338 Hans Brinker

XLII
A DISCOVERY

CTOHE next sun brought a busy day to the Brinkers.

In the first place, the news of the thousand guilders
had, of course, to be told to the father. Such tidings as that
surely could not harm him. Then, while Gretel was dili-
gently obeying her mother’s injunction to “clean the place
fresh as a new brewing,” Hans and the dame sallied forth to
revel in the purchasing of peat and provisions.

Hans was careless and contented; the dame was filled with
delightful anxieties caused by the unreasonable demands of
ten thousand guilders’ worth of new wants that had sprung up
like mushrooms ina single night. The happy woman talked
so largely to Hans on their way to Amsterdam, and brought
back such little bundles after all, that he scratched his
bewildered head as he leaned against the chimney-piece,
wondering whether, “bigger the pouch, tighter the string”
was in Jacob Cats, and therefore true, or whether he had
dreamed it when he lay in a fever.

“What thinking on, Big-eyes?” chirruped his mother,
half-reading his thoughts as she bustled about, preparing the
dinner, — “ what thinking on? Why, Raff, would ye believe
it? the child thought to carry half Amsterdam back on his
head! Bless us! he would have bought as much coffee as