Rollo in Holland Part 13

Parkman; "something that they do not show to every body. Mr. George, I wish you would see if you can't find out some way to get in."

"Certainly," said Mr. George, "I will try."

So Mr. George walked along towards one of the attendants, whom he saw in another part of the room,--putting his hand in his pocket as he went, to feel for a piece of money. He put the piece of money into the attendant's hand, and then began to talk with him, asking various indifferent questions about the building; and finally he asked him where that closed door led to.

"O, that is only a closet," said the attendant, "where we keep our brooms and dusters."

"I wish you would just let us look into it," said Mr. George. "Here's half a guilder for you."

The man looked a little surprised, but he took the half guilder, saying,--

"Certainly, if it will afford you any satisfaction."

Mr. George then went back to where he had left the rest of his party, and said to Mrs. Parkman,--

"This man is going to admit us to that room. Follow Him. I will come in a moment."

So Mr. George stopped to look at a large painting on the wall, while Mrs. Parkman, with high antic.i.p.ations of the pleasure she was to enjoy in seeing what people in general were excluded from, walked in a proud and stately manner to the door, and when the man opened it, saw only a small, dark room, with nothing in it but brooms, dust pans, and lamp fillers. She was exceedingly abashed by this adventure, and for the rest of that day she did not once ask to see any thing that was not voluntarily shown to her.

After visiting all the places of note in the town, the coachman was ordered to drive to the watering place on the sea sh.o.r.e. It was a very pleasant drive of about three miles. Just before reaching the sh.o.r.e of the sea, the road came to a region of sand hills, called _dunes_, formed by the drifting sands blown in from the beach by the winds. Among these dunes, and close to the sea sh.o.r.e, was an immense hotel, with long wings stretching a hundred feet on each side, and a row of bath vans on the margin of the beach before it. The beach was low and shelving, and it could be traced for miles in either direction along the coast, whitened by the surf that was rolling in from the German Ocean.

After looking at this prospect for a time, and watching to see one or two of the bathing vans drive down into the surf, in order to allow ladies who had got into them to bathe, the party returned to the carriage, and the coachman drove them through the village, which was very quaint and queer, and inhabited by fishermen. The fishing boats were drawn up on the sh.o.r.e in great numbers, very near the houses. Rollo desired very much to go and see these boats and the fishermen, and learn, if he could, what kind of fish they caught in them, and how they caught them. But Mrs. Parkman thought that they had better not stop.

They were nothing but common fishing boats, she said.

The carriage returned to the Hague by a different road from the one in which it came. It was a road that led through a beautiful wood, where there were many pleasant walks, with curious looking Dutch women going and coming. As the party approached the town, they pa.s.sed through a region of parks, and palaces, and splendid mansions of all kinds. Mrs.

Parkman was curious to know who lived in each house, and Mr. George contrived to communicate her inquiries to the coachman, by making signs, and by asking questions partly in English and partly in German. But though the coachman understood the questions, Mrs. Parkman could not understand the answers that he gave, for they were Dutch names,--sometimes long and sometimes short; but whether they were long or short, the sounds were so uncouth and strange that Mrs. Parkman looked terribly distressed in trying to make them out.

At length the carriage arrived at the hotel again; and there the porters put on the baggage belonging both to Mr. and Mrs. Parkman, and to Mr.

George and Rollo. It then proceeded to the station. Mr. George and Rollo waited there until the train for Amsterdam arrived, and then took leave of Mr. and Mrs. Parkman as they went to their seats in the carriage.

Mrs. Parkman shook hands with Mr. George very cordially, and said,--

"We are very much obliged to you, Mr. George, for your company to-day.

We have had a very pleasant time. I wish that we could have you to travel with us all the time."

"I think she ought to be obliged to you," said Rollo, as soon as the train had gone.

"Not at all," said Mr. George.

"Not at all?" repeated Rollo. "Why not? You have done a great deal for her to-day."

"No," said Mr. George. "All that I have done has not been for her sake, but for William's. William is an excellent good friend of mine, and I am very sorry that he has not got a more agreeable travelling companion."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VII.

CORRESPONDENCE.

One day, when Mr. George and Rollo were at the town of Leyden, it began to rain while they were eating their breakfast.

"Never mind," said Rollo. "We can walk about the town if it does rain."

"Yes," said Mr. George, "we can; but we shall get tired of walking about much sooner if it rains, than if it were pleasant weather. However, I am not very sorry, for I should like to write some letters."

"I've a great mind to write a letter, too," said Rollo. "I'll write to my mother. Don't you think that would be a good plan?"

"Why,--I don't know,"--said Mr. George, speaking in rather a doubtful tone. "It seems to me that it would be hardly worth while."

"Why not?" asked Rollo.

"Why, the postage is considerable," said Mr. George, "and I don't believe the letter would be worth what your father would have to pay for it; that is, if it is such a letter as I suppose you would write."

"Why, what sort of a letter do you suppose I should write?" asked Rollo.

"O, you would do as boys generally do in such cases," replied his uncle.

"In the first place you would want to take the biggest sheet that you could find to write the letter upon. Then you would take up as much of the s.p.a.ce as possible writing the date, and _My dear mother_. Then you would go on for a few lines, saying things of no interest to any body, such as telling what day you came to this place, and what day to that.

Perhaps you'd say that to-day is a rainy day, and that yesterday was pleasant--just as if your mother, when she gets your letter, would care any thing about knowing what particular days were rainy and what pleasant, in Holland, a week back. Then, after you had got about two thirds down the page, you would stop because you could not think of any thing more to say, and subscribe your name with ever so many scrawl flourishes, and as many affectionate and dutiful phrases as you could get to fill up the s.p.a.ce.

"And that would be a letter that your father, like as not, would have to pay one and sixpence Or two shillings sterling for, to the London postman."

Rollo laughed at this description of the probable result of his proposed attempt to write a letter; but he laughed rather faintly, for he well recollected how many times he had written letters in just such a way. He secretly resolved, however, that when they came in from their walk, and Mr. George sat down to his writing, he would write too, and would see whether he could not, for once, produce a letter that should be at least worth the postage.

After they came in from their walk, they asked the landlady to have a fire made in their room; but she said they could not have any fire, for the stoves were not put up. She said it was the custom in Holland not to put the stoves up until October; and so n.o.body could have a fire in any thing but foot stoves until that time. The foot stoves, she said, would make it very comfortable for them.

So she brought in two foot stoves. They consisted of small, square boxes, with holes bored in the top, and a little fire of peat in an earthen vessel within. Rollo asked Mr. George to give him two sheets of thin note paper, and he established himself at a window that looked out upon a ca.n.a.l. He intended to amuse himself in the intervals of his writing in watching the boats that were pa.s.sing along the ca.n.a.l.

He took two sheets of note paper instead of one sheet of letter paper, in order that, if he should get tired after filling one of them, he could stop, and so send what he had written, without causing his father to pay postage on any useless paper.

"Then," thought he, "if I do _not_ get tired, I will go on and fill the second sheet, and my mother will have a double small letter. A double small letter will be just as good as a single large one."

This was an excellent plan.

Rollo also took great pains to guard against another fault which boys often fall into in writing their letters; that is, the fault of growing careless about the writing as they go on with the work, by which means a letter is produced which looks very neat and pretty at the beginning, but becomes an ill-looking and almost illegible scrawl at the end.

"I'll begin," said he, "as I think I shall be able to hold out; and I'll hold out to the end just as I begin."

Rollo remained over his letter more than three hours. He would have become exceedingly tired with the work if he had written continuously all this time; but he stopped to rest very often, and to amuse himself with observing what was pa.s.sing before him in the street and on the ca.n.a.l.

Mr. George was occupied all this time in writing _his_ letter, and each read what he had written to the other that same evening, after dinner.

The two letters were as follows:--

MR. GEORGE'S LETTER.