Gerrit Meeuwsen and his son Gijs, living in the depths of the country, in the Betuwe district (the old Batavian Island, between the Rhine and the Waal), have made up their minds—after long deliberation—for an expedition by rail to the Amsterdam kermis. As they have never left home before, preparations are made which suggest an Arctic voyage, and they take a solemn farewell of their friends and relations. The railway station is safely reached, after a drive of many miles; and Gerrit severs the last link, so to speak, by sending back Jan—the farm-man—with the trap.
“G’morning,” said father and son, at once.
“Good-morning, friends,” replied the station clerk, who was seated at a table doing sums.
Meeuwsen took off his great woollen gloves, hauled out his double-cased watch, and said, “Might it be about time for the railway to come?”
“Don’t know,” answered Gijs, who thought that his father was asking the question of him.
The clerk, a good-natured fellow, understanding that the question was addressed to him, replied, “Oh! I suppose you mean the train. Yes, that will be coming by very soon,—perhaps in thirteen, or fourteen, or fifteen minutes. Where do you want to go?”
“To Amsterdam,” replied Meeuwsen.
“Amsterdam—third-class?” asked the clerk.
“Third-class, what’s that?” returned Gerrit.
“Three classes, you know, my good friend,” the clerk explained; “first, second, and third. The first is the dearest, the second middling, and the third the cheapest.”
“Then the third won’t do for us, nor the second neither,” said Gerrit. “I always sit in the first seat at church in our village, for I be churchwarden.”[16]
“First-class?” asked the clerk, in surprise, “but—do you know——”
“Never you mind; I want first-class, do you hear?” said Gerrit.
“Well, it’s all the same to me,” said the clerk, rising. He went to the place where he kept the tickets, stamped two, and received the rich Betuwers money.
“Gracious! there’s the train!” cried the clerk, whose calculation of fifteen minutes had been rather too liberal. “Will you come out, please?”
Gerrit and Gijs, the latter carrying the carpet-bag, rushed out on to the platform, followed by the clerk. The approaching train seemed to the travellers to grow longer the more they looked at it, and, when it stopped, both father and son involuntarily took a step backwards.
Neither Gerrit nor Gijs knew exactly what happened to them next; but when they got back all their senses,—for the wind was blowing freshly in their faces,—they saw themselves in a carriage containing, besides themselves, two other passengers, and which allowed free passage to the wind on all sides.
“Bad weather for the money,” grumbled Gerrit.
“Why! come and sit over here,” cried one of their fellow-travellers, apparently a Jew, who was sitting on the opposite side of the carriage, with his back to the engine. “Sit here, on the first seat; you will be frozen to death over there.”
Gerrit looked at his son, and then both stumbled along the shaking carriage to the other end, and occupied the end seats.
“That’s a difference!” said Gijs, whose skin felt like that of a plucked chicken.
“Well, this does shake!” said Meeuwsen. “No!—that third-class is enough to kill one!”
Nathan, who was reading a book, which, as Gerrit could see, seemed to begin at the end and go backwards, did not speak again. The second travelling-companion had turned up the collar of his thick overcoat and was snoring; and our two gentlemen from Betuwe, having nothing to say to each other, were silent, and thought—what, no one ever will know.
After a few minutes’ run, a conductor appeared—whence, neither Gerrit nor Gijs could understand—and asked them, “Where for, gentlemen?”
“Gentlemen!” exclaimed Gerrit, with fine scorn, “that won’t go down with us!”
“Farmers, then!” said the conductor, “where for?”
Meeuwsen thought the fellow had no manners, and said, “I and my son for Amsterdam.”
“Show your tickets, please,” said the conductor.
Meeuwsen began to search for them.... “I’d put them away so carefully,” he remarked, while turning out all his pockets.
“Well, never mind,” resumed the conductor (he was very cold, and wanted to get back to his warm corner in the closed compartment), “you can show me them presently.”
“Very good,” replied Gerrit, who began to think the man was not so bad after all.
The conductor disappeared again, in the same mysterious fashion, and Gerrit suddenly remembered that he had put away the tickets inside his watch-case.
At every station, when the whistle of the engine was heard, Gijs was seized with consternation, thinking that a child or some other living creature had been run over. Every time the train stopped, the sons of Batavia prepared to alight, and each time they were politely stopped by Nathan, who told them they might just make their minds easy, for they had not got there yet. Gijs thereupon came to the conclusion that the journey would not be over so soon as the schoolmaster had led them to suppose.
At length, after they had left the last of the intermediate stations behind, the mysterious conductor appeared once more, and asked for the tickets; and Gerrit, who had kept them carefully in his hand, under his woollen glove, produced them, and gave them up.
“First-class!” said the conductor. “Why, man, you’ve certainly had the best for your money!”
“Hi?” said Meeuwsen, who could not understand what the fellow meant.
“Stupid bumpkins!” muttered the conductor in an undertone, happily inaudible to the Meeuwsens, and left the carriage with a loud “Amsterdam, gentlemen!” The train now stopped for good. Every one got out, and there was such a row that Gerrit and his son could not understand what was going on, and stood staring about them quite dazed.
People, carriages, cabs, omnibuses, trunks, drivers with brandished whips, crying, “This way, sir!—Hotel this!—Hotel that!—just off!” There was such a swarming and confusion that our travellers only regained their full consciousness when they found themselves sitting in an omnibus, packed, knee to knee, like herrings in a barrel,—and, probably, dreaming—at least, so they thought.
“Where to, sir?” asked the conductor of the omnibus, in a green coat trimmed with silver lace, of the person sitting next the door.
“The Dam,” was the answer. “Botermarkt,” said another passenger. “Rokin, No. 11,” said another; and another followed with “The Mint.”
“Sir?” said the inquisitive man, addressing Gijs.
“I?” asked Gijs, staring wildly; “to the Fair, isn’t it, father?”
All the passengers laughed, except three or four who were in a hurry to get to the Exchange.
“Be’st mad, I think, boy,” said Gerrit, grinning. “No, mate,” he went on, addressing the conductor, “to a lodging.”
“Which hotel?” was then the question. “First, second, third, fourth, fifth class? Rondeel, Doelen, Munt—or do you want to go to the Nes?”[17]
Whether Gerrit was thinking of the third-class carriage in which he had been sitting with Gijs, and contrasting it with the imaginary first-class where he found a place by the side of Nathan, we do not know; but it is certain that he shivered at the idea of a fifth-class, and had his answer ready at once—
“First-class, man! First-class!”
“Vieux Doelen!” cried the conductor, with a smile and a furtive wink at the passenger next the door.
The omnibus stopped, and Gerrit and Gijs were beckoned to come out. How they ever got through the double row of knees is quite incomprehensible; and twice did the heels of Gijs’ heavy boots come unpleasantly in contact with corns, whose proprietors, therefore, unkindly addressed him as “Clumsy lout!” and “Dumb ass!”
“How much is it?” asked Gerrit.
The conductor gave a look round, and then said, under his breath—
“Only ten stivers[18] each, sir. I can’t ask you for more.”
Meeuwsen gave him a florin, whereupon he asked whether the gentleman couldn’t spare him a trifle for himself!
This question was answered by the good-natured farmer thrusting a kwartje[19] into his hand; and the unscrupulous rascal drove away, laughing in his sleeve.
Gerrit, and Gijs with the carpet-bag on his back, stared for a long time at the fine house, with the gilt letters on the front; and at length ventured to go up the steps, though they could not make up their minds to venture in.
“What do you want?” politely asked a handsome young gentleman, in a snow-white waistcoat and a beautiful black jacket, who came out of the broad hall and walked up to them.
“Lodgings,” answered Gerrit.
“For yourself?” asked the young gentleman, who, seen at close quarters, seemed older than his jacket would have led one to suppose.
“I and my son Gijs,” said Gerrit.
“You?” again asked the young gentleman.
“Is that so hard to understand?” asked the farmer. “Are there no lodgings here? Can we get them, or can’t we?”
The young gentleman walked away, and stopped to speak to another young gentleman like unto himself, who met him in the corridor. Soon after two more arrived, one of them with a napkin over his arm, and all the four began to laugh immoderately; so that Gerrit began to be tired of waiting, and, approaching the group, said, with some violence, “Now, what is it to be? Are we to get rooms, or are we not?” The young gentlemen continued to giggle, but suddenly stopped, and scattered with surprising rapidity, for a dignified elderly person entered the vestibule, and asked what was the matter here. Whereupon Gerrit expounded to him that he had asked, in a straightforward and downright way, for lodgings; that he did not know what the young gentlemen were up to; that he had come with his son to attend the fair; that he had no mind to be what-you-may-call-ummed and made a fool of by those young gentlemen; and that he asked, once more, Could he, or could he not?
The respectable gentleman took a good look at Gerrit and Gijs—the latter was still outside the door with the carpet-bag—for some moments; but the open honest face, and generally prosperous appearance of the farmer, reassured him as to the probability of their being good customers. He then laid his forefinger against his nose, and called out to one of the young gentlemen,—
“No. 71 and 72, Karel. Allons!”
Karel came. Gerrit beckoned Gijs to come in. Gijs also came.
“Take the gentleman’s luggage,” said the proprietor of the hotel to Karel, pointing to the carpet-bag, which Gijs still carried over his shoulder.
“Oh, no! thank you,” said Gijs, as the young gentleman Karel went about to relieve him of his load. Karel, however, did not leave go. The proprietor was present; and, in spite of Gijs’ asseverations that he was far too kind, he seized the bag and flew up the broad staircase like a jumping rabbit.
“If you will follow, gentlemen,” said the proprietor, “the garçon will show you your rooms.” Gerrit, putting up, for the sake of peace, with the title of gentleman, followed the flying garçon, and Gijs followed his father.
“Where are we going to?” cried the stout farmer, to whom climbing of stairs was an unaccustomed exercise.
“To No. 71 and 72,” said the garçon.
“I don’t care what number it is—number thousand, if you like—but I didn’t come here to climb up a tower!”
“We shall be there directly,” said Karel, still flying on ahead.
“Go on, then!” said Gerrit, taking courage; and on they went again, up stairs and more stairs—there was no end to it.
“Are we not there yet?” sighed Meeuwsen, when Gijs had counted the forty-fifth flight of steps, and they had come to an arched doorway.
“This way round!” cried Karel, and flew on, still higher.
“No! that’s too much; I give it up!” cried Gerrit, holding fast to the banisters. “It’s enough to drive a man crazy! I’ll go no farther.”
“Only a few more,” said Karel persuasively. At last, when Gijs had counted sixty-three, the two, panting and gasping, reached their goal—Nos. 71 and 72.
“Ici,” said Karel, throwing open both doors almost at the same moment.
“Ici or no ici” muttered the farmer, “what I say is that no decent man can be expected to do it!”
“This is your room,” said Karel, pointing to No. 72, as he saw that Gijs was about to follow his father into No. 71.
“I?” ejaculated Gijs.
“S’il vous plaît” said the waiter, and flinging the carpet-bag into No. 71, he left the rooms, stood still in the passage between the two apartments, and looking at father and son by turns, went on, “Any more orders? Will the gentlemen dine at the table d’hôte, at half-past four?”
Gijs understood not a single word of this; and Gerrit, who likewise did not grasp the subtleties of the situation, answered shortly, “No,” being mortally afraid of having to do any more climbing.
Karel having had enough of this exalted society, uttered no further questions or remarks, slammed both doors, reached the ground floor by sliding down the banisters, and left the father and son, each in his own room, to their respective meditations.
The well-furnished rooms were only divided from one another by a thin wooden partition, and their windows afforded a delightful view, to wit, a red-tiled roof, from which arose a tall black chimney.
Gijs looked round, like a cat in a strange warehouse, and did not think Amsterdam so very beautiful after all.
“Boy! where are you?” shouted Gerrit. “What are we to do now? Just come here!”
“Can I do that, father?” roared Gijs, in a voice that could easily have been heard in the street.
“Of course!” cried Gerrit.
Gijs went on tiptoe to his door, and, speeding as though death were at his heels, out of No. 72 and into No. 71.
“Look here, boy!” said Gerrit, when his son was safely inside, “here we sit, and I’m so hungry that I can’t see straight.”
“So am I,” asseverated Gijs.
“Then you ought to call,” said his father, “and we might order something.”
Gijs muttered something about “so strange,” and “if father were to do it himself,”—but, like a dutiful son, he went to the stairs, and shouted—very much as he was accustomed at home to call the calves to their food—“Huup! huup! huup!”
No one came. At last a door opened, and an old gentleman in hat and greatcoat came out, and passed Gijs.
“Oh!” said Gijs, his shyness giving way before his own hunger and his father’s orders, “would you be so kind as to order something to eat for us!”
“Pull the bell, you young donkey!” was the polite reply. The donkey departed without a word, and, after some searching, Father Meeuwsen found a rope hanging in No. 71, at which he pulled,—and lo! they heard a bell ring. A minute later Karel was again standing before them.
“You must bring us something to eat,” said the farmer, who now began to understand that the young man was a waiter.
“Déjeuner à la fourchette?” asked Karel.
“Don’t know those things,” replied Gerrit. “I’ve never eaten desernages, nor forzettes either. Just bring us something, my lad,—I don’t much care what, so long as we can get something inside us.”
Flop went the door again; and five minutes later there arrived at No. 71 some strange substances of whose nature Gerrit and Gijs had not the remotest idea. They began, however, to try and to taste, and though they could scarcely get the things down their throats, they were messed up so queerly with sweet stuff and spice, they managed to satisfy their appetites somehow.
“I’ve had enough,” said Gerrit at last.
“So have I,” sighed Gijs, and they rose from table,—to go to the kermis.
We will not relate in detail how Gerrit and Gijs climbed downstairs again, went out at the front door, and announced that they would come back again in the evening; how they were besieged by beggars, shoeblacks, and Jews selling lottery tickets,—nearly all of whom the good-natured farmer succeeded in satisfying; how they were directed from one part of the town to another, and back again, in order to reach the fair; how and when they got there they found booths, just like those in their own village, but much bigger and finer ones. We will not record how much Gerrit paid for the monster cake which he wished to take home to Griet, and which bore the inscription, in sugar letters, “A Fairing for You;” how Gijs was cheated in the purchase of a cup and saucer for Mijntje; how they, furthermore, bought ginger-bread, almonds, and who knows what besides, so that their pockets stood out like hard lumps, and they were nearly fainting under the weight of them. They visited the circus, but were not edified; and when, finally, the great trick rider “Meseu Blanus,” after two sudden changes of costume, appeared in flesh-coloured tights, and walked about blowing a trumpet, Gerrit could stand it no longer, and seizing his son by the arm, he shouted, “That beats all! so it does! come, boy, come! come!” and hurried him out. When they had struggled out into the crowd again, Gerrit said that they had had their fill of that sort of thing, and more; and Gijs remarked that it was low. They did not attempt to see any of the other shows, and Gerrit unmercifully dragged Gijs past “The Mirror of Mystery,” where, as the man at the door said, “The girl can see her lover, and the young man his girl,—all for a dubbeltje! Great American Magic Mirror of Mystery!” Gijs would have liked a peep at his Mijntje, but Gerrit was firm.
Having partaken, by way of refreshment, of hot wafers and punch,—a repast which Gijs liked well enough, but his father considered “sweet, but nothing to stay your stomach on,”—they at last, after many wanderings, found their way back to the hotel. The nimble rabbit, Mr Karel, was again to the fore. In the twinkling of an eye he had lit a candle, and flew up the stairs, requesting the wearied rustics, unaccustomed to the hard walking of the streets, to follow him, s’il vous plaît.
Gerrit and Gijs followed—yes! and in time they reached the top, but felt just as if a thousand smiths were hammering away in their bones.
“Do the gentlemen wish souper?” asked Karel, who by this time had lit candles in each of the two rooms.
“Eat soup now!” said Gerrit, “get away with you! I’m fair filled up with those wafer-cakes!”
“Put boots outside door—when d’you-want-to-be-called?” asked Karel.
“I’m going away to-morrow morning by the first train,” said Gerrit.
“Then you’ll want a vigilante?”
“Go to the ... woodpile!” cried Gerrit, “with all your foreign talk.”
“Good-night, gentlemen!” said Karel.
The doors were shut, and the gentlemen were left alone. Now began a conversation between the two—carried on in genuine rustic growls, and yet as softly as if they were afraid of waking “Mother my wife.” A few minutes later Gijs retired, with a new blue wadded night-cap, and a “good-night, dad,” to No. 72.
Gerrit had at once blown out the wax candles in No. 71. “That’s just sinful waste,” he said; and Gijs, on entering No. 72, followed his father’s example.
They were not long in undressing by moonlight. Gijs put on the night-cap, and stepped into the soft bed. What a thing that was!—soft as pap!... Never knew such a thing before.... He lay listening.... Every moment he heard something ... some one walking about ... groping among the furniture ... at last speaking. At last, he could stand it no longer—he sat up and stared uneasily about. He thought he could plainly ... hear ... something ... at ... the ... door. Seemed as if ... you ... could ... see ... the ... handle ... turning.... The perspiration broke out all over him ... still he saw it ... plainly ... and, when the door was really opened, he uttered a yell, but slowly recovered himself on seeing that it was his father.
“Can’t rest on that thing,” said Gerrit, as he came in, meaning the bed, which he found much too soft. “No, Gijs, I’ll just come and lie here on the boards.”
“I’ll do that too,” said Gijs, stepping out of bed, and then he lay down on the floor beside his father—each with a pea-jacket rolled up for a pillow—“good-night! pleasant dreams.”
Whether the dreams were, in point of fact, pleasant may be doubted, for they formed a first-class raree-show, composed of bare legs and wafer-cakes, guns and horses, omnibuses, and the climbing of towers, in wild confusion. Certain it is, however, that the Meeuwsens, father and son, when they awoke, stared at one another as if they had been bewitched, and had to think a long time before they could remember where on earth they were.
Well, how did they get home again from the fair?—Gerrit to his Griet, and Gijs to his Mijn.
Very well indeed. Physically they were in sad case, but spiritually all right—which does not always happen on like occasions. The bill which Karel handed to Gerrit before his departure was alike illegible to him and to Gijs. Perhaps no one but the hotel-proprietor and the head-waiter could ever have deciphered it—only the total was clear: 16f. 80—accurately reckoned. Gerrit thought, but said nothing; paid; started, when he was told that a tip was expected of him, over and above the bill, but paid it; and left the Verdoel by the first omnibus, and Amsterdam by the first train.
“That’s over!” said Gerrit, sitting safe and sound once more beside his Griet in the kitchen. “Once is well enough—but never again! And I had everything first-class!”
This was true enough: for on the return journey he had managed to get into the right compartment of the train—though, to say the truth, he found it much less comfortable than the other.
And Gijs? Gijs was as blythe as a foal in the meadow, when he found himself at home again. When he told Mijn about the circus, and the young ladies in gilt caps who had sold him wafers, and tried to flirt with him, she turned as red as fire, and said it was scandalous; but the cup and saucer, which, contrary to all expectation, had reached home uninjured, were duly admired by her. And when Gerrit, one fine evening, had some of the neighbours in to help in the pig-killing, and entertained them in the kitchen when work was over, the monster cake was tasted, and Gerrit profited by the opportunity to relate all his adventures. Then said Brother-in-Law Kresel, that such a thing hadn’t happened within the memory of man!—and Baas Janssen, that morality was getting into a frightful state!—and the old Teunis farmer concluded, “What does a man want on the ice in his clogs?”