110 THE LAND OF PLUCK

not have kept ten young legs and ten young arms quiet
any longer.

A great shout from the village came faintly to the chil-
dren’s ears. Jan’s boat was in sight! The little folk
were up and alert in an instant. They turned about,
to look back toward the village,—and if there was not
Ludofi’s mother, Mevrouw! Kleef, erect and smiling, com-

 

ing briskly along the dike toward them! How handsome
she looked, with her bright eyes and rosy cheeks, and
the big lace cap, the blue-and-black short skirt, and
the low jacket over the gaily-colored underwaist ! Her
little Troide toddled beside her, taking two steps to
the mother’s one, with deep blue eyes fixed upon the
line of familiar forms just risen from the dike. The
baby—it was a boy; one could tell thaé by the woolen
slawpivuts, or nightcap, on -his head, for the girl-babies in
Volendam never wear that kind—the baby, trig and smart,
gazed from the mother’s arms at the same five familiar
little forms, and in a moment the children all were crowd-
ing around the mevrouw.

“Jan is back, is n’t he?” asked Dirk.

“Yes, [ suppose so,” she answered carelessly. The good
woman was rather tired of her neighbor Jan van Riper’s
frequent misbehavings and false alarms.

“My, how warm the day!” she added, gently setting the
baby down upon the turf beside her; “and the dear child
is as weighty as a keg of herring !”

“Oh, oh, the beauty!” exclaimed the girls, quite en-
raptured with the little one; while Dirk and Ludoff

1 Mevroww, Madam (pronounced Meffrouw).