we found others, and helped ourselves
again. It was a very satisfactory arrangement for us to have the
refreshment booths scattered like this along the way. Then we ate
some of the burnt potatoes and an apple or two, had a few drinks of
cream from another can, and the night passed pleasantly. From the
apple-trees beside the road we replenished our pockets, and felt this
had been a good night.

It was a good thing for us that the night had started so well, for
along toward morning, probably two hours before daylight, we crossed
a peat-bog. There was a road at first which helped us, but it ran
into a pile of cut peat, drying for the winter. There were also other
roads leading to peat-piles, but these were very misleading, and as
the night was of inky blackness, with scarcely any breeze, it became
harder and harder to keep our direction. Consulting the compass so
often was depleting our match supply, and I tried to depend on
the faint breath of a breeze which sometimes seemed to die away
altogether. This bog, like all the others, had tufts of grass and
knolls of varying size coming in the most unexpected places. Over
these we stumbled, and fell, many times, and as we felt fairly safe
from being heard, it was some relief to put into language what we
thought of the country and all its people, past, present, and future.
I believe we were especially explicit about the future!

It was nearly morning when we got off the bog, and as the rain was
falling we took refuge in a tumble-down hut which had probably been a
cowherd's. We soon saw that it was a poor shelter, and when a woman
came along and looked straight at us, we began to get gooseflesh! She
actually smiled at us, and we tried to smile back reassuringly, but I
am afraid there was a lack of mirth in our smiles which detracted
from their charm.

She walked away--stopped--looked back at us--and smiled again, and
went on, nodding her head as if she knew something. We were rather
afraid she did, and hastily decided to push on. We were afraid of
the lady's patriotism, and determined to be moving. There was a
thick-looking wood just ahead, and to it we went with all speed,
taking with us two large gunnysacks which we found in the hut. They
were stamped "Utrecht" and had the name of a dealer there.

All that day we were afraid of the lady who smiled and nodded her
head, but perhaps we wronged her in our thoughts, for the day passed
without any disturbance. Probably she, too