Big People and Little People of Other Lands Part 6

[Ill.u.s.tration: Swiss Dog Cart.]

HOLLAND.

The people who live in Holland are called Dutch.

There are many ca.n.a.ls in Holland. In some of the towns they have ca.n.a.ls instead of streets. There are bridges across the ca.n.a.ls for people to go from one side of the street to the other. In some of the streets they have no sidewalks, and nothing between the houses but ca.n.a.ls.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ca.n.a.ls in Holland.]

In most of the houses they have no carpets. They scatter white sand on the floor every morning. They keep their houses very clean. In their kitchens they have open fireplaces, with fires blazing brightly. Near the fires they have footstools made of cork. In some houses they have fire boxes for warming their feet. They can carry these boxes wherever they like. In cold weather they take their fire boxes to church.

Wherever you go in Holland you see windmills. When you see them far off they look like giants with their arms stretched out. The arms are shaped like ladders. The arms have sails on them to catch the wind.

It is the wind that makes the arms go round. With these windmills the people pump up water, and grind corn, and saw wood. The land is very flat and low. There are no swift running streams to turn the mills.

So the people build windmills.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Windmills in Holland.]

The great wonder of Holland is the dikes. Holland is near the sea, and so dikes are built along the beach to keep the water out. The dikes are strong walls made of earth and stones. They are very high, and so thick that on the top there is a road to walk and ride on. In some parts of Holland there are houses also on the top of the dikes. If it were not for these dikes, the sea would flow in on the land. Then it would cover the houses and towns, and drown the people.

Did you ever hear the story of the little boy and the hole in the dike?

The little boy's name was Hans. He lived near the great dikes along the sea. One day his mother sent him on an errand.

When he was coming home, he saw water flowing from a small hole in the dike. He knew that the water came from the sea. Then he said to himself, "If that water is not stopped, the hole will get larger. Then the sea will break in, and we shall all be drowned."

So Hans went up to the dike and put his hand against the hole, and stopped the water. This was very hard to do. But the little fellow held bravely on.

When night came and Hans did not come home, his father and some of the people who lived close by went to search for him. After many hours they found him at the dike, keeping the water back with his hand. Then his father took him home, and the men stopped up the hole in the dike.

Everybody praised Hans for what he had done.

The little children in Holland are very pretty. They have round, fat faces, golden hair, and blue eyes. The boys wear wide trousers and little round caps. The girls wear jackets and skirts and little caps with gold braid.

Both boys and girls wear wooden shoes. And what a noise they do make with their wooden shoes when they run around! They have great fun playing their shoes are boats. They sit on the sides of the ca.n.a.ls and take off their shoes and sail them on the water like little boats.

They tie strings to the shoes so that they can draw them in whenever they like.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dutch Girl with Wooden Shoes.]

Dutch children do not wear shoes in the house, but wear slippers. When they go home after playing or from school they take off their shoes.

They leave them outside the door. Would you not think it strange to see rows of little shoes outside the doors?

Every Sat.u.r.day the children clean their shoes. But they do not shine them as we do. They wash them with soap and water, and dry them at the fire. If the sun shines, they hang them on a bush to dry. When they are dry, they are almost as white as snow.

Winter is a very merry season in Holland. Then all the ca.n.a.ls are frozen, and there is great fun skating. Everybody has skates, even the little children. And how merry and happy the boys and girls are, skimming along on the ice!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Skating in Holland.]

The men and women go to market on skates. Those who do not wish to go on skates go in sleds or chairs with runners on them. The chairs are pushed by skaters.

But the best fun of all is on the ice boats. The ice boats have sails, and can go very fast on the smooth ice.

The first day of skating every year is a holiday. There is no school that day, and everybody goes out skating, or riding in sleds or ice boats. How glad the boys and girls are when Skating Day comes! What fun they have! And of course they have sleigh riding, for every family has a sleigh. The sleighs are made like sh.e.l.ls, or boats, or swans.

When the people go sleigh riding at night, they carry lighted torches.

The greatest holiday the Dutch have is Santa Claus's day. It is on December 6. All the stores are made pretty on that day. Santa Claus is in the windows. He is dressed in red with white fur, and rides a large horse. The streets are crowded with boys and girls to see all this. They have Santa Claus cakes, and gingerbread made like chairs and tables and fishes and horses and many other things.

At night Santa Claus rides on the roofs of the houses, and drops nice things down the chimneys for good children. And the boys and girls leave their shoes near the fireplace for the things to drop in.

But they do not find many toys in their shoes, for Santa likes better to give them cakes and money. The Dutch boys and girls have not many toys, but they play for hours with their shoes. They use them for boats, baskets, dishes, or beds for their dolls.

They have fine schools in Holland, and the boys and girls go to school and learn the same things that we learn in our schools.

Some Dutch girls go to market to sell milk or cheese. They have donkeys to carry the milk or cheese. Sometimes, the girls ride on the donkeys' backs.

Some Dutch girls also go to market to sell fruit. They carry the fruit on a pole across the back of their shoulders. A basket of fruit hangs from each end of the pole, as you see in the picture. The boys sell milk. They carry it about in little wagons drawn by dogs. They are very kind to the dogs. They do not make them draw too heavy a load.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Dutch Milkmaid.]

When a baby is born in Holland, some one hangs a silk ball outside the door. If the baby is a boy, they hang up a red ball; and if it is a girl, they hang up a pink ball. Is not this a good way to let their friends know they have a new baby?

PATAGONIA.

Have you ever seen a man with pictures on his body? Perhaps you have seen a sailor with a picture of a ship on his arm. In Patagonia nearly all the men and boys have pictures on their bodies. Patagonia is in the southern part of the world. It is winter in that country when it is summer here, and summer there when it is winter here.

Patagonia is a very flat country. There are very few hills and no large trees or fine flowers there. But there is plenty of good gra.s.s, which sometimes grows very tall.

The people in Patagonia are Indians. They have red-brown skin, long black hair, and small eyes. The men are very tall. Some of them are seven feet high. They paint their faces red and black, and tattoo their arms. They do this with a needle. They put the needle into dye, and then p.r.i.c.k the skin with it.

The men wear a piece of cloth around their waists and a large cloak of fur. They sometimes wear boots made of the skin of horses' legs. The women wear gowns fastened at the neck with a pin. They also have cloaks like the men.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Patagonians at Home.]

The boys and girls wear no clothes until they are four years old.

After they are four years old they wear the same kind of clothes their fathers and mothers wear. The young girls wear their hair in braids.

If their hair is not long enough, they make it longer by tying horsehair to it.

The houses in Patagonia are tents made of skins. There are rooms in the tents, and each grown-up person has a room. The fire is made inside the tent on the floor.

The people in Patagonia eat gua-na-co and ostrich meat. Some of the people drink a kind of tea made from the leaves of a plant. The leaves are first crushed fine, then put into water. They drink this tea through a small tube with many holes in it. The holes are so small that the pieces of leaves cannot come through. This tea is very good to drink. It makes the people very strong.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Guanaco.]

The women do all the work about the house. They make the clothes, carry home the wood for the fire, and bring water from the streams or wells.

The men do nothing but hunt. They hunt the guanaco and the ostrich.