paned sashes of the neat windows always seemed as if they had just been painted. Beams, sometimes fancifully carved, jutted from the gables overhead like so many threatening gallows.[1]
With their own ideas of the perpendicular, some of the houses leaned this way and some that, like so many drunken Dutchmen; others were moderately straight and sober half way up, and then took a hazardous topple until one wondered what unrecorded law of nature kept them from falling over. Conscientious brickwork and good mortar, I venture, is largely responsible for their existence. As I stood I front of one of them, bearing a tablet of 1507, I peered into its half-open door. My imagination supplied the leaded glass front (which is now replaced by more modern sash) and hanging from the rafters were models of ancient craft. Before me rose the form of Hendrik Hudson, in serious and stolid council with the members of the West India Trading Company, fitting out the Half Moon for her voyage of discovery, little dreaming they were forming the opening wedge for the founding of New York.
It seems strange to me that some historical society has not transported one of these houses to our shores, to mark the most picturesque phase of our existence. They are small and could he sawed in sections and set up exactly as they stand. What an addition one would be to the historical interest of New York! We have not one example of the old Dutch house, such as was reared on the Battery and greeted the eyes of Stuyvesant when he landed. Ours were built after the pattern of the Amsterdam houses, where the sturdy burgomasters hailed from, and I hope these few words may impress some patriotic historical society, which has in its coffers substance that may otherwise he invested in a statue of the Central Park variety. But to return to our side street.
Little, sweet-smelling bake-shops were passed, tiled from floor to ceiling; trays and scales of copper and brass shining like gold, lent to the cheerfulness of the interior and formed a setting for the red-cheeked girl in freshly starched cap, who sold and served. Stopping in one particularly attractive © “Cremerie,” I ordered a cup of “chocolade” and a sandwich of “brod en Kaase™, and, as I sat and supped, I saw more rosy-cheeked maids in sabots (the one in the “cremerie,” wore big velvet slippers) scrubbing with mop and broom everything they could lay their hands on. The brass-bedecked green door was being polished, and the brick pavement which had turned gray and green in spots from two centuries of dampness, was receiving another coat of water. The clatter of sabots sounded the passing of pedestrians. A weather-beaten boatman went by, followed by a market-woman in her bulging skirts, then a girl, sweet and demure, who looked as if she was part of the Middle Ages, when people went about dressed like checker-boards.- ↑ A Dutch cellar as a damp affair at the best, and these beams are used to hoist supplies, such as fuel, potatoes, etc. to the general store room. which is directly under the roof and corresponds to our attic.
