horses may look down on wayside cottages. Often the keels of
floating ships are higher than the roofs of the dwellings. The stork
chattering to her young on the house-peak may feel that her nest is
lifted out of danger, but the croaking frog in neighboring bulrushes is
nearer the stars than she. Water-bugs dart backward and forward above
the heads of the chimney-swallows, and willow-trees seem drooping with
shame, because they cannot reach as high as the reeds near by....
Farm-houses, with roofs like great slouched hats over their eyes, stand
on wooden legs with a tucked-up sort of air, as if to say, 'We intend to
keep dry if we can.' Even the horses wear a wide stool on each hoof to
lift them out of the mire.... Men, women, and children go clattering
about in wooden shoes with loose heels; peasant-girls, who cannot get
beaux for love, hire them for money to escort them to the _Kermis_; and
husbands and wives lovingly harness themselves, side by side, on the
bank of the canal, and drag their _pakschuyts_ to market....

"'One thing is clear," cries Master Brightside, 'the inhabitants need
never be thirsty.' But no, Odd-land is true to itself still.
Notwithstanding the sea pushing to get in, and the lakes pushing to get
out, and all the canals and rivers and ditches, there is, in many
districts, no water fit to swallow; our poor Hollanders must go dry, or
drink wine and beer, or send inland to Utrecht and other favored
localities for that precious fluid, older than Adam, yet young as the
morning dew.

The book is fresh and flavorous in tone, and speaks to the fancy of
children. Here is a scene on the canal:--

"It was recess-hour. At the first stroke of the school-house bell, the
canal seemed to give a tremendous shout, and grow suddenly alive with
boys and girls. The sly thing, shining so quietly under the noonday sun,
was a kaleidoscope at heart, and only needed a shake from that great
clapper to startle it into dazzling changes.

"Dozens of gayly clad children were skating in and out among each other,
and all their pent-up merriment of the morning was relieving itself in
song and shout and laughter. There was nothing to check the flow of
frolic. Not a thought of school-books came out with them into the
sunshine. Latin, arithmetic, grammar, all were locked up for an hour in
the dingy school-room. The teacher might be a noun if he wished, and a
proper one at that, but _they_ meant to enjoy themselves. As long as the