondering why any one should think it was
trying to come ashore and do mischief. It was so quiet,
so grand, and it bore the big fishing-smacks so patiently,
when it could so easily topple them over! Mother was
patient and peaceful, too. Greitje herself (so went her
day-dream) would be just like Mother, one of these days:
she would sew and mend and churn and bake, only she

would make more cakes and less bread.. Yes, she would

 

bake great chests full of cinnamon-cakes,—aneel koehjes,—
such as they sold at the Kermis; and she would be, oh,
just as good and kind to her little girl as Mother was to
her, and—

* # %

“T’m not going to stay at home all my life,” Kassy
Tuker was thinking or dreaming. “Some day I shall
keep a beautiful shop in Amsterdam, and sell laces and
caps and head-gear and lovely things ; and I 71] courtesy
and say ‘ja, mi nheer, like a grand lady; and Ill learn
to sing and dance better than any girl at the Kermis;
and IT shall wear gold on my temples, and have a lovely
jacket for skating-days ; and every month I ’1l come ‘back
for a while, and bring pretty things to Father, Mother, and
the minister ; and —”

“T’ve done full a finger-length of it to-day,” mused
Katrina, as she pressed her red lips together and worked
steadily at the chain she was weaving on a pin-rack
for her father. “It shall be done by his birthday, and
I’ll hang his big silver watch on-it while he ’s asleep,
and then kiss and hug him till he opens his eyes. Ah,