“Ah, Hans, thou’rt a true, brave lad. We will never part company with the watch. In his dying hour the dear father might wake and ask for it.” “Might WAKE, Mother!” echoed Hans. “Wake--and know us?” “Aye, child,” almost whispered his mother, “such things have been.” By this time Hans had nearly forgotten his proposed errand to Amsterdam. His mother had seldom spoken so familiarly to him. He felt himself now to be not only her son, but her friend, her adviser: “You are right, Mother. We must never give up the watch. For the father’s sake we will guard it always. The money, though, may come to light when we least expect it.” “Never!” cried Dame Brinker, taking the last stitch from her needle with a jerk and laying the unfinished knitting heavily upon her lap. “There is no chance! One thousand guilders--and all gone in a day! One thousand guilders. Oh, what ever DID become of them? If they went in an evil way, the thief would have confessed it on his dying bed. He would not dare to die with such guilt on his soul!” “He may not be dead yet,” said Hans soothingly. “Any day we may hear of him.” “Ah, child,” she said in a changed tone, “what thief would ever have come HERE? It was always neat and clean, thank God, but not fine, for the father and I saved and saved that we might have something laid by. ‘Little and often soon fills the pouch.’ We found it so, in truth. Besides, the father had a goodly sum already, for service done to the Heernocht lands, at the time of the great inundation. Every week we had a guilder left over, sometimes more; for the father worked extra hours and could get high pay for his labor. Every Saturday night we put something by, except the time when you had the fever, Hans, and when Gretel came. At last the pouch grew so full that I mended an old stocking and commenced again. Now that I look back, it seems that the money was up to the heel in a few sunny weeks. There was great pay in those days if a man was quick at engineer work. The stocking went on filling with copper and silver--aye, and gold. You may well open your eyes, Gretel. I used to laugh and tell the father it was not for poverty I wore my old gown. And the stocking went on filling, so full that sometimes when I woke at night, I’d get up, soft and quiet, and go feel it in the moonlight. Then, on my knees, I would thank our Lord that my little ones could in time get good learning, and that the father might rest from labor in his old age. Sometimes, at supper, the father and I would talk about a new chimney and a good winter room for the cow, but my man had finer plans even than that. ‘A big sail,’ says he, ‘catches the wind--we can do what we will soon,’ and then we would sing together as I washed my dishes. Ah, ‘a smooth wind makes an easy rudder.’ Not a thing vexed me from morning till night. Every week the father would take out the stocking and drop in the money and laugh and kiss me as we tied it up together.