By this time our party was well into town. They saw the "Groote Markt," or big market-place, and the Groote Kerk. Every Dutch town has a great market-place, and generally the Groote Kerk, or big church, stands in it, as well as the town hall. It is here, too, that the principal business of the town is transacted. The children walked along the canals, which are the main streets in Dutch towns and cities, and Theodore never grew tired of looking at the queer houses, always with their gable ends to the street. "What on earth does that mean?" said Theodore, stopping to read a sign on the cellar-door of a small house,--"Water and Fire to Sell." "Oh," said Pieter, "that is where the poor people can go and buy for a tiny sum some boiling water and a piece of red-hot peat, with which to cook their dinner. It is really cheaper for them than to keep a fire all the day in their own houses. Peat is generally sold for this purpose instead of coal or wood, for it is not so costly." By this time the young cousins were quite ready to take the steam-tram home, and were hungry enough for the good supper which they knew Mevrouw Joost had prepared for them. CHAPTER IV. THE KERMIS "ISN'T it nice that Theodore has come in time for the Kermis?" said Wilhelmina, as the cousins were packing the flowers into the big baskets for the market, early one morning. "What is a Kermis?" asked Theodore, all curiosity at once. "It is a great fair, and generally lasts a week," said Pieter. These fairs are held in many of the Dutch towns and cities. Booths are put up in the Groote Markt and on the streets, where the sale of all kinds of things is carried on. There are games and merrymakings, and dances, and singing, and fancy costumes, and much more to make them novel to even the Dutch themselves. "There is to be a Kermis at Rotterdam shortly," said Pieter, "and the father has promised to take us all." For a time the children talked about nothing but the Kermis, until at last the great day came, and they all found themselves on the train which was taking them to Rotterdam. As they drew near the city it was easy to see that everybody was going to the Kermis, and was thinking of nothing else. The roads were crowded with all kinds of queer vehicles and gay costumes. There were the big country wagons, of strange shapes, and painted in bright colours. In them were piled the whole family,--grandparents, mother, father, aunts, uncles, and cousins. There were the dogs, too, drawing their little carts, and trying to keep up with the big wagons, panting bravely along with their tongues hanging out, as much as to say, "We are not going to let the horses get there first, just because we are little." There were men and women on bicycles,--the women with their caps and streamers flapping in the wind like white wings, and their half-dozen skirts filling out like a balloon, as they pedalled rapidly along.