Part 3 (1/2)

Naturally, a country lying as Holland lies is very damp and misty, and its entire surface is covered with the network of canals running through the meadows to the sea If you could stand on a hill and look down on it, it would look like an enorreen pieces cut apart by the canals and decorated by the quaint red-roofed houses of which we have spoken

Through all the canals flows the same water, and all of them are connected with each other, and are so very wide in some places that there is reen fields flow the narrower canals, draining the pasturelands, and everywhere one feels the nearness and thesea, and the protection of the dykes rearing the huge bulwarks between the peaceful country and its treacherous eneain to Haarleay with the red and yellow tulips and the air sith the scent of hyacinths

On that bright spring day a little boy whose name is said to have been Peter, and whose father was a sluicer, had for his dinner some cakes of which he was very fond, and which his mother had baked because she kne much Peter liked them

Peter was a very unselfish boy, and whenever he had anything he liked, his first thought alas to share it with someone else So, as soon as he had finished his ed his o to see a poor blind man who lived not far away, and to let him carry with him those cakes which had not been eaten

His ht of Peter's for the poor old ht a basket and filled it with cakes for hi him promise not to stay out too late, and soon the boy was on his way to his friends, happy in the beauty of the day, and in the thought of the pleasure his present would give the blind hted with the cakes, and at once broke and ate one, while he began to tell Peter one of the stories for which he was famous, and which he knew Peter loved to hear

But Peter suddenly remembered his promise not to stay out late, and finally became so uneasy that he told the old man he must not wait to hear the end of the story, and, hastily bidding him farewell, started towards horassy banks grew beautiful wild flowers of many varieties, so numerous and attractive that Peter decided to pick a bunch of them to carry home to his mother, as so much of an invalid that she was seldom out of the house So he picked a few here and a few there--blue and yellow and pink, until he had a handful of those varieties of which he knew his mother wasloneso

Presently, he stopped, and neither sang nor s through the grass Where did it come from? Surely not from the canal, and there was nowhere else for it to come froht was enough to make even a child turn pale and tremble Only the dykes stood between the boundless sea and the safety of little Holland He looked again, and to his ireater already What could he do? Night was co on, the road was a solitary one There was only the barest chance of anyone passing that hoht hail, or of whom he could ask advice

Then came a quick recollection of his proain, but a force as ain to watch that trickling streareat oaken sluices, and bounding up beside it he carefully exaer, was a hole--strange and unaccountable happening,--and through that little hole was flowing the strea the flash of intuition came to Peter, if that hole were not stopped up instantly, the force of the flow through it would rapidly increase froht the flood would break through the dyke and perhaps destroy all the homes in Holland

What could he do? No stone would fit the hole, no amount of earth packed into the crevice could resist the pressure of the water Peter was desperate Forgotten noere his bunch of flohich fell unheeded from his hand He strained his eyes in a vain search for travellers on that lonely road, vainly he shouted out for help until his throat was hoarse What could he do? It was no co flash to Peter Cliain up the steep bank, froer in the hole and, oh, joy, it fitted! It stopped the trickling water for the moment, but, oh, ould happen when he took it out?

Ah, it was as clear as daylight, what to do He would not take it out until soetful of what this ideato hiht in this real adventure

”Ha, ha!” he said to himself ”The water _can't_ come do Haarlem shall not be drohile I am here to keep the flood back”

For awhile excitement kept hiht surrounded hie noises fell upon his unaccusto near, ready to pounce upon hih he was a sturdy lad, tears cahts of his coht be even then worrying about his safety, although as he before reht with the old one to bed and to sleep, while he was out in the dark night alone and in such a reater, the misery harder to bear every erous hole

He tried to whistle, hoping to attract the attention of so traveller, but his teeth chattered so ave it up, and then he reht at his reat God who could control the surging sea and protect a boy as doing his best Peter was only a child, but if he ever prayed with his whole heart, he prayed so that night in the darkness, with his nuh that hole in the dyke, and when his prayer was said he soer and older than before, and in his heart he said:

”I will not take it out till soer grew the hours, the minutes, the seconds, and yet he never hts were confused, pictures of his playotten danced before his eyes He was not sure he could draw his finger out of the hole even if he wished to do so, it felt so strangely nu, and pins pricking him from head to foot? What would happen if no one ever found him--no one ever came to help?

At last the rose and silver of the dawn flushed the sky Day had co that lonesome road cail

A clergyht had been spent by the bedside of a sick parishi+oner, hurrying horoan, a feeble sound of one in lanced, first here and there, and looking up, at last, he saw beside the dyke, the figure of a child writhing in agony

In a single bound, the clergy:

”In the na here?”

”I a out,” said Peter ”Oh, can't you ask them to come _quick_”

And they did The town of Haarlee of a little boy who did his duty, and from that day to this there has never been a child in Holland who has not heard the stirring story of Peter, whose pluck orthy of a sluicer's son, and whose nae of historic legend