352 Hans Brinker

The children, often, were as quaint and odd-looking as their
elders. In short, one-third of the crowd seemed to have
stepped bodily from a collection of Dutch paintings.

Everywhere could be seen tall women and stumpy men,
lively-faced girls, and youths whose expression never changed
from sunrise to sunset.

There seemed to be at least one specimen from every known
townin Holland. There were Utrecht water-bearers, Gouda
cheese-makers, Delft pottery-men, Schiedam distillers, Amster-
dam diamond-cutters, Rotterdam merchants, dried-up herring-
packers, and two sleepy-eyed shepherds from Texel. Every
man of them had his pipe and tobacco-pouch. Some carried
what miglit be called the smoker’s complete outfit, — a pipe,
tobacco, a pricker with which to clean the tube, a silver net for
protecting the bowl, and a box of the strongest of brimstone-
matches.

A true Dutchman, you must remember, is rarely without
his pipe on any possible occasion. He may, for a moment,
neglect to breathe ; but when the pipe is forgotten, he must
be dying, indeed. There were no such sad cases here.
Wreaths of smoke were rising from every possible quarter.
The more fantastic the smoke-wreath, the more placid and
solemn the smoker.

Look at those boys and girls on stilts! That is a good
idea. They can see over the heads of the tallest. It is
strange to see those little bodies high in the air, carried about
on mysterious legs. They have such a resolute look on their
round faces, what wonder that nervous old gentlemen, with
tender feet, wince and tremble while the long-legged little
monsters stride past them !

You will read, in certain books, that the Dutch are a quiet