“They say. Ah, Peter, ‘they’ means everybody or nobody. Surgeon Boekman has had a great sorrow. Many years ago he lost his only child under very painful circumstances. A fine lad, except that he was a thought too hasty and high-spirited. Before then Gerard Boekman was one of the most agreeable gentlemen I ever knew.” So saying, Mevrouw van Holp, looking kindly upon the two boys, rose, and left the room with the same dignity with which she had entered. Peter, only half convinced, muttered something about “the sin of allowing sorrow to turn all one’s honey into gall” as he conducted his visitor to the narrow side door. Before they parted, he advised Hans to keep himself in good skating order, “for,” he added, “now that your father is all right, you will be in fine spirits for the race. That will be the prettiest skating show ever seen in this part of the world. Everybody is talking of it; you are to try for the prize, remember.” “I shall not be in the race, mynheer,” said Hans, looking down. “Not in the race! Why not, indeed!” And immediately Peter’s thoughts swept on a full tide of suspicion toward Carl Schummel. “Because I cannot, mynheer,” answered Hans as he bent to slip his feet into his big shoes. Something in the boy’s manner warned Peter that it would be no kindness to press the matter further. He bade Hans good-bye, and stood thoughtfully watching him as he walked away. In a minute Peter called out, “Hans Brinker!” “Yes, mynheer.” “I’ll take back all I said about Dr. Boekman.” “Yes, mynheer.” Both were laughing. But Peter’s smile changed to a look of puzzled surprise when he saw Hans kneel down by the canal and put on the wooden skates. “Very queer,” muttered Peter, shaking his head as he turned to go into the house. “Why in the world doesn’t the boy wear his new ones?” The Fairy Godmother The sun had gone down quite out of sight when our hero--with a happy heart but with something like a sneer on his countenance as he jerked off the wooden “runners”--trudged hopefully toward the tiny hutlike building, known of old as the “idiot’s cottage.” Duller eyes than his would have discerned two slight figures moving near the doorway. That gray well-patched jacket and the dull blue skirt covered with an apron of still duller blue, that faded close-fitting cap, and those quick little feet in their great boatlike shoes, they were Gretel’s of course. He would have known them anywhere. That bright coquettish red jacket, with its pretty skirt, bordered with black, that graceful cap bobbing over the gold earrings, that dainty apron, and those snug leather shoes that seemed to have grown with the feet--why if the Pope of Rome had sent them to him by express, Hans could have sworn they were Annie’s. The two girls were slowly pacing up and down in front of the cottage. Their arms were entwined, of course, and their heads were nodding and shaking as emphatically as if all the affairs of the kingdom were under discussion.