The bargaining over the cheeses took a long time, for the farmers are very careful to make a good deal for themselves, and they will not be hurried; and generally, when they are on their way home again, they look very well satisfied with themselves, and as contented as the portly Vrouw sitting beside them, or the "kinder," as they call the children, playing about in the bottom of the wagon. "I don't suppose you boys have given up eating breakfast," a voice behind them said, and turning they saw Mynheer Joost. "Wilhelmina and I have already had ours, so hurry up with yours, and then come down to the canal; we are going to see the cheeses loaded on to the boats." Along the canal were drawn up the boats, with their brown sails, and steamers and barges and all kinds of craft. When the boys appeared again, they all stopped to watch a pile of round, red cheeses which were piled up like shot, ready to be loaded. A man picked one up in either hand and tossed them to another man, who was standing beside the ship's hatch; and he, in turn, tossed them to another who was down in the hold and who was stacking them up in neat rows. "I'd like to play that kind of ball; it looks as easy as can be," said Pieter. "It's not as easy as you think," said his father; "just pick up one of these cheeses, and try its weight." Pieter tried and so did Theodore; but they thought better of it as a game, and the cheese man himself laughed at their unsuccessful efforts to grasp a cheese in one hand. "Just look at our hands," exclaimed Theodore, after they had finished handling the cheeses; "they are quite red." "That is the red colouring matter which is put on the outside to preserve them," said Mynheer. "Now we will take a walk around the town, and then make our way back to Amsterdam," said Mynheer Joost; "and we will stop by the way at Edam, and you can see the little town which gives the name to these red cheeses." During the dinner at Edam, a happy idea struck Mynheer Joost. "Children," he said, "how would you like to have a ride in a 'trekschuit,' or passenger barge? There is one leaving here for Volendam in half an hour, the landlord of the inn tells me, and if you are ready, we will go out and hunt it up." [Illustration: "THE CHILDREN STOOD IN THE BOWS"] "Oh, that will be great fun," cried the twins in one breath. There are few of these old-time conveyances left in Holland, and it was as much a novelty for them as for Theodore. You will see from the picture what an odd sort of a passenger craft the "trekschuit" really is. There is one man pulling it, while another walks behind and steers it by the big tiller, which he handles from the shore in the same manner that he would if he were on board. The children stood in the bows among the big brass milk-cans and butter baskets of the market-women, and said they knew just how comfortable the fat Dutchmen feel, as they sit on their "tjalks," and let their women and children draw them about.