It is considered very lucky indeed for a stork family to come to live on one's chimney-top. "We thought one was coming to live at our house last year," said Wilhelmina, "but they must have made up their minds to go elsewhere, and I was so sorry." "And they build on churches, too," cried Theodore. "Look, there's a nest on the roof of that church. I had been thinking that it was a bundle of sticks, and wondering how it got up there." "The storks have built there for many years, and they seem to like the highest places they can find," said Pieter. "There is a law to protect the storks, and to forbid any injury being done to them, so you see they can have a better time than most birds." "Look, Pieter, there are big ships over there in the middle of that green meadow; how ever did they get there? Bless my stars!" said Theodore, "I do believe they are sailing over the grass." "Oh, Theodore, you are so funny!" laughed Wilhelmina; "of course they are on the water; there is a canal over there where you are looking." "Well, I can't see it," persisted Theodore, who thought his eyes were playing him tricks. "That's because our canals are higher than the land about them," said Pieter. "You must know that we are very economical with our dry land; there is nothing we prize so much, because we have so little of it; and there is no people in the world who have worked so hard for theirs as the Dutch, not only to get it in the first place, but to keep it afterward. "Once all this country about here was either a marsh or covered by water. The land could not be allowed to go to waste like that, and so great walls of mud and stone, called dikes, were built. Canals were run here, there, and everywhere, and the waters which covered the lowlands were pumped into these canals and so drained off. The new land was practically a new area added to the small territory of Holland, and where once was nothing but salt marsh and water-flooded meadows are now cities and towns and houses and lovely gardens. "As one walks along many of the canal banks in Holland, one is often overlooking the roof-tops of the houses below." "Why," said Theodore, "if we tried, we might look right down that man's chimney, and see what they are cooking for dinner; the road is on a level with the roof." "Yes, our roads, too, are often built on dikes; this keeps them hard and dry," said Pieter. "You may judge as to how wide some of these dikes are, for on this particular one there is not only a road, but a row of trees on either side of it as well. Some are so broad that there are houses, and even villages, on top of them. The reclaimed lands lying between the dikes are called 'polders,' and thousands of acres of the richest part of Holland have been made in this way. Some day, too, it is planned that the whole of the Zuyder Zee will be planted and built over with gardens and houses." "That is just like finding a country," said Theodore, "but hasn't it all cost a lot of money?"