Strange Stories Of Colonial Days Part 10

His tone was so imploring the girl was touched.

"I like it not, but I promise," she said.

"Thank you. Farewell." And again disguised, the deserter departed, as he came, by a back window.

Feeling as though in a dream, Katrina rearranged the disordered table, and then, creeping up to bed, fell so sound asleep that she never heard Jan when he awoke the household with his "Happy New-Years."

Gayly the sunbeams glittered on the black-and-yellow gables that 1st of January, and fully as resplendent were the maids and matrons of New York in their best muslins and brocades; while Katrina presented a very quaint, attractive little vision when she came down in her taffeta gown and embroidered stomacher, with her amber beads about her neck. Her face was hardly in accord with her attire, however, when she found every one demanding, "What has become of the krullers--the New-Year krullers?"

Madam Van Twinkle looked flushed and angry. "The beautiful cakes with which I so much trouble took!" she cried. "Ach! a bad, wicked theft it is, and a mystery unaccountable."

"Mebbe de great ole mynheer and his vrouw gobbled 'em up," put in Sophy.

"But what is worse," continued the dame, "in one big kruller, as a surprise, I did hide a ring of gold sent to Gretel by her G.o.dmother in Holland, and that too is whisked away."

At this Gretel also began to bewail the loss, and suggested that perhaps little black Josie, Sophy's son, was the miscreant.

"If so it be, to the whipping-post shall he go!" cried the enraged Dutchwoman, starting for the kitchen; but before she reached the door Katrina exclaimed, "No, mother, no; Josie is not the one."

"Why, mine Katrina, what canst thou know of this?" asked Mynheer Van Twinkle, in amazement.

"I know--I know who has taken the cakes," stammered the blushing girl; "but tell I cannot now."

"Not tell!" gasped her mother. "Why and wherefore?"

"Because my promise I have given. But when the night comes, then shall you know all."

"Foolishness is this, Katrina," cried the good housewife, who was fast losing her temper as well as her cakes, "and at once I command you to say who has my New-Year krullers."

"And my ring from Rotterdam," added Gretel.

"But that I cannot. A lie would it be. Oh, my vader, canst thou not me trust until the nightfall?"

"Surely, sweetheart. There, good vrouw, say no more, but leave the little one in peace. A promise thou wouldst not have her break."

"Some there be better broken than kept; but whom promised she?"

Katrina was silent, and now even her father looked grave. "Speak, _mijn kind_; whom didst thou promise?"

"I cannot tell."

"See you, Jacobus, 'tis stubborn she is, and wrong it looks. But list, Katrina; you shall speak this minute, or else to your chamber go, and there spend your New-Year's Day."

At this mynheer puffed grimly at his pipe, and Gretel would have remonstrated, but without a word Katrina turned and left the parlor.

Ascending to her little attic-room, she removed her holiday finery, and sat sadly down to work on her Flemish lace, trying to console herself by repeating: "Right am I, and I know I am right. A promise once given must not broken be," while the New-Year callers came and went, and the sound of merry greetings floated up from below.

So it was scarce a happy New-Year, and the little weatherc.o.c.k must have pointed very much to the east if he considered the way the wind blew within-doors, for even Jan turned fractious, and declared, "There was no fun in calling on a parcel of old _vrouws_," and he should go to the turkey-shooting at Beekman's Swamp instead. But this his mother forbade.

"Shoot you will not this day," she said, "for at fourteen, like a gentleman and a good Hollander should you behave. So start at once, and my greetings bear to the Van Pelts and Vander Voorts and Mistress Hogeboom," while his father carried him off with him to call on the dominie's wife.

This visit over, however, they parted company, and Jan lingered long in the market-place to see the darkies dance to the rude music of horns and tom-toms. Here he encountered two of his chums, Nicholas Van Ripper and Rem Hochstra.s.ser, carrying guns on their shoulders.

"Thee, Jan? Good!" they cried. "Now come with us to the turkey-shooting.

A prize thou art sure to win."

"But I started the New-Year visits to make!" said Jan.

"And paid them in the market-place!" laughed Nicholas. "Thou art a sly one, Jan! But great sport is there at the Swamp to-day; much better than the chatter of the girls and a headache to-morrow."

"So think I, Nick; but I have on my _kirch_ clothes;" and Jan glanced down at his best galligaskins and his coat with its silver b.u.t.tons.

"Not a bit will it hurt them; so come along." And thus urged, Jan joined his friends, and was soon at Beekman's Swamp, where a bevy of youths were squandering their stivers in the exciting sport of firing at live turkeys.

Nick and Rem did well, and each bore off a plump fowl, but luck seemed against Jan, who could not succeed in even ruffling a feather; while at last he had the misfortune to slip and get a rough tumble, besides soiling his breeches and tearing a rent in the skirt of his fine broadcloth coat.

"Ha! ha! What will Madam Van Twinkle say to that?" laughed his unsympathetic companions, when they saw Jan stamping round, his little queue of hair, tied with an eel-skin, fairly standing out with rage.

"Whatever she says, 'twill be your fault, ye dough-nuts!" he shouted, and would have indulged in some rather forcible Dutch epithets had not his cousin Tunis Vanderbeck come up at the moment, saying, "Mind it not, Jan, but with me come to Breucklyn to skate."

"Yah; better will that be than facing the mother in this plight," said Jan; and he was skating across the Salt River before he remembered that he had been positively forbidden to venture there.

"Sure art thou that the ice is strong, Tunis?" he asked.

"Not so strong as it was. The thaw has weakened it some, but 'twill hold to-night, if--" But at that instant an ominous cracking sounded beneath their feet, and Tunis had just time to glide to a firmer spot before a scream rang through the air, and he looked back to see the dark surging water in an opening in the ice, and Jan's head disappearing beneath.

While, in the twilight, Katrina sat by her window, thinking of blue-eyed English Jeanie, she was startled by a voice on the shed roof without calling, "Let me in, Katrina--let me in;" and on opening the cas.e.m.e.nt a very wet and bedraggled boy tumbled at her feet, sputtering out, "Run for dry clothes and a hot drink, my Trina, for nearly drowned am I, and frozen as well."

The girl hastened to obey, and not until her brother was snug and warm in her feather-bed did she ask, "Whatever has happened to thee, Jan?"

"Why, on the river I was, and the ice it broke, and in I fell. But for an old cove who risked his life to save me, in Davy Jones's locker would I be this minute; for never a hand did Tunis Vanderbeck stir to help me, and unfriends will we be henceforth."

"And thy _kirch_ suit is ruined. Does the mother know it?"

"No; for fear of her I came in by the roof, but I met the father outside, and angry enough he is because I went to the shooting and on the river. He says that on bread and water shall I live for a week, and to the Philadelphia Fair shall I not go;" and a sob rose in the boy's throat. "But what is queerest, Katrina, the old chap who pulled me out seemed to know me, and gave me this for you," and Jan produced a moist, soggy package, which, on being undone, revealed a single broken kruller, in the centre of which, however, gleamed a heavy gold ring.

"Good! good! Oh, glad am I!" cried Katrina; and hastening to put on her festival dress, when the clock chimed seven she went dancing down to the parlor, and creeping to her mother's side, whispered, "Now, my moeder, all will I tell thee."

In amazement the family listened to her story of the midnight visitor, and when she ended by slipping the ring on Gretel's finger, saying, "No common thief was he, for this he sent me by Jan, whom he has saved from a grave in the Salt River," the Dutchwoman caught her to her heart, sobbing, "Oh, my Katrina, forgive thy mother, for it was in my temper I spoke this morning, and a true, brave girl hast thou been. To think that but for thee our rare old silver would be on its way to England!" Gretel too hugged her rapturously, and the tears were in Mynheer Van Twinkle's eyes as he asked:

"How can I repay my daughter for saving the loving-cup of my ancestors, and for her lonely day above?"

"By forgiving Jan, father, and letting him come to the New-Year supper.

Disobedient has he been, I know, but well punished is he, and he is full of sorrow."

"Well, then, for thee, it shall be so."

So Jan was summoned down, and a truly festal evening was held within the home circle, beneath the gaze of the old mynheer and his vrouw, who beamed benignantly from their heavy frames.

The _Golden Lion_ sailed true to time, and never again was the deserter heard of on this side of the Atlantic; but for long after Katrina was pointed out as "the blue-eyed maid who saved the family plate and gave away Vrouw Van Twinkle's New-Year krullers."