Page:Scribners Vol 37-1905.djvu/68

A group of the islanders were waiting to greet excursionists—Page 50

Her costume was black on the right side and the left was scarlet with the exception of the sleeve, which was black.

The serving girl spoke “vaar leetle Englais,” but I managed to make out that it was the costume of the Amsterdam orphan, from “Ze Charity School.” This costume was given to this institution in the fourteenth century and has been preserved to the present dav. “Some Eengleeshman, he say ‘half-orphan’, but it ees not so,” volunteered my informant. When I thought of the red part of that costume, it was certainly difficult to imagine its wearer a full-fledged orphan.

The time came for me to pay my bill (which was surprisingly small), and I went out into the street. The chimes were telling me that I was near the “Dam,” and I turned my steps in that direction. At a crossing I had to pause. for a crowd was blocking the way. I learned that the Queen was expected; and I waited to see her, wondering why she should pick out this side side street for her drive. She soon came by, in a carriage very much like our Victoria, and followed by a hundred or more mounted guards with swords clanking at their horses’ sides. I have heard it said that the Dutch love their Queen, but a surly and ill-mannered crowd it was who stood about. Hats were not removed generally, and some of her subjects whistled as she passed. I was sorry, for she looked mild and sweet, and rather pale, as she sat and bowed from right to left.

The Isle of Marken

A little steamer lay, bumping and tugging restlessly at its float, back of the big railway station at Amsterdam. As if she was impatient to be off on her journey, the steam had forced its way through the safety-valve and sent up a cloud of angry, sputtering vapor to meet a morning sky filled with wind-blown clouds. The last of the passengers, a group of tourists, came hurrying down the gang plank, grabbing frantically at their cameras, lunch packages, and heavy wraps; and after the old, weather-beaten captain had seen to it that they were all well on hoard and nothing left behind, he shook hands with two wooden-shoed cronies on the string-piece and pulled the cord of the shrieking, piercing whistle. The engine pumped and churned as she left the landing place, and, passing through the lock, plunged her nose into the angry, splashing vellow waves of the Zuyder Zee, and was on her way to the isle, or, to be more correct, the isles of Marken. This is