WHEN I WAS A BOY 
 
 IN 
 
 ELGIUM 
 
 ROBERT JONCKHEERE 
 
Class -JlliMfll 
 
 J* 
 : 
 
 *■» f 
 
 Copyright N°_ 
 
 7 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 
WHEN I WAS A BOY IN 
 BELGIUM 
 
CHILDREN OF OTHER LANDS BOOKS 
 
 Six Volumes With Characteristic Illustrations 
 and Cover Designs i2mo Cloth 
 
 There are many books about the children of other 
 countries, but no other group like this, with each volume 
 written by one who has lived the foreign child life de- 
 scribed, and learned from subsequent experience in this 
 country how to tell it in a way attractive to American 
 children — and in fact to Americans of any age. 
 
 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN CHINA 
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 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN PALESTINE 
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 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 By Robert Jonckheere Price net, $ .75 ; postpaid, $ .85 
 
 LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. 
 BOSTON 
 
l (^iU%^^^- 
 
WHEN I WAS A BOY 
 IN BELGIUM 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT JONCKHEERE 
 
 ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 
 
 BOSTON 
 LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. 
 
Published, March, 1915 V^ 
 
 Copyright, 191 5, 
 By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 When I Was a Boy in Belgium 
 
 NORWOOD PRESS 
 
 BERWICK & SMITH CO. 
 Norwood, Mass., U. S. A. 
 
 APR -5 1915 
 
 ©CI. A 3 9 7 40 3 
 

 o 
 
 To 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Augustus A. Hemenway 
 
 in grateful acknowledgment of many 
 acts of kindness shown to 
 Belgian refugees 
 
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE 
 
 The author of this book became known 
 to us through the columns of a newspa- 
 per, which published an interview with 
 Mr. Jonckheere soon after his arrival in 
 this country. 
 
 The graphic account he had given of 
 Belgian refugees flocking out of Antwerp 
 led us to believe that he was one who 
 could well and profitably tell our boys 
 and girls how those of their own age live 
 in a land that has become the center of 
 so great interest. 
 
 Mr. Jonckheere proved to be a man of 
 unusual culture, especially well-read, and 
 an excellent linguist. After a single in- 
 terview in which we explained what our 
 young people — and older ones, too, for 
 that matter — would be interested in know- 
 ing, he readily wrote " When I Was a Boy 
 
 7 
 
8 PUBLISHERS' PREFACE 
 
 in Belgium " in English, and so well that 
 his own manuscript was speedily given to 
 the printer. 
 
 Mr. Jonckheere has settled down cou- 
 rageously to start life anew in this coun- 
 try. All will be glad to know that he 
 now has a reunited family. The cheerful 
 way in which he describes Belgian child- 
 life by giving his own true story shows 
 convincingly how amiable are the thrifty 
 people of that fair and unfortunate land, 
 Belgium. 
 
 Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company. 
 Boston, March, 1915. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. A Little Boy in Belgium . 
 
 II. The Boys' School 
 
 III. Ten O'Clock Playtime 
 
 IV. "Jet" .... 
 V. " Kalinker," Cherry-Stones, 
 
 and Disks 
 
 VI. Work at School 
 
 VII. Holidays in Belgium 
 
 VIII. Uncle Doren and His Mill 
 
 IX. Grandmother . 
 
 X. Stories Grandmother Told Me 
 
 XL To Boarding-School at Blank- 
 
 ENBERGHE 
 
 XII. A Trip through Belgium . 
 
 XIII. My Father's Story of Waterloo 
 
 XIV. A New Start in Antwerp 
 XV. Some Business Experiences 
 
 XVI. Happy Years 
 XVII. The Outbreak of the War 
 XVIII. Our March from Contich to 
 Antwerp 
 XIX. Our Flight from Antwerp 
 XX. We Come to the United States 
 9 
 
 PAGE 
 13 
 15 
 17 
 
 21 
 
 26 
 
 33 
 
 39 
 
 47 
 61 
 
 66 
 
 74 
 
 85 
 
 93 
 
 101 
 
 no 
 
 118 
 
 124 
 
 133 
 
 142 
 148 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Robert Jonckheere 
 
 A Canal in Belgium .... 
 
 A Belgian Windmill .... 
 
 Ancient Watch-Tower and Dam at Bruges 
 
 A Dog-Cart in Belgium .... 
 
 Albert, King of the Belgians . 
 
 Rear of Fortifications at Namur, showing 
 Canal ...... 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 36- 
 
 iS* 
 
 Where the Battle of Waterloo was Fought 
 
 Antwerp Cathedral .... 
 
 A Line of Refugees .... 
 
 Wounded Belgian Soldier telling his Chil- 
 dren of the Thrilling Fight with the 
 Germans at Liege .... 
 
 A Soldier and his Homeless Family 
 
 Refugees Leaving Antwerp 
 
 48 
 48 
 
 54 
 
 78 ^ 
 
 86 S 
 100 \f 
 
 1081/ 
 128 ^ 
 
 134 v 
 140^ 
 146 ' 
 
 11 
 
WHEN I WAS A BOY 
 IN BELGIUM 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A LITTLE BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 When my mother used to talk to me 
 about my birth, she never forgot to men- 
 tion how cold it was in Belgium during 
 the early part of 1879. I was born in 
 the month of March, that year. 
 
 I was the first baby in the house, and 
 plenty of work attends such an event. 
 There were pancakes and chocolate milk 
 to be prepared for all the relatives and 
 friends who would come to see me in the 
 morning, to tell my mother what a fine 
 baby I was, and how much I looked like 
 her or my father. Before departing, each 
 
 13 
 
14 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 guest would eat pancakes and drink choco- 
 late milk in my honor. 
 
 Well, there I was, a little boy, whom 
 everybody found really a big boy. They 
 all said to my mother that she must be 
 glad to have a boy, and not a little girl 
 for her first child. 
 
 I had only to grow up quickly now so 
 that I could soon go to school. When I 
 was two and a half years old, I was sent, 
 according to usual custom, to the " nuns' 
 school." I do not remember much of 
 that time. There I learned the alphabet 
 and also many prayers, and became able 
 to count up to one hundred. Playing 
 and praying filled the best part of the 
 day. I went to that school until I was 
 five years old, — the age of entrance to the 
 boys' school. Until they are five years 
 old, little boys and girls go to the same 
 school, but after that they go to separate 
 schools. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE BOYS' SCHOOL 
 
 It is a big happening in the life of a 
 boy, that first day in the boys' school, 
 with a schoolmaster at the head of the 
 class and with real writing-desks for the 
 children ! 
 
 I attended the boys' school until I was 
 eleven years old, when I had to receive 
 my first communion. More than ninety- 
 nine per cent, of the people living in 
 Belgium are Roman Catholics. There 
 are a few Protestants and members of 
 other religions in the big cities ; but in 
 the smaller towns only Catholics live, 
 and so it was in the little town where I 
 was born, that is, Roulers in West 
 Flanders. 
 
 During the summer months, school 
 
 lasted from eight o'clock till half-past 
 
 15 
 
16 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 eleven in the morning, and from half- 
 past one till four o'clock in the afternoon. 
 During the winter months it starts half 
 an hour later. We wore leather shoes 
 only in summer ; in the winter we wore 
 wooden shoes, called hloefen or blokken, 
 which were much warmer. We carried 
 our books for evening study in book-bags 
 strapped to our backs. In that bag each 
 of us also had his bottle of coffee or milk, 
 bread and butter, and perhaps an apple 
 or an orange to eat at ten o'clock, when 
 playtime came. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 TEN O'CLOCK PLAYTIME 
 
 That ten o'clock playtime, that was 
 the happiest part of the day ! Let me 
 tell you about some of our games. The 
 most popular game with the little ones 
 was "catch-me-wood." One of the chil- 
 dren had to catch another ; just touch 
 him, and the one touched would now 
 have to try to catch another boy. But, 
 and here the game became more interest- 
 ing, the intended " catch " might flee to 
 a tree or to a door or to a little piece of 
 wood on the ground and take hold of it ; 
 and as long as he touched wood, he could 
 not be caught. One day we played 
 " catch-me-wood," another day it would 
 be " catch-me-iron," or " catch-me-stone," 
 
 or any other " catch-me " we might have 
 
 17 
 
18 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 in mind ; but " catch-me-wood " was the 
 most popular. 
 
 One of these "catch-me's" was "cross- 
 catch-me," and you will need some more 
 explanation to understand this game. 
 One of us was again selected to be "it," 
 and all the others would try to get away. 
 Now the chase started. Suppose Robert 
 was chasing Pieter, trying to catch him. 
 Just as Robert was nearing Pieter, on 
 came Bertje, and ran between Robert 
 and Pieter, thus "crossing off the catch. " 
 Now Robert had to try to catch Bertje 
 before another boy could " cross " him. 
 And so the game would go on and on. 
 When a catch was made, it was the boy 
 who had been touched who had to run 
 and catch the others. 
 
 I am told that a similar game, called 
 " cross-tag," is well known among the 
 boys and girls of this country. 
 
 The playgrounds are in front or at the 
 back of the schools, and they have quite 
 long runs shaded by big trees. 
 
TEN O 9 CL GK PL A YTIME 19 
 
 For one of our games we would draw a 
 line dividing the playground into two 
 sections. One of us would be the station- 
 master and stand on the line. The rest 
 of us would approach him, and the fol- 
 lowing conversation would occur : 
 
 11 Where are you going ? " the station- 
 master would ask. 
 
 " To Ostend (or any other city we had 
 in mind)," the boys would sing. 
 
 " Where is your ticket? " 
 
 " We have no ticket." 
 
 " Then you shall not pass." 
 
 " We must pass, and we shall pass." 
 
 And then the chase would begin, each 
 one of us trying to get over the line and 
 pass the station-master, who was doing 
 his best to catch one of us. 
 
 He usually would catch one or two. 
 Next time the same conversation was 
 repeated, except for a change in the name 
 of our destination. Moreover, this time 
 the station-master was helped in his work 
 by the boys he had caught, and who now 
 
20 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 were his assistants. We would play like 
 this until the station-master had captured 
 all the boys. 
 
 Each game had its season. I have never 
 been able to find out who ruled these 
 sport seasons, but the fact remains that 
 about the same time each year came the 
 season for playing ball, then for marbles, 
 then for spinning tops, then for hoop- 
 rolling; then it was "jet"; after that it 
 would be "kalinker" or cherry-stones, 
 or disk-throwing. 
 
 I believe that you know all about ball, 
 marbles, tops, and hoops ; but perhaps 
 you would like some enlightenment 
 about the other games. I suggest that 
 you try some of them in this country, as 
 there is a good deal of fun to be found in 
 each one of them. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 " JET " 
 
 Let me tell you first about the jet. It 
 was a stick about five inches long and 
 one inch thick, pointed at both ends. It 
 was placed on a stone with one end pro- 
 jecting. With another stick about three 
 times as long, one boy would hit the jet 
 off the stone, and the others, standing at 
 some distance, tried to catch the jet 
 before it fell to the ground. Before the 
 boy hit the stick he would cry " Jet"; and 
 he could not hit it until the others cried 
 back, " Yea." If one of them could catch 
 it, it was his turn to hit ; and the game 
 started over again. The jet was usually 
 caught with the hands, but it was allow- 
 able to hold one's cap for it. 
 
 But let us suppose that no one did 
 
 catch it. Then the boy nearest to the 
 
 21 
 
22 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 spot where the jet fell would pick it up ; 
 the boy who had hit the jet would place 
 his stick in front of the stone ; and the 
 other boy would throw the jet and try to 
 hit this stick with it. If he did hit it 
 it would be his turn to knock the jet off 
 the stone. 
 
 In case he did not touch the stick, 
 however, the boy who was first " it " had 
 to strike the jet and make it fly farther 
 away from the stone. He could do this 
 three times, providing that each time the 
 jet fell farther away from the stone. He 
 could accomplish this by striking the jet 
 lightly, so as to catch it on the back of 
 his stick when it fell, and in that way 
 give a more powerful toss to the jet while 
 it was still in the air. Or he could try 
 to catch the jet several times on his stick, 
 using the latter like a racquet. 
 
 When he had hit the jet three times, 
 the other boys would ask, "How much?" 
 And the first boy had to judge how far 
 the jet lay from the stone, that is, how 
 
" JET" 23 
 
 many lengths of his stick. If he said 
 fifty or one hundred lengths, and the 
 boys agreed with him, he could add the 
 amount stated to his score, and start the 
 game anew. But if the boys thought 
 that not so many stick-lengths were in 
 the distance between the jet and the stone, 
 the boy who had thrown the jet would 
 have to measure the distance with his 
 stick in as straight a line as possible, 
 starting from the end of the jet farthest 
 away from the stone. If the total of 
 lengths was more than his estimate all 
 the better for him ; he could now take the 
 bigger total as his score. If the total was 
 less than his guess, he had lost, and must 
 take his chance with the other boys. 
 The boy who had thrown the jet to the 
 stone now took his place. The game 
 continued until one of the boys had 
 reached the final score of five hundred, or 
 one thousand, or whatever amount had 
 been previously agreed upon. 
 
 There is one more point about this 
 
24 WEEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 game, and one which for us was of the 
 utmost importance, because if one had 
 the ability to do it, therein lay a chance 
 to win the game almost at once. You 
 noticed that three trials were allowed to 
 hit the jet off the stone the second time ; 
 and that the boy would try to catch the 
 jet as many times as possible on his stick. 
 I will now tell you why he did so. If 
 he could catch the jet only once on his 
 stick, the distance from the stone to the 
 jet would be measured according to the 
 length of his stick ; but if he could catch 
 the jet twice on his stick, the distance 
 would be measured by half stick-lengths, 
 and so double his score. 
 
 The following table gives the scale of 
 measurement : 
 
 One catch 
 
 - measure 
 
 with full stick 
 
 Two catches - 
 
 a 
 
 " half stick 
 
 Three " - 
 
 " 
 
 " jet 
 
 Four " - 
 
 " 
 
 " half jet 
 
 Five " - 
 
 a 
 
 u top of jet 
 
 Six " - 
 
 " 
 
 " half top of jet 
 
 Seven " 
 
 the game 
 
 was won without 
 
 
 measuring. 
 
"JET" 25 
 
 The game does look a little compli- 
 cated, but it is very easy once the rules 
 are understood. Moreover, you can learn 
 it at first without including all of the 
 rules, for instance, leaving out the smaller 
 measures, until you know how to play it 
 quite well. Then use all the rules. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 " KALINKER," CHERRY-STONES, AND DISKS 
 
 The " Kalinker" is a game which is 
 just as popular with the boys as with the 
 girls. I have found no name to translate 
 it, so I give it here its national Belgian 
 name. To play it you need a square flat 
 piece of wood about one inch thick and 
 three or four inches wide. This is called 
 the kalinker. On the ground draw one 
 of the diagrams pictured on the opposite 
 page, about six or seven yards in length 
 and about three or four in width. The 
 first diagram is used by the younger 
 children, the second by the older ones, or 
 those who know the game better. 
 
 The game can be played with several 
 
 children, but usually not more than five 
 
 or six play with one diagram. One of 
 
 26 
 
" KALINKEB" ETC. 
 
 27 
 
 the boys starts the game by standing in 
 front of the line A B, being careful not to 
 touch the lines of the diagram with his 
 feet. He then throws the Jcalinker into 
 the space numbered one. Now he has to 
 
 /5 
 
 6\ 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 8 
 
 Z 
 
 9 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 A B 
 
 A 3 
 
 DlAGEAM FOB " KALINKEB," OB BELGIAN HOP-SCOTCH. 
 
 hop on one foot into this space, and try to 
 kick the Jcalinker back over the line A B. 
 He is allowed to jump on one foot several 
 times in the space numbered one, but if 
 he touches a line with his foot, or if he 
 touches the Jcalinker without kicking it 
 
28 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 over the line A B, he has forfeited his 
 turn. 
 
 But let us say that everything goes 
 well, and that he has been successful in 
 kicking out the halinker. He next has 
 to throw it into space two ; kick the 
 halinker with the foot on which he is 
 jumping into space one; hop on the 
 same foot into space one ; kick the ka- 
 linker over the line A B, and hop out, 
 always on one foot. He repeats the same 
 thing for spaces three, four, five, etc., 
 hopping on one foot, and kicking the 
 kalinker from space to space, until it is 
 over line A B. It is a foul : 
 
 To stand with a foot on the lines. 
 
 To stand on two feet when in the 
 diagram. 
 
 To throw or kick the kalinker on a 
 line. 
 
 To touch the kalinker with the foot 
 without kicking it into the next space. 
 
 The game is won by the boy who first 
 goes through all the spaces. When any 
 
"KALINKER" ETC. 29 
 
 one misses in space four, for instance, he 
 can start again from space four at his 
 next turn. 
 
 Sometimes it is permitted to kick the 
 halinker more than one space at a time, 
 and also to rest on two feet in space six. 
 This is also a fine game, and surely you 
 must try to play it with your friends. 
 
 We used to play for cherry-stones dur- 
 ing the cherry season in midsummer. 
 Each had a small bag in which he kept 
 his collection of dried and colored cherry- 
 stones, often having as many as four or 
 five thousand. We sold them afterwards 
 to nursery-men at five Belgian cents a 
 thousand. This is about two cents in 
 United States money. 
 
 We used to play for cherry-stones in 
 this way. We drew a diagram of about a 
 foot in length on the ground or on paper, 
 like that on the following page. 
 
 Two boys or girls play together. Jan 
 would start the game by putting a little 
 black stone on A ; Jef would next put a 
 
30 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 little red or white stone on I or anywhere 
 else he fancied ; and Jan would put his 
 next stone at B. The boy who first has 
 
 
 E 
 
 
 H 
 
 DlAGEAM FOE GAME WITH CHEEEY- STONES. 
 
 his three stones on one straight line wins 
 the game. 
 
 As Jan now has a stone on A and one 
 on B, Jef will next put a stone on C, 
 and he will now have his two stones on 
 C and I. If Jan is bright, he will at 
 once put his third stone on F so that 
 Jef cannot complete his line of three. 
 Jef will perhaps put his third stone 
 at G. After this move each boy has 
 three stones in the game. There are left 
 three open spaces into which each boy in 
 
"KALINKER" ETC. 31 
 
 turn moves one of his stones, until one 
 boy finishes his straight line, and wins. 
 
 The stake would be ten, twenty-five, 
 or even one hundred cherry-stones at a 
 time, so we paid a great deal of attention 
 to the placing and moving of the stones. 
 After a while there is a good deal of 
 ability necessary to win a game. 
 
 Several boys could play disk-throwing 
 together. First we drew two parallel 
 lines about two yards long on the ground 
 about six or seven yards apart. We used 
 round flat metal disks two inches in 
 diameter, each boy having three disks 
 marked with his initials, or a heart, or 
 cross, or some other sign. We could buy 
 them at the store three for one sou, that 
 is, one Belgian cent. 
 
 Each boy in turn would stand behind 
 one line, and throw his disks one at a 
 time, trying to come as near as possible 
 to the other line. The disk nearest to 
 the line won one count, and if on the 
 line it counted two. If more than one 
 
32 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 disk was on the line, they would count 
 two for each one, no matter to whom 
 the disks belonged. Twenty-five or fifty 
 points made the game, and usually the 
 stake was one or two marbles. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 WORK AT SCHOOL 
 
 As I told you before, I was born at 
 Roulers, a town of about twenty-five thou- 
 sand inhabitants. Roulers is situated in 
 the province of West Flanders. Belgium 
 has nine provinces, and its whole area is 
 only about eleven thousand five hundred 
 square miles, — much less than some of 
 the states in this country. 
 
 In the northern part of the country, 
 — comprising the provinces of West and 
 East Flanders, the provinces of Antwerp, 
 Limburg, and the northern part of Bra- 
 bant, — people speak Flemish, which is 
 the same as the Dutch language. In the 
 southern part of Belgium, called the 
 Walloon provinces, — that is, Hainault, 
 
 Namur, Liege, and Luxemburg, — the 
 
 33 
 
34 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 people speak the French language. You 
 will readily understand that in such a 
 small country, where it takes only four 
 or five hours by rail to travel from one 
 end to the other, everybody wants to 
 know the two languages. As I was born 
 in Flanders, we spoke Flemish at home, 
 and so I had to learn French at school. 
 Children start learning French when 
 seven or eight years old. After they 
 have studied it for one year, they have 
 to speak it always during playtime. To 
 enforce this rule, a little book, called 
 the " sign/' circulates among the school- 
 children. On Monday morning the 
 teacher has the " sign " in his pocket, 
 and as he walks about among the 
 children, he listens to their talk. When 
 he hears a boy speak Flemish, the 
 teacher takes out the " sign " and gives 
 it to the boy. This boy will write his 
 name in the booklet, and carry it in his 
 pocket. He is not allowed to play as 
 long as he carries the " sign/ 7 but he 
 
WORK AT SCHOOL 35 
 
 must be on the lookout for another boy 
 not speaking French, and when he hears 
 one, he will at once hand the " sign " to 
 the second boy. 
 
 This boy knows what it means, and 
 will make very little fuss about it so that 
 his comrades will not notice that he 
 now carries the sign-book. He rapidly 
 writes his name in the book, and is now 
 himself on the lookout for a boy speak- 
 ing Flemish. Each week a count is made 
 of the number of times your name is in 
 the " sign," and one point is lost for each 
 time your name is in it. For instance, 
 if your name was signed four times you 
 would lose four points of the twenty 
 which were to be won for speaking 
 French regularly. 
 
 A " good points " book is given each 
 Saturday to each pupil, and in it stands 
 a record of his week's work. For in- 
 stance, he will get fifteen out of twenty 
 points for French ; twenty out of twenty 
 for Flemish, twelve out of twenty for 
 
36 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 arithmetic, and so on. His father or 
 mother has to sign his name in the book 
 under each weekly report. 
 
 If children do not attend school, a card 
 is sent at once to their parents asking 
 the reason for the absence, so that there 
 is no chance for the school-children to be 
 absent without their parents knowing it 
 the same day. School is in session for 
 six days every week, and it was only 
 when we were beginning to learn French 
 that we were given Thursday afternoon 
 free. Of course we have also Christmas, 
 Easter, and the summer holidays. 
 
 All the children must go to school up 
 to their thirteenth year, and as it is not 
 possible for the children of the canal- 
 boatmen to go to school regularly, special 
 " holiday " classes exist for them. 
 
 Belgium is for the most part a flat 
 country, and many canals have been 
 digged to make the transportation of 
 goods easier. On these canals are the 
 canal-barges or canal-boats with the boat- 
 
A Canal in Belgium. 
 
WORK AT SCHOOL 37 
 
 man, his wife, and his children living on 
 board. 
 
 Now as these canal-barges are always 
 travelling from one city to the other, you 
 see that it would be impossible for the 
 children living on them to go to one 
 school regularly. Therefore wherever 
 the boat arrives and lies for more than 
 one day, unloading and loading, the 
 children of the boatmen are sent to the 
 " holiday " school ; so called because the 
 children who attend have a holiday dur- 
 ing most of the week, as they go to school 
 only for one or two days at a time. This 
 holiday class is small, and its members 
 are always new. 
 
 In order that the schoolmaster of each 
 school they attend may at once know 
 how far advanced these children are, the 
 children carry special report-books in 
 which each master will write not only 
 about the lesson he taught, but also about 
 the advance lesson which he gave the 
 pupils to study. With the help of this 
 
38 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 book every master can at once pick up 
 the study where the former master 
 stopped. It may seem curious, but many 
 of these canal-children, in spite of their 
 scanty childish instruction, afterwards 
 become good college students. They gain 
 mental ability as well a$ knowledge by 
 their varied experience and observation. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 HOLIDAYS IN BELGIUM 
 
 The Christmas and New Year's holi- 
 days are only for one week, and as the 
 weather then is nearly always rainy and 
 cold, we had to keep indoors most of the 
 time. Christmas day is usually a very 
 quiet one in Belgium, as no presents are 
 given to children then. 
 
 St. Nicholas day, however, which falls 
 on the sixth of December, was always a 
 great event. Then we had our basket 
 put under the chimney, and in the morn- 
 ing it was filled with all kinds of candy 
 and playthings. At school, too, we 
 would find that the schoolmaster had 
 put some candy and either a new pencil 
 or penholder in our desks. 
 
 Another big day for us was New Year's 
 39 
 
40 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 day. For this day we made no end of 
 preparations. A month before we had to 
 tell the schoolmaster how many New 
 Year's letters we had to write : we wrote 
 them to our parents, to our grandfather 
 and grandmother, to aunts and uncles, 
 and often even to some special family 
 friend. We wrote these letters at school 
 with the utmost care on fine, big, white 
 sheets of paper adorned with colored 
 flowers and other illustrations in the left- 
 hand corner. We had to practise read- 
 ing these letters aloud, and often one 
 letter was rewritten five or six times be- 
 fore the master would find it good enough 
 to be given and read at New Year's. 
 
 The day before Christmas, when the 
 holiday began, we took the letters home 
 and carefully hid them. Then on New 
 Year's morning at the breakfast-table I 
 had to stand up and formally wish Father 
 and Mother a " happy and blessed New 
 Year," at the same time handing them 
 my New Year's letter. 
 
HOLIDAYS IN BELGIUM 41 
 
 After Father had looked it over, he 
 would ask me to read it. I can still 
 see myself standing there with the letter 
 held fast by both hands, saluting first 
 Mother then Father, and starting, " Dear 
 Father and Dear Mother, 77 and finishing 
 with the date. After I had read my let- 
 ter, the New Year's cake was brought in 
 and put on the table, — a big, square cur- 
 rant-cake with circular flat decorations 
 in the middle of the crust. Then Father 
 gave me a double-franc-piece, and Mother 
 also a franc, which were to be put to my 
 account at the post-office bank. (A postal 
 bank-book is given each school-child, and 
 each Monday he has to bring to school at 
 least one cent, which is put to his savings 
 account.) 
 
 But this was only the beginning of the 
 day, and many visits were to be made. I 
 had to go to my grandparents 7 , to my 
 uncles 7 and aunts 7 , and everywhere I had 
 to read my New Year 7 s letters, drink 
 chocolate, and eat New Year 7 s cake, and 
 
42 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 receive one franc or double-francs for the 
 bank. My rich Uncle Camille would 
 even sometimes give me a big five-franc- 
 piece, but that was the exception. 
 
 During the Easter holidays the weather 
 was better, and we could play outside. 
 On Good Friday the church-bells and 
 the chimes were never rung, and we were 
 told that the bells had gone to Rome and 
 would return next morning with the 
 Easter eggs. We were up early Saturday 
 morning, making little nests of hay, which 
 we hid about the garden between bushes 
 and in the flower-beds. 
 
 Then while we had breakfast, Father or 
 Mother would go into the garden and put 
 the colored eggs and also chocolate and 
 sugar eggs in the nests. And when at 
 eight o'clock the church-bells rang, we 
 would all cry out : 
 
 11 The church-bells have returned from 
 Rome I The church-bells have come 
 back ! " 
 
 And I would rush to the garden and 
 
HOLIDAYS IN BELGIUM 43 
 
 look for my little nest, and find the eggs, 
 and shout for joy ! Everywhere the chil- 
 dren were on the street with their nests 
 of Easter eggs, showing and comparing 
 their treasures. The richer people gave 
 their children big chocolate eggs filled 
 with smaller sugar eggs ; the poorer peo- 
 ple gave hen's eggs which the mothers 
 had colored gold and red and blue ; but 
 all the children were equally happy and 
 glad that day. 
 
 With the summer holidays, which be- 
 gan in the middle of August and lasted 
 until the first of October, would come the 
 distribution of prizes. That yearly prize 
 distribution is one of the big happenings 
 in the life of the school-children in Bel- 
 gium. Preparations were made weeks be- 
 forehand : we had to learn a play, to 
 learn the national anthem, to learn a 
 special gymnastic lesson and many other 
 things, all of which would be performed 
 at the distribution of the prizes. But be- 
 fore the prizes came the examinations for 
 
44 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 which the weekly reports were used as a 
 basis, and there was much speculation 
 between us over the probable winners of 
 the first prizes. 
 
 The day for the prize distribution was 
 officially announced to all the parents ; 
 the newspapers also gave notice of it, so 
 that it became a sort of a holiday. And 
 when the day came, the burgomaster was 
 there, and the priests from the different 
 Catholic churches, and all the school- 
 masters in official black suits and white 
 gloves. All the schoolboys had new 
 suits and their mothers, aunts, and 
 friends came dressed in their best to the 
 big hall where the prize distribution was 
 to be held. 
 
 First the head-master said a few words 
 of thanks to the priests, the burgomaster, 
 and the parents and friends of the school- 
 children for coming to this celebration. 
 The band then played several selections. 
 After that the children sang, performed 
 gymnastic exercises, played games, and 
 
HOLIDAYS IN BELGIUM 45 
 
 acted a play. One boy would have to 
 tell a story, five or six others would give 
 a representation of some historic happen- 
 ing, and after all this entertainment the 
 real distribution of the prizes would 
 begin. 
 
 I can tell you from experience that our 
 hearts were beating fast when the an- 
 nouncements began. Each boy hoped to 
 be one of the first of his class ! First the 
 master of the younger boys would read 
 the names of the prize-winners in his 
 class. You must have been through it 
 yourself to appreciate fully the pride and 
 gladness written on the face of the little 
 man of five or six years, when his name 
 was called as being the first of his class. 
 He would walk up to the burgomaster, 
 who put a laurel crown on the boy's 
 head, and said a few words of congratu- 
 lations before he handed the prize book 
 to the winner. The band always played 
 the national anthem while a boy was 
 receiving the first prize. 
 
46 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 Then the names of the second, third, 
 and fourth prizes were called. Among 
 the " little ones/' as the first class was 
 called, each boy received a prize, even 
 if he was the last of his class. It would 
 then be called an encouragement prize ; 
 but the boy would be just as proud as if 
 it were a first prize. 
 
 When it came to the French language 
 classes, however, only the first five or 
 six boys received prizes. This was more 
 serious, we felt, and the competition be- 
 tween us was therefore harder. When 
 all the prizes had been distributed, the 
 burgomaster rose and said that he felt 
 very happy and proud to have the chil- 
 dren of this school try so hard to do 
 their best and that now he granted us a 
 six weeks' holiday as a final recompense. 
 The band would play the "Brabangonne " 
 again, while everybody stood and sang it 
 together. And then holiday ! 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 UNCLE DOREN AND HIS MILL 
 
 " Robert, if you are a good boy this 
 week, we will go to Uncle Doren's mill 
 next Thursday." So spoke my mother 
 one Monday morning during the holiday 
 weeks. And the promise delighted me, 
 because a visit to Uncle Doren was al- 
 ways a happy day. Monday, Tuesday, 
 and Wednesday were long days for quiet 
 behavior, but Thursday arrived at last, 
 and I was up early and ready more than 
 an hour before the time to start came. 
 
 Uncle Doren lived in the village of 
 Hooglede about six miles from our 
 home, and to reach his house we had 
 to take the tram, — a little steam railway 
 running in the streets, and connecting 
 the villages to the cities in Belgium. 
 These trams are now gradually disap- 
 
 47 
 
48 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 pearing, and the electric cars are taking 
 their places. 
 
 It took us more than an hour to get to 
 Hooglede. The mill stands on top of the 
 hill, and the wings were turning rapidly, 
 as we could see from the windows of 
 the tram, as it steamed up the hill to the 
 market-place before the church. Pol and 
 his sister Margaret, the children of my 
 uncle, with Duke, the dog, were waiting 
 for us at the arrival of the tram. The 
 children were expecting me, and they 
 told me at once of the preparations in 
 our honor. Aunt Marie had made rice- 
 tart, and we would have French fried 
 potatoes at noon and we would take a 
 long drive in the dog-cart with Duke to 
 draw us, and we would go to the wind- 
 mill, and do no end of other things. 
 
 Uncle was at work in the mill when 
 we arrived at the farmhouse, but Aunt 
 Marie was standing on the door-step wait- 
 ing for us. She had already cried " Wel- 
 come ! " when we were still on the road. 
 
A Belgian Windmill. 
 
 Ancient Watch-Tower and Dam at Bruges. 
 
UNCLE DO REN AND HIS MILL 49 
 
 We were led at once to the dining-room, 
 where, after taking off our hats, we were 
 urged to eat some currant bread, as Aunt 
 Marie feared we might be hungry after 
 our journey. 
 
 A description of such a farmhouse 
 dining-room might interest you. It had 
 two windows with little square glass 
 panes. Beneath these windows was a 
 bench, which ran all along the front wall 
 and in front of the bench stood the long 
 whitewashed wooden table with dark- 
 brown straw-covered chairs placed around 
 it. In one corner were the stairs leading 
 to the upper floor, and in a nook near 
 the stairs a tall oaken Flemish clock 
 sounded each quarter-hour, and indicated 
 not only the hour and minutes but also 
 the periods of the moon and the seasons. 
 
 A big open fireplace occupied another 
 side of the room. By this fireplace stood 
 Uncle Doren's arm-chair, and there, too, 
 hung his long pipe, the copper match-box, 
 and his tobacco-pouch. From a shelf 
 
50 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 above the fireplace hung a short, blue 
 curtain with tiny white dots in it, and on 
 the shelf itself stood a row of old round 
 dishes. These were dishes which had 
 been in the family for many years, big 
 plates with many-colored flowers, and 
 others with fruit and other farm produce 
 represented on them. Just above the 
 middle of the shelf hung the cross with 
 the ivory Christ on it. 
 
 The floor was of red tiles with white 
 sand strewn on it. In the sand pretty de- 
 signs had been made with the sweeping- 
 brush. On the walls were a few pictures, 
 and near the stairs was placed a little 
 stone holy-water pot with some palm- 
 leaves fastened above it. 
 
 After we had eaten a little, Pol and 
 Margaret took me to the cart-house where 
 the little driving-cart for Duke was also 
 kept. Duke was eager to be harnessed. 
 The dog-cart was about the size of a 
 baby's four-wheeled go-cart, but about 
 twice as wide. It had only two seats, but 
 
UNCLE DOEEN AND HIS MILL 51 
 
 one more passenger could easily be seated 
 at the back, if he did not object to having 
 his legs dangle outside. 
 
 The dog and cart were soon ready, and 
 off we went at a rapid pace. We drove 
 quite a long way along the canal, and 
 met several flat-bottomed barges, laden 
 with all kind of farm produce, and each 
 one drawn by a horse who walked steadily 
 along the canal dyke. The driver would 
 either follow his horse, or would walk 
 behind with another driver, often more 
 than two hundred yards behind his own 
 barge, where another horse was drawing 
 another barge. Soon we came to the 
 lock-bridge which we had to cross. But 
 we were obliged to wait here, as the lock 
 was open, and some boats must pass first. 
 
 I think that the working of these canal- 
 locks would interest you, and therefore I 
 will tell you how the ships pass through 
 them. 
 
 Roulers is connected by a canal to the 
 River Lys. Now although there are no 
 
52 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 mountains and only low hills in the 
 Flanders, the land slopes slightly ; for 
 instance, the city of Roulers lies higher 
 than the River Lys. So, you see, all the 
 water in the canal would flow into the 
 Lys, if it was not checked on its way, 
 and the canal would very soon be dry. 
 It is to prevent this occurrence that 
 canal-locks are built. Here is a little 
 picture of the lock that may help you to 
 understand it more easily. 
 
 Routers 
 
 (B_ 
 
 4 
 
 Lock 1 Lock 2 
 
 Canal-Locks. 
 
 To river Lys 
 
 C — - 
 
 First notice the boat which is to pass 
 from the canal at Roulers to the River 
 Lys, and notice also the difference in 
 height between the water level A and 
 the level C. In order, therefore, that the 
 
UNCLE DO BEN AND HIS MILL 53 
 
 water in section A of the canal cannot all 
 flow into section C and leave section A 
 dry, there has been constructed at the 
 point where the canal joins the river, 
 somewhere near the middle of the canal, 
 a door-locked section B. This section B 
 is only about forty yards long, and is 
 closed by big wooden doors. Now when 
 the ship coming from Roulers into sec- 
 tion A wants to enter the lock, the lock- 
 keeper slowly opens, by means of ma- 
 chinery at the side of the lock, the door 
 of Lock 1, and the water in section A 
 flows into section B ; and after a short 
 while the water in sections A and B is at 
 the same level. 
 
 As soon as the ship has been towed 
 into section B, the lock-keeper will close 
 Lock 1, and then slowly open the doors 
 of Lock 2. The water now flows from 
 section B into section C, and again in 
 a short time the level of the water in 
 B and C is the same. The boat can now 
 proceed on its journey. If a ship wants 
 
54 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 to go from the Lys to Roulers, the opera- 
 tion of the locks is naturally reversed. 
 
 It did not take long for the boats to go 
 through the lock that day, and we could 
 soon drive over the bridge. But it was 
 very warm, and Duke let his tongue 
 hang out of his mouth, and trotted more 
 slowly after a while. So we halted near 
 a little brook, and here we played the 
 best part of the forenoon, catching stickle- 
 back fishes. 
 
 But before we realized it the church- 
 bells struck the half-hour. It was half- 
 past eleven and time to go home for din- 
 ner, which is served at all the farmhouses 
 about five minutes past twelve o'clock. 
 When the bells in the church-tower strike 
 noon, all the working-men hasten home, 
 where the buttermilk soup stands ready 
 on the table. 
 
 We all sat together at the long table, — 
 Uncle, Aunt Marie, my mother, and we 
 children at the end of the table nearest 
 the fireplace, and the maid and the five 
 
B 
 e 
 
 I 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 Q 
 
UNCLE DOREN AND HIS MILL 55 
 
 men working on the farm and in the mill 
 at the other end. Uncle Doren said grace 
 while every one remained standing. The 
 men stood with their caps in their two 
 hands before their eyes meanwhile, and 
 after the blessing they put their caps on 
 their heads again, and kept them on dur- 
 ing dinner. 
 
 The farm dinner was a simple meal, 
 starting with buttermilk soup, followed 
 by potatoes, bacon or pork, and vege- 
 tables. Usually that would be all, but 
 to-day Aunt Marie had prepared rice- 
 tart, — a cherished dish for all children in 
 Belgium. Did Grandmother not always 
 tell us when we were babies that in heaven 
 we would eat rice-tart with silver spoons ? 
 You can imagine that we tried our best 
 to do honor to that rice-tart, and that 
 although it was a very big one, nothing 
 was left of it at the end of the meal. 
 
 After dinner Pol asked me to go with 
 him to the mill. Do you know how a 
 Flemish windmill is built ? It has four 
 
56 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 wings fitted with sails, which are opened 
 more or less, according to the velocity of 
 the wind. The whole upper structure, 
 including these wings, is supported by an 
 upright shaft, and can be turned round at 
 will. Consequently, whichever way the 
 wind blows — north, south, east, or west — 
 the miller is able to turn the wings " to the 
 wind," and the wings will start revolv- 
 ing, and will work the grinding-stones 
 inside, which crush and mill the grain. 
 
 In Belgium the windmills are used 
 chiefly to make flour and to crush the 
 rape-seed and extract the rape-seed oil. 
 Inside the mill there are stairways which 
 extend all the way to the top. It was out 
 there on the top that we children liked to 
 go, as the outlook was fine. We could see 
 the whole country for miles around ; and 
 we took great delight in watching some 
 train wind its way across the fields, puffing 
 white smoke into the air, or in counting 
 the many church-towers, and naming the 
 different villages. 
 
UNCLE DOBEN AND HIS MILL 57 
 
 But best of all was the long rope which 
 dangled from the horizontal axle, and 
 which was used to lower the sacks of flour 
 into the peasants' carts. Pol and myself 
 loved to cling to this rope and be lowered 
 from the top of the mill to the carts below. 
 Nobody seemed to think this was a dan- 
 gerous thing to do, even though we 
 should have dropped more than twenty 
 yards below if we had let go the rope. 
 Well, this accident never happened, to 
 my knowledge. Perhaps Uncle had done 
 the same thing when he was a child, and 
 so did not see any harm in our doing it. 
 We would simply cling to the rope, and 
 there was no question of letting go. 
 
 In the afternoon Mother and Aunt 
 Marie, with Pol, Margaret, and myself, 
 went for a walk in the fields. Aunt 
 Marie wished to show Mother how fine 
 the crops were looking, and said that if 
 all went well, the crop of potatoes and 
 sugar-beets would be better that year than 
 the year before. As we passed the house 
 
58 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 of Farmer Vandenberghe, we saw that all 
 the blinds were closed, and that a straw 
 cross was lying in the road in front of the 
 farm, indicating to all passers-by that 
 there had been a recent death in that 
 family. We all crossed ourselves, and 
 according to the custom, silently said a 
 prayer for the soul of the dead. 
 
 Aunt Marie now told us about the 
 daughter of Farmer Vandenberghe. She 
 was twelve years old, had received her 
 first communion the year before, and was 
 already such a great help to her mother. 
 Unfortunately she had taken a bad cold, 
 which grew so much worse that she had 
 finally died, and was now an angel in 
 heaven. The funeral was to be held in 
 the morning, and Margaret was to take 
 part in the service. 
 
 If I could stay, said Aunt Marie, I 
 could also go to the funeral the next day. 
 
 Mother let herself be persuaded, and to 
 my joy I was allowed to stay over night 
 and sleep with Pol in his bed. Mother 
 
UNCLE DOREN AND HIS MILL 69 
 
 went home alone, and soon after supper 
 Pol and I went to bed. 
 
 The funeral of Threseken Vandenberghe 
 was to take place at nine o'clock in the 
 morning. The school-children of the vil- 
 lage were present. All the girls, dressed 
 in white with little crowns of white flow- 
 ers in their hands, marched to the out- 
 skirts of the village, and there awaited 
 the coming of the big four-wheeled cart 
 covered with a white linen cloth and 
 drawn by two horses. On this cart, 
 which served as a hearse, stood the little 
 coffin. Behind it followed the parents, 
 brother and sisters of the dead child. 
 
 When the cart reached the first houses 
 of the village, the school-children sur- 
 rounded it. Then the ten eldest climbed 
 into the cart, and took the little white- 
 draped coffin on their shoulders. In this 
 way they all marched on, — first the eldest 
 children with the coffin, then the other 
 girls, then Threseken's parents and family, 
 and finally the boys and other persons of 
 
60 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 the village who had come to the burial 
 service. 
 
 At the doors of the church, the proces- 
 sion halted and the priests came singing 
 to the door. After the usual prayers of 
 the funeral service the children bore the 
 coffin to the grave. Each little girl in 
 turn threw her crown of flowers into the 
 grave, and each boy and grown-up person 
 threw a small spadeful of earth into the 
 grave. It was sad indeed to see the poor 
 parents weeping and weeping over their 
 lost child. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 GRANDMOTHER 
 
 My grandmother was about sixty years 
 old, and she lived in a corner house near 
 the railroad station. From my earliest 
 childhood I liked to go to her house to 
 see the trains pass by, and now that I 
 come to think of it, I believe my long- 
 ing for travel was born at that time. I 
 well remember how I always kept asking 
 Grandmother what there was at the place 
 where the train disappeared into the hori- 
 zon, and when we would go and see what 
 lay behind that vanishing point. And 
 Grandmother would give me some ex- 
 planation or other, and would try to 
 pacify me. But if I got too restless, she 
 would tell me that she was going to make 
 some candies. 
 
 Well, that quieted me each time. 
 61 
 
62 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 Grandmother's candies ! How delicious 
 they were ! When in later years I bought 
 candy, I always missed that flavor which 
 Grandmother's had ; I have tried to make 
 candies myself, too, for my little children, 
 but to me they never tasted quite the 
 same as Grandmother's candies. Per- 
 haps if you try, you can find the lost 
 flavor. I will tell you how to make the 
 candies, and if you discover the special 
 flavor I was telling about, you can send 
 me some of your candies. I shall be 
 very glad to taste them. 
 
 Grandmother made two kinds of candy, 
 but the second kind was about the same 
 as the first. You want first a clean 
 saucepan and a good hot fire. Then 
 put into the saucepan half a pound of 
 brown sugar ; pour on it half a teacup- 
 ful of water ; and then add some butter 
 about the size of a small match-box. 
 Now stir slowly with a spoon until 
 everything melts and begins to boil. 
 Watch the candy carefully. If it boils 
 
GRANDMOTHER 63 
 
 too fast, take it off the open fire, and put 
 it on the lid. It must not boil too quickly. 
 At first the bubbles will come in multi- 
 tudes and burst quickly on the surface 
 of the boiling sugar, and if you let the 
 candy drip from the spoon then, it looks 
 thin. After some more cooking, the bub- 
 bles become scarcer and deeper, and the 
 candy gets much thicker. Watch it care- 
 fully. Now it is about done. 
 
 Have ready half a dozen buttered 
 plates. Look at the candy again : it is 
 turning a little browner, and the bub- 
 bles now hardly burst, and when they 
 do, they make what looks like a deep 
 hole in the boiling candy. It is ready 
 now. Have a wet handkerchief ready so 
 the handle of the pan will not burn your 
 hand. Take the saucepan from the stove, 
 and pour the candy slowly on the plates. 
 Do not pour too much ; see that you have 
 some for each plate. Let it cool a while, 
 and now taste it. Do you like it ? Does 
 it have Grandmother's flavor ? 
 
64 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 The other candy Grandmother made 
 was really about the same, except that 
 when it was nearly done, Grandmother 
 would drop in a quarter-pound of chopped 
 almond pits, or walnut meats, or chopped 
 figs. It is not hard to make this candy, 
 too, but I advise you to start with the 
 first kind. 
 
 My grandmother was also my best 
 friend, and I well remember that when 
 I was a child I always said I would 
 marry Grandmother. On such days as 
 Three Kings' Day in January we would 
 feast at Grandmother's home together 
 with my cousins, and other girls and 
 boys of the neighborhood were assem- 
 bled. 
 
 You remember the story of three kings 
 who came to Bethlehem, bringing gold, 
 incense, and myrrh to Jesus. In Belgium 
 that day is still a kind of a holiday for 
 the children ; the evening before and the 
 whole Day of the Three Kings children 
 march through the streets, each one car- 
 
GRANDMOTHER 65 
 
 rying a stick tipped with a star. The 
 star is adorned with all kinds of colored 
 paper, and can be turned round by draw- 
 ing a cord. The boys and girls go sing- 
 ing from door to door, making their stars 
 turn round quickly as they sing. They 
 receive small presents from many kind- 
 hearted people. 
 
 The song which the children sing is as 
 follows : 
 
 " Myn sterre, myn sterre niet stille meer staan 
 Wy moeten te samen naar Betlehem gaan 
 Naar Betlehem die schoone stad 
 Waar kindje Jesus geboren lag." 
 
 " My star, my star, do not stand still ; 
 To Bethlehem we must now be hieing, 
 To Bethlehem, that wonderful town 
 Where Child Jesus is in his manger lying." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 STORIES GRANDMOTHER TOLD ME 
 
 My grandmother told me a great many 
 stories about Emperor Charles V, who was 
 born at Ghent. Emperor Charles was a 
 peculiar man. He delighted in playing 
 tricks on every one he could, and he was 
 never cross when a trick was played on 
 him. 
 
 One day when he was at Audenarde, 
 
 several students were drinking at the 
 
 tavern on the market-place. Emperor 
 
 Charles happened to pass the tavern on 
 
 his big horse, and one of the students, 
 
 who had been drinking too much beer, 
 
 made a wager with his comrades that he 
 
 would pull the nose of the Emperor. 
 
 This proposition looked so out of the 
 
 common that it was at once accepted. 
 
 What did the student now do? He 
 66 
 
STORIES GRANDMOTHER TOLD ME 67 
 
 went to the barber of the Emperor and 
 treated him to so many glasses of beer 
 that by night the barber could not stand 
 on his feet, and fell asleep in the tavern. 
 
 Now it was the custom of the Emperor 
 to be shaved early in the morning in the 
 presence of his courtiers. While Peer, the 
 usual barber, was still sleeping off his beer, 
 the student presented himself at the royal 
 apartments to shave the Emperor, saying 
 that Peer was sick, and that he was his son. 
 The student was admitted at once, and 
 after some jests made by the Emperor, 
 the " barber " was able to begin shaving. 
 
 He put on the soap, and then took the 
 Emperor's nose between two fingers, and 
 started to shave. And he pulled the 
 Emperor's nose this way, and he pulled 
 it that way ; he pulled it up and down, 
 and all the time kept a most serious face 
 and went on with the shaving. 
 
 So the students had to admit that he 
 had pulled the nose of the Emperor, and 
 therefore won his wager. 
 
68 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 One of the counselors of the Emperor 
 was Dirk de Vos. In those days court 
 etiquette was not as formal as it is now, 
 and Counselor Dirk de Vos was called 
 Dirk, for short, by all the people of the 
 palace. 
 
 By a coincidence it happened that the 
 Empress had a cat also named Dirk. She 
 was very fond of this cat, and took him 
 with her everywhere. He used to sit in 
 her lap and when she would stroke his 
 fur, the cat would purr and arch his back 
 to please his mistress. 
 
 One day Dirk, the cat, fell sick, and 
 although the Empress gave him milk, 
 and tried all kinds of remedies, it was 
 without avail. Poor Dirk died, and the 
 Empress shed many tears over her pet. 
 
 The next morning she summoned the 
 cook, who was in those days a man of 
 great importance, and told him that she 
 wanted Dirk to be stuffed at once. 
 
 When the cook heard this order, he 
 fell on his knees, and asked : 
 
STORIES GRANDMOTHER TOLD ME 69 
 
 " Oh, gracious Empress, is it really 
 your order that Dirk shall be stuffed, or 
 have I misunderstood ? " 
 
 " Yes, that is my order, and I want it 
 done at once. You will have Dirk 
 stuffed, and bring him to me this evening 
 without fail." 
 
 The poor cook had to agree. Counselor 
 Dirk was his friend, but what could he, 
 a mere cook, do? If the Empress or- 
 dered Dirk to be stuffed, well, the cook 
 must execute that order. Oh, it was 
 an awful world, he thought, and this 
 was a terrible order ! And as he did 
 not dare go to Dirk alone, he took with 
 him the four soldiers who had stood in 
 attendance when the Empress gave the 
 order. 
 
 After some inquiry the cook and his 
 guard found Counselor Dirk in his office. 
 The cook came forward with the four 
 soldiers, and began : 
 
 11 Friend Dirk, I have sad news for 
 you." 
 
70 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 " What is that ? " asked Dirk de Vos. 
 " Am I to be put in prison ? " 
 
 " It is worse than that, friend Dirk, 
 and I hardly know how to tell you." 
 
 " What then, does the Emperor want 
 me to be deported ? " 
 
 " Worse still, friend Dirk. Oh, it is 
 awful ! » 
 
 " Oh, heavens ! You do not say that 
 I have so displeased my Lord King that 
 he wants me to die ? " 
 
 " Oh, friend Dirk, how can I tell you? 
 This suspense is awful for you, so I will 
 inform you that the Empress wants you 
 to be stuffed at once, and brought to her 
 before the evening." 
 
 " Stuffed! Stuffed, you fool?" cried 
 Dirk. 
 
 " Oh, I wish I were a fool ! " groaned 
 the cook, " but these soldiers can vouch 
 for the order. And as time passes, I must 
 pray thee, friend Dirk, to make haste. 
 We must go at once to the stuffer." 
 
 It did the counselor no good to plead, 
 
STORIES GRANDMOTHER TOLD ME 71 
 
 or to protest that such an order was 
 never heard of before, and that surely 
 there was a mistake. The cook said that 
 he regretted the order more than any- 
 body else, but that he was not going to 
 risk being stuffed himself, too, by dis- 
 pleasing the Empress ; and he made the 
 four soldiers seize poor Dirk de Vos. 
 
 And so, crying and howling for help, 
 Dirk was on his way to the stuffer, and 
 all the people in the streets exclaimed at 
 this awful procession. The people said 
 that surely Dirk de Vos must have done 
 a most terrible thing to incur such a 
 punishment ! They had known of men 
 being hung and of others being quar- 
 tered, but being stuffed, — that was an un- 
 heard-of penalty. 
 
 When the soldiers, dragging the strug- 
 gling Dirk between them, passed the pal- 
 ace, it happened that Emperor Charles 
 stood at a window looking out on the 
 street. At the sight of the soldiers with 
 that man in their midst, howling and 
 
72 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 fighting to get away, the Emperor be- 
 came curious, and immediately sent a 
 servant to bring the man before him. 
 
 Charles could not believe his own eyes 
 when he saw that the prisoner was Dirk, 
 his counselor. In reply to his questions 
 the Emperor learned that by order of the 
 Empress Dirk was to be stuffed ; not 
 only the cook, but the four soldiers as- 
 sured Charles of that fact. 
 
 What now ? What had Dirk done to 
 the Empress? The Emperor requested 
 her presence ; and after a while she ap- 
 peared in state dress, followed by ladies 
 in waiting, because only on most formal 
 occasions did the Emperor ask the Em- 
 press to come to the court-room. 
 
 When Dirk de Vos saw the Queen, he 
 tore himself away from his guards and 
 knelt down before her, asking her pardon 
 for whatever he might have done to dis- 
 please her. 
 
 But the Queen herself was bewildered, 
 and it was only when Charles asked her 
 
STORIES GRANDMOTHER TOLD ME 73 
 
 rather sharply why Dirk was to be 
 stuffed, that she understood. Then she 
 burst out laughing. Dirk stuffed? Yes, 
 but Dirk her cat I 
 
 There were many more stories which 
 Grandmother told me. Surely you know 
 some of these stories in this country, — 
 such as that of " Little Red Riding-Hood 
 and the Wolf," " Beauty and the Beast," 
 or " Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." 
 I always took much pleasure, too, in hear- 
 ing about the foolish inhabitants of the 
 imaginary village of Oolen, where the 
 burgomaster and his counselors, when 
 building a town-hall, forgot to have the 
 windows put in the plan, so that there 
 was no light in the hall when it was 
 built ; where the servant-girls would 
 start washing the stairs from downwards 
 up. It was real topsy-turvy land there 
 in Oolen, where the people were so 
 foolish that they did everything wrong. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 TO BOARDING-SCHOOL AT BLANKENBERGHE 
 
 When I was eleven years old I had 
 to receive my first communion at the 
 church. Every Friday morning for two 
 years the curate had come to school 
 to give us an hour's instruction about 
 religious matters ; and we spent the entire 
 last two weeks before the communion day 
 at church, as we had many instructions 
 and commendations to receive. It was 
 two weeks before Easter that we made our 
 first communion, and, as usual, there was 
 a big family dinner, including all my 
 uncles and aunts, my grandmother and 
 grandfather, at our house. 
 
 At this dinner the discussion turned to 
 my future ; I had finished my work at 
 the primary school, and now the question 
 
 to be decided was whether I should go to 
 
 74 
 
TO BOARDING-SCHOOL 75 
 
 college and study to be a lawyer, judge, 
 notary, or any other public official, or 
 whether I should take a commercial 
 course at a boarding-school, and later be- 
 come a business man, as my father was. 
 I sat there at the head of the table listen- 
 ing and wondering what would be de- 
 cided. My head was full of the wonder- 
 ful tales of Fenimore Cooper and of 
 Defoe's " Robinson Crusoe/' and when 
 my father at length asked me where I 
 would like to go, I was quick enough 
 in my answer, " To America ! " 
 
 Of course that made everybody laugh, 
 but, nevertheless, it settled the matter in 
 the direction of the commercial instruc- 
 tion, because a boy who wanted so much 
 to travel over the world would have 
 more need for that kind of learning. It 
 was arranged for me to go to the board- 
 ing-school at Blankenberghe by the sea- 
 side. 
 
 So after the Easter holidays I was sent 
 to Blankenberghe. I well remember that 
 
76 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 first trip, because I had to go alone, 
 as my father was away from home on a 
 journey, and Mother was sick. Ah, it is 
 a hard separation to be away from home 
 for three months, and although I was full 
 of high spirits, and was pleased enough 
 to go, I wept a long while before I left 
 home and bade Mother farewell. 
 
 Now I had to get used to a new rou- 
 tine, — rising at six o'clock each morning, 
 and going to bed regularly at nine o'clock 
 each evening. The first weeks were aw- 
 ful. I longed for home and for my 
 mother, I did not like the food, and 
 wrote my parents that it was not good 
 and that I did not want to stay at the 
 school any longer. 
 
 Thereupon one day quite unexpect- 
 edly my mother paid me a visit, bring- 
 ing with her candies and cakes and other 
 sweets. She explained to me that if I 
 ever was to become a man and travel all 
 over the world, I must gain experience 
 and must try to become accustomed to 
 
TO BOARDING-SCHOOL 77 
 
 other food, even if it was different from 
 that which I got at home. Well, Moth- 
 er's visit consoled me, and, perhaps be- 
 cause I felt more hungry after a while, 
 the food at the school seemed to get better. 
 Before the summer holiday came I was 
 entirely used to it. 
 
 The sea-coast of Belgium is a very flat 
 land, with sand-dunes about ten to twenty 
 yards high at the water's edge. Formerly 
 the sea flooded the whole of this sandy 
 territory with each tide ; but by means of 
 dykes this rich land has been gradually 
 reclaimed and fitted for cultivation. 
 There live our hardy Flemish peasants. 
 There also is made the renowned lace, 
 which is known all over the world as 
 Brussels lace, although nearly all of it is 
 made in the Flanders. These peasants 
 live a quiet, happy life, for they have few 
 needs. Their houses are small, with 
 straw-covered roofs to keep them warm 
 in the winter ; the man with his sons 
 tills the land ; and the wife and daughters 
 
78 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 make lace. It is simple living, but they 
 are happy with what they have. 
 
 When on Thursday afternoons and on 
 Sundays we took walks with the head- 
 master, we often went to one of these 
 little farms, where we could play in the 
 meadows or on the downs. From time 
 to time we would also visit some city in 
 the neighborhood. Such a trip as this 
 would take a whole Sunday, starting 
 early in the morning. Each city had a 
 great deal to tell us about our forefathers 
 and the history of our country, and our 
 master liked to kindle patriotism in our 
 hearts by telling us of the greatness of 
 the Flanders in years gone by, when 
 Bruges was called " The Venice of the 
 North." 
 
 I shall never forget that visit to Bruges 
 on the day when the statues of Breydel 
 and Delonninck were unveiled in the 
 market-place there. That was the first 
 time I saw our present King Albert ; he 
 was then a tall boy about fourteen years 
 
Albert, King of the Belgians. 
 
TO BOARDING-SCHOOL 79 
 
 old, whom everybody cheered as " Prince 
 Albert." Even at that time we liked him 
 for his fine, manly qualities. 
 
 That first time I saw him was vividly 
 recalled to my mind in the early days 
 of the present war, when at this same 
 Bruges a big blue limousine was passing 
 on its way to Ostend. Our King Albert 
 sat in a corner alone. In the market- 
 place a man recognized him, and called 
 out, " De Koning ! " ( " The King ! " ). It 
 seemed as if an electric current had 
 shaken the whole city ; the streets filled 
 with people, all shouting, " Long live our 
 King ! " ; the women were crying ; and 
 the general excitement was intense. Then 
 some one started to sing " The Lion of the 
 Flanders," with its, for us, entrancing 
 chorus : 
 
 " The Lion of the Flanders cannot be tamed 
 As long as a Fleming lives." 
 
 King Albert was " The Lion of the 
 Flanders " embodied again. As one man 
 
80 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 we lived history over, and thrilled at the 
 thought that our forefathers on the same 
 market-place had sung the same an- 
 them when Robert de B6thune was the 
 deliverer of the country ; when Breydel 
 and Delonninck, our own men of the 
 people, — whose statues now looked down 
 on us from their marble pedestal in the 
 middle of the market-place, — had fought 
 with " Robert the Lion," and saved the 
 Flanders from the French in 1302. The 
 enemy then lost the flower of its nobles, 
 and more than six hundred golden spurs 
 were picked up from the battle-field of 
 Courtrai, and hung from the ceiling of 
 St. Martin's Cathedral there. This con- 
 test has been known ever since as " The 
 Battle of the Spurs." 
 
 And now the people had flocked to- 
 gether again, and made obeisance to their 
 King. The car had to stop for two or 
 three minutes, and the King was obliged 
 to speak a few words to his people before 
 the way was open again. 
 
TO BOARDING-SCHOOL 81 
 
 But this is looking ahead of my school 
 years. I stayed four years at the board- 
 ing-school at Blankenberghe, and grew 
 to be a sturdy youth of fifteen. These 
 years I passed at Blankenberghe have 
 many happy remembrances for me ; we 
 were only from twelve to fifteen boys all 
 together, and we became like brothers to 
 each other. There were many more pu- 
 pils coming each day to the same school, 
 but they lived in the city, and went 
 home each evening. 
 
 Our winters in Belgium are not so se- 
 vere as in this country, and we rarely 
 have zero weather. Nevertheless, we 
 have some ice each winter, and skating 
 is a favorite recreation with the school- 
 children. As the ice-season is very short, 
 it is customary to give the children some 
 free afternoons to go skating. This does 
 not mean, however, that each boy can go 
 where he likes ; all the teachers, even the 
 head-master, go skating with the boys, 
 and you often can see a whole school 
 
82 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 skating on a pond or on the inundated 
 meadows. 
 
 In the summer-time we had swimming, 
 football, and shooting with the longbow. 
 Archery clubs are to be found in every 
 village and city of Belgium, and archery 
 is one of the most popular sports. Let 
 me give you a diagram and description 
 of shooting with the longbow. 
 
 L- 
 
 Shooting for Wooden Pigeons with the Longbow. 
 
 On a long iron or wooden pole about 
 forty to fifty yards high are arranged 
 
TO BOABDING-SCHOOL 83 
 
 several iron arms with pins on which are 
 screwed wooden birds, or pigeons, as they 
 are called. In order to affix the birds to 
 the arms of the pole easily, the upper 
 part A of the perch is lowered on the 
 fork B, and after the birds are fastened, 
 the pole is again raised to an upright po- 
 sition. It has thick hinges in the middle, 
 making it possible for the upper part to 
 be bent down. The bottom of this upper 
 part has a heavy counter-weight to aid in 
 raising and lowering it by the cords, and 
 to hold it steady when upright. 
 
 The arrows have blunt, flat heads, and 
 are tipped with horn. The " bowstring " 
 is of wire. 
 
 The members of the archery club draw 
 their places by lot, and each one knows 
 when his turn to shoot will come. Each 
 bird brought down means a prize, but the 
 birds on the top of the perch are smaller, 
 screwed on more tightly, and much more 
 difficult to shoot off, because the thin 
 steel bars on which they are mounted 
 
84 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 swing from left to right in the wind. 
 The topmost bird is the cock, and in it 
 centers the interest of the game, since 
 the cock's value as a prize is about twenty 
 times the value of the smaller birds. 
 
 We would go whole Thursday and 
 Sunday afternoons in summer to the 
 archery grounds, and never tire of the 
 game. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 A TKIP THROUGH BELGIUM 
 
 When I was fifteen years old, I came 
 home for the summer holidays to a sad 
 household. Father had lost a great deal 
 of money, and instead of being able to 
 study further at the Athenaeum, as I 
 had expected, I found that I must 
 start at once to work with Father. 
 Nevertheless, I did not mind in the 
 least being home for good. I had been 
 happy at school, but not going to school 
 any more made me feel like a man, and 
 the responsibility of working with Father 
 assured me that everything would go the 
 better for this change. 
 
 My parents, however, thought that I 
 
 would be very sorry to be obliged to 
 
 stay home, and therefore they promised 
 
 me that in place of the usual two months' 
 
 85 
 
86 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 holiday, Father would take me on a trip 
 to several cities in Belgium. 
 
 I am not now going to give you a de- 
 scription of the various cities which we 
 visited, because you can undoubtedly 
 find much better information about 
 each of these cities in the usual guide- 
 books. But my father was full of little 
 stories about things such as historic 
 monuments, and since you probably have 
 not heard of these things I will tell you 
 some of them. 
 
 We left home on a Saturday afternoon, 
 and went first to Tournai in the province 
 of Hainault which, as I have told you, is 
 in the French-speaking district of Bel- 
 gium. It is a fine old city with many 
 remarkable monuments and museums. 
 
 When we were standing in the market- 
 place my father said to me : 
 
 " Robert, you see here many old houses 
 with beautiful fronts. Next to that big 
 house there stands a hotel where the 
 Austrian Emperor Joseph II slept, when 
 
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A TRIP THROUGH BELGIUM 87 
 
 in 1781, on his progress through Belgium, 
 he came to Tournai. 
 
 " You know that Joseph II did not 
 care anything for luxury and display. 
 In the church of St. Gudule at Brussels, 
 he refused to sit on the throne prepared 
 for him, but sat instead on a small stool 
 like a common man. He went about in 
 a simple carriage and very often without 
 attendants. Once he arrived in that 
 fashion at a village where they awaited 
 the visit from the Emperor. Joseph was 
 alone and went to a simple inn. The 
 innkeeper said to him : 
 
 11 ' You belong, without doubt, to the 
 suite of the Emperor ? ' 
 
 " And the Emperor answered : ' I am 
 the Emperor's barber. 7 
 
 11 You can imagine how confounded 
 this innkeeper was later, when he saw 
 to whom he had really spoken. Never- 
 theless, Joseph had told the truth, be- 
 cause he always shaved himself. 
 
 " He nearly always chose to lodge in 
 
88 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 a roadside inn. Here at Tournai, when 
 he came to visit, the burgomaster would 
 have a kingly residence ready for him, 
 but the Emperor preferred the hotel over 
 there." 
 
 The following day we went to Ouden- 
 arde. In the square near the station 
 stands a monument with the single 
 name " Tacamboro " on it. 
 
 My father saw the inquiry in my eyes, 
 and said : 
 
 11 Tacamboro ? Mexico ? Does it not 
 mean anything to you, Robert? This 
 monument was erected in commemoration 
 of the Belgians who perished in Mexico. 
 
 " Belgium and Mexico? What is the 
 relation between these two countries, you 
 will ask me," continued my father. " A 
 daughter of our first King Leopold I, 
 named Charlotte, was married to Maxi- 
 milian, Archduke of Austria, who later 
 became Emperor of Mexico. But through 
 a terrible revolt of his subjects, he lost 
 not only his empire, but also his life. 
 
A TRIP THROUGH BELGIUM 89 
 
 He was shot. Here at Oudenarde a 
 regiment of Belgian soldiers was mus- 
 tered as a body-guard for the Empress 
 Charlotte in Mexico. After the death of 
 Maximilian she became insane from sor- 
 row ; and she still lives in the castle of 
 Meysse at Bouchout near Brussels." 
 
 Oudenarde is one of our oldest cities, so 
 my father told me, and there was a time 
 when at night there were no lights in the 
 streets, and consequently much disturb- 
 ance at night. In order to avoid the en- 
 counters in the dark between the towns- 
 men, the burgomaster of Oudenarde is- 
 sued a command that each person going 
 on the streets after sunset must carry a 
 lantern with him. But the people of 
 Oudenarde did not like such an inno- 
 vation, although they did not dare dis- 
 obey. So what did they do now? They 
 walked in the streets at night, and each 
 carried a lantern — but without light in it. 
 
 A new order : Each lantern must be 
 provided with a candle. The citizens 
 
90 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 placed candles in their lanterns, but did 
 not light the candles. 
 
 A third order was given : The candle 
 must be lighted. The good citizens did 
 not protest ; they lighted the candles, and 
 carried the lanterns under their mantles. 
 And no punishment could be meted out 
 to them, however much the burgomaster 
 would have liked to do it, because all his 
 commandments were strictly followed. 
 
 A fourth order was given : The lantern 
 with lighted candle must be carried in 
 such a way that the light could easily 
 be seen. So finally the magistrates got 
 their own way. After a while, of 
 course, the citizens were obliged to con- 
 fess that the order was a good one, and 
 that everybody was now much safer on 
 the streets at night. 
 
 We went from Oudenarde to Sottegem, 
 where we saw the grave of Count Egmont, 
 who was beheaded by the Spaniards dur- 
 ing the time of Alva, of bloody remem- 
 brance to us. 
 
A TRIP THROUGH BELGIUM 91 
 
 In Ath, the next town on our itinerary, 
 we visited the house in which Louis 
 Hennepin was born. Hennepin was a 
 missionary and one of the leaders of La 
 Salle 7 s expedition in America, and this 
 Belgian missionary explored the Missis- 
 sippi and Niagara Falls. 
 
 From Ath we went to Brussels, Bel- 
 gium's most beautiful city, rightly called 
 a jewel in a jewel country ; and we visited 
 all its historic monuments and wonderful 
 museums. In the Church of Marie Louise, 
 named after Belgium's first queen, and 
 erected in her memory by national sub- 
 scription, we saw the tombs of the kings 
 and queens of Belgium. My father told 
 me : 
 
 " You know, Robert, that our first 
 Queen was dearly beloved by her people, 
 for she was truly a benefactress toward 
 the poor. She once saw a poor beggar 
 boy, and told him to bring her to his 
 home, a cellar in the slums of Brussels. 
 The Queen was startled by the distress 
 
92 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 which she saw there, and she at once pro- 
 vided for these people. To an old woman, 
 chilled with cold, whom she met on the 
 Bridge of Laeken, she gave her own man- 
 tle. Oh, she did many good deeds, and 
 she was respected and honored by all her 
 subjects. 
 
 " There at the end of the church is the 
 vault with the royal tombs. There rest 
 Leopold I with his wife, Marie Louise, 
 Leopold II and his son, who died at the 
 age of ten, and also the brother of Leo- 
 pold II, the Count of Flanders, and his 
 eldest son, Baudouin. Our present King 
 Albert is the second son of the Count of 
 Flanders." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 MY FATHER'S STORY OF WATERLOO 
 
 From Brussels my father next took me 
 to Waterloo, where he wanted me to see 
 the historic battle-field which had meant 
 the end of Napoleon. Even from afar we 
 could see the big Lion on the hill. This 
 monument is about five yards high and 
 five yards long, and was placed on the 
 slope of the hill at Waterloo by the allied 
 powers who defeated Napoleon. 
 
 We mounted the hill until we reached 
 
 the base of the monument, and there my 
 
 father gave me in a few words a lesson of 
 
 history which I understood far better than 
 
 the more lengthy lesson about the same 
 
 matter which I had learned at school. 
 
 My father told me the story in this 
 
 fashion : 
 
 " You know that Napoleon, after his 
 93 
 
94 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 unsuccessful campaign in Russia and his 
 defeats in Germany, was banished to the 
 French Island of Elba near the coast of 
 Italy. He arrived there in May, and at 
 first he seemed to have accepted his lot 
 quietly enough. ' This will be my coun- 
 try of rest/ he remarked. Nevertheless, 
 the fallen emperor wanted still to reign, 
 if only over this small island, and he or- 
 ganized an administration there. But in 
 September his mood changed. His wife, 
 as he had been promised, did not come to 
 Elba ; the money pledged him was not 
 sent regularly ; and he heard rumors of 
 a banishment farther away, somewhere in 
 Australia. Rumors even that his life was 
 not safe reached him. 
 
 " Then the scheme for returning to 
 France came to Napoleon. He miracu- 
 lously escaped from Elba with his small 
 flotilla through the English fleet guard- 
 ing the Mediterranean coast, and landed 
 in the south of France, where he received 
 a joyful ovation from the inhabitants. 
 
MY FATHER'S STORY OF WATERLOO 95 
 
 Near Grenoble, Napoleon met the Fifth 
 Regiment of France, which had been 
 sent to defeat him. He rode alone to 
 the front of the regiment, and cried : 
 
 " ' Soldiers of the Fifth, do you want 
 to kill your Emperor ? Then shoot ; here 
 he stands ! 9 
 
 " This was too much for them. Shout- 
 ing with one voice, ' Vive V Emp&reur ! ' 
 the jubilant soldiers surrounded their 
 ' little corporal.' And everywhere Napo- 
 leon was greeted with enthusiasm. His 
 entrance into Paris was a triumph. The 
 king had fled to Ghent. 
 
 " There was war again, because the 
 powers of Europe could not allow Napo- 
 leon to regain his former dominion. And 
 the question of authority was decided here 
 on the field which lies around us. In 
 the first days of June, 1815, the allied 
 troops were marching to the French fron- 
 tier, but Napoleon wanted to anticipate 
 them, and so he penetrated into Belgium. 
 The Germans, commanded by Bliicher, 
 
96 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 were somewhere near Namur. The Eng- 
 lish, together with the Dutch and Bel- 
 gians, were south of Brussels under the 
 command of Wellington. Napoleon did 
 his best to prevent the two armies from 
 uniting, for his plan was to beat the 
 Germans and the English separately. 
 He repulsed the Germans at Ligny, and 
 left thirty-five thousand men under Gen- 
 eral Grouchy to keep the Germans from 
 advancing any further. 
 
 11 In the meantime Napoleon's general, 
 Ney, attacked the English at Quatre- 
 Bras. The Dutch and Belgians under 
 the Prince of Orange resisted the first 
 shock bravely. But the allies fared badly 
 at first. At Ligny Bliicher was wounded, 
 and his horse was killed. At Quatre- 
 Bras Wellington very nearly fell into 
 the hands of the French. The English 
 troops then retreated to a better position 
 near Mount St. Jean, the hill which you 
 see over there. The French army, as I 
 said before, had been divided into two 
 
MY FATHER'S STORY OF WATERLOO 97 
 
 parts : thirty-five thousand men under 
 Grouchy were at Wavre trying to check 
 the Germans, and the main body of the 
 army, about eighty thousand strong, was 
 here at Waterloo commanded by the Em- 
 peror himself. 
 
 " Wellington had a good position ; in 
 front of him stretched that roadway 
 down there, which at that time was not 
 graded. It was therefore a big hindrance 
 to the French cavalry for an attack on 
 the English troops, and many French 
 horsemen died there. Wellington was at 
 the farmhouse on Mount St. Jean. Be- 
 hind the English troops lay the forest 
 of Soignes, which you can see in the 
 northeast. In case Wellington was de- 
 feated this forest would cover his retreat. 
 
 11 Those days, — the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth of June, 1815, — were real dog- 
 days. It poured rain, too. On the night 
 of the eighteenth Napoleon himself rode 
 several times along the dark road to see 
 if the English still kept their positions. 
 
98 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 And the sight of the camp-fires on Mount 
 St. Jean set his mind at rest. 
 
 11 At eight o'clock he mounted his 
 horse, ready for battle. But not until 
 eleven o'clock could his troops occupy 
 their designated positions, because they 
 were obliged to wait for the thoroughly 
 drenched and slippery ground to dry a 
 little. For the Germans, who now were 
 at Wavre, Napoleon seemed to have no 
 fear; his only thought was of the English 
 there before him. 
 
 " About half-past eleven sounded the 
 first shot. Napoleon was over there on 
 the little hill near the farm of Ronsomme. 
 He ordered straw put on the ground and 
 a table and a chair brought him. In this 
 improvised camp, with his maps and 
 glasses, the Emperor could see the whole 
 battle-field. The encounter was terrible. 
 Later, when you are older, you will be 
 better able to understand the movements 
 of the troops ; but now I shall not ex- 
 plain them. At any rate, by six o'clock 
 
MY FATHERS STORY OF WATERLOO 99 
 
 in the evening the battle was still unde- 
 cided. 
 
 " And now from the east shots could 
 be heard. What army was that? Was it 
 the thirty-five thousand Frenchmen un- 
 der Grouchy, ready to attack the flanks 
 of the tired English army ? It was the 
 Germans under Bliicher ! 
 
 " A last fight, a butchery of men ! At 
 nine o'clock the French army was des- 
 troyed. In the most terrible disorder the 
 surviving were fleeing on the way to 
 Genappe. The way was blocked by can- 
 nons, chariots, ambulance-vans filled 
 with the wounded and the dying. Ah ! 
 It must have looked horrible on that 
 night, this region that is so peaceful to-day. 
 
 " Napoleon, with his wounded brother, 
 Jerome, and some of his staff officers, 
 were fighting to the death in the last 
 carrt; but his followers drew him on 
 with them over blood-drenched fields, 
 where the harvests were downtrodden 
 and strewn with wounded and dying 
 
100 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 men. A half hour after midnight they 
 reached Genappe, where they hoped to 
 find a coach for the Emperor, but the 
 pursuing Germans were there before 
 them. Bareheaded and without weapons, 
 Napoleon threw himself upon his horse. 
 
 " Away, away, because the Germans 
 gave no quarter ! Before morning Na- 
 poleon rode as far as Charleroix. Three 
 days later he reached Paris, sick and dis- 
 couraged. From Paris Napoleon went to 
 Roehefort, where he boarded an English 
 vessel as a prisoner. You know his end at 
 St. Helena. 
 
 " More than seventy thousand men 
 were killed here in that Battle of Water- 
 loo. When you see these fields now, you 
 would scarcely believe that so many men 
 died here." 
 
 This account of my father's made a 
 deep impression, and to this day his 
 words stand vividly in my mind. 
 
 Waterloo was the end of our trip, and 
 from there we came home. 
 
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CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A NEW STAKT IN ANTWERP 
 
 Now a new life began for me. I had 
 to work ; schoolboy life was behind me, 
 and I must shoulder the responsibilities 
 of life. How soon I was to feel all the 
 weight of it ! The business in which my 
 poor father was struggling along went 
 from bad to worse ; and his cares became 
 too much for him. When I was only 
 sixteen, my father died, and I was left 
 alone with my mother and my little 
 sister. These were sad days for us, and I 
 had to show all the manly spirit I pos- 
 sessed to keep up our courage. 
 
 For another year I tried to carry my 
 father's unfortunate business, but I saw 
 that there was no chance for me to ever 
 get ahead. So one day I had a long talk 
 with Mother. I wanted to sell every- 
 thing we had — business, furniture, and 
 
 101 
 
102 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 all— and go to Antwerp, where some 
 friends of mine lived, and where I felt I 
 would be better able to provide for those 
 who were dear to me. My mother was 
 willing enough to let me do as I wished, 
 but she was afraid of the future. I was 
 so young, and it was such a big step for 
 her to leave the city where she had been 
 born. 
 
 Nevertheless, after some weeks, we 
 made the decision to go to Antwerp ! I 
 was delighted at the prospect and the 
 days passed rapidly, while I was realizing 
 my dream. And the day came at last 
 when we left Roulers. Before our de- 
 parture we had visited all our friends, 
 and everybody had wished us good luck. 
 I had been to see the priest of our church, 
 who was also president of the Catholic As- 
 sociation for young men of which I was a 
 member. He had given me much good 
 advice, and had strongly recommended 
 me to become a member of the Catholic 
 Association at Antwerp. 
 
A NEW START IN ANTWERP 103 
 
 Well, Mother, Sister and I settled in 
 one of the suburbs of Antwerp, and after 
 a few days I found employment in a can- 
 ning factory there. My Antwerp friends 
 lived in a different suburb, so I did not 
 see much of them, after all. In fact I 
 did not know anybody, and for several 
 months I felt lost in the big city. My 
 only pleasure was my work, in which I 
 was getting on satisfactorily. 
 
 I was eighteen when my employer one 
 day sent me to investigate a complaint 
 made by a customer living in a neighbor- 
 ing village. To reach this place I had to 
 take an electric car, and what should I 
 happen to see therein ? On a small card 
 pinned to the wall of the car was printed 
 an invitation to all young men to join 
 the Christian Association, which met 
 every Thursday and Sunday evening at a 
 certain address in the Rue Conscience. 
 I was glad to learn this address, because 
 I had kept in mind the recommendation 
 given me by the priest at Roulers to join 
 
104 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 the Catholic Young Men's Association at 
 Antwerp. I therefore made a note of the 
 address, and I decided at once to go to 
 the meeting next Thursday. 
 
 But let me tell you my experience 
 with the customer who had complained. 
 He was an irritable old man, and he 
 certainly had reason enough to complain 
 now ; a large box of canned peas which 
 our firm had sent him had made no end 
 of trouble for him. The case had arrived 
 on the morning of the previous Saturday, 
 and judging by the labels that the goods 
 were what he had ordered of us, he had 
 sold many cans during Saturday after- 
 noon. 
 
 And what had happened now ? Early 
 the following Monday angry customers 
 had been bringing back opened cans, 
 which contained no peas at all, but 
 tomato soup ! To me the matter was 
 simple enough : somewhere in the label- 
 ling department a mistake had been 
 made, and this case of soup, destined for 
 
A NEW START IN ANTWERP 105 
 
 another customer, had been labelled peas. 
 Perhaps the customer who had wanted 
 the soup was having the same kind of 
 trouble with his case of wrongly labelled 
 peas. 
 
 It was a hard task for me to pacify 
 the old man, but in the end I succeeded. 
 And I explained to him so vividly about 
 the other different vegetables which we 
 preserved in the canning factory that 
 not only did I prevail upon him to keep 
 the tomatoes, but he gave me a large order 
 for several new lines of preserved goods. 
 
 When I returned to the factory, I told 
 the whole story to my employer. After 
 I had finished my recital, he said : 
 
 " Robert, how old are you ? " 
 
 11 Eighteen." 
 
 11 Well, never mind," he replied, " you 
 are old enough. From to-day you are 
 one of our travelling salesmen." 
 
 That promotion doubled my salary. 
 You can imagine how eagerly I rushed 
 home that night to tell Mother, and 
 
106 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 how proud and joyous Mother was at the 
 news. 
 
 But next Thursday evening I did not 
 forget to go to the Christian Association. 
 I was happy at the thought of again meet- 
 ing boys of my own age, and of fulfilling 
 my promise to the priest at Roulers to 
 become a member of the association at 
 Antwerp. 
 
 At half-past seven I was in the Rue 
 Conscience. I was puzzled by the en- 
 trance of the building, because the place 
 was not as big as I had expected, and also 
 because I saw so few boys entering. In 
 the hall I spoke to the Secretary, who 
 was a friendly man. He asked me some 
 questions about where I was born, where 
 I lived, and what I was doing, and he 
 told me that I was welcome among them. 
 He also gave me a little book containing 
 the rules of the association, and said that 
 at eight o'clock they were going to hold a 
 meeting, which I could attend if I wished. 
 
 I accepted at once. What I had ex- 
 
A NEW START IN ANTWERP 107 
 
 pected, however, did not materialize. At 
 Roulers these evening meetings always 
 were devoted to various kinds of games 
 and amusements, such as billiards, cards, 
 draughts, and chess. But what was this ? 
 About a dozen boys were seated around 
 a table in the room I entered, and a white- 
 haired gentleman, to whom I was intro- 
 duced, was presiding. I took my seat at 
 the table, and was given a 'Bible : I never 
 had had one in my hands before. The 
 meeting began with a prayer. Then the 
 President read a chapter from the Gospel 
 of St. John, and explained it to us. All 
 the time I was wondering ! Everything 
 was so new to me ; to be sure, the lesson 
 was about Jesus, but how different it 
 sounded from the lessons that I had pre- 
 viously learned ! And that the words of 
 the President were all true I could feel 
 in my innermost heart. 
 
 I went home and told Mother about 
 the meeting. She could not understand 
 it, either ; but she said she did not see 
 
108 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 any harm in my going there. As long 
 as I was with men and boys speaking 
 about Jesus, no harm would befall me 
 there, she told me. 
 
 But the next day on the train, when I 
 was going to Malines to visit some 
 customers of the firm, I found time to 
 read through the little book which the 
 Secretary had given me. Now I under- 
 stood. It was not a Catholic Association 
 but a Protestant Y. M. C. A. I could 
 not go there any more, I decided ; and 
 as soon as I had time that day, I wrote 
 a letter to the Secretary, thanking him 
 for his kindness in admitting me to the 
 meeting the evening before, but telling 
 him that since I was a Catholic, which 
 he surely could not have known, nat- 
 urally they would not want me any more 
 among them. 
 
 On the following evening the Secretary 
 came to my home, and had a long talk 
 with Mother and me. Yes, he had under- 
 stood from the first that I was a Catholic ; 
 
Q 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 o 
 
 Ph 
 «4 
 
A NEW START IN ANTWERP 109 
 
 but did I not want to come again ? Had 
 I seen anything wrong at the meeting? 
 Had the other boys made any objection 
 to me because I was a Catholic ? But if 
 I liked to come, why should I not do so, 
 for a little while, at least ? If after some 
 more meetings I wished to stay away, I 
 was a free man in a free country, and 
 surely they could not prevent me from 
 staying away. 
 
 Well, Mother only repeated what she 
 had already said to me, that as long as 
 people at the Y. M. C. A. spoke about 
 Jesus, no harm could come of it. So I 
 promised the Secretary that I would go 
 again. 
 
 And I did attend the meetings as often 
 as I could. This step was a turning 
 point in my religious beliefs. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 SOME BUSINESS EXPERIENCES 
 
 A travelling salesman in Belgium 
 has a great many facilities for travel- 
 ling by rail which can be had only in 
 such a small country as ours. Belgium 
 is densely threaded with railways, all 
 owned by the State. As a matter of 
 fact, Belgium has more railways in com- 
 parison to its size than any other country 
 in the world. The country is so small 
 that I could leave home each morning on 
 the train for some city in the provinces, 
 do my business there, and be home the 
 same evening ; only in exceptional cases 
 did I have to go to the hotel for the 
 night. 
 
 But your travelling expenses must be 
 
 very high, when you use the trains so 
 
 much, I hear you say, but that is not so. 
 
 The government issues special railway- 
 
 110 
 
SOME BUSINESS EXPEBIENCES 111 
 
 tickets, which are valid for a whole year, 
 and which allow you to travel on all 
 trains to any distance as often as you 
 please. Such a railroad pass costs ex- 
 actly three hundred and sixty francs, 
 or less than seventy-five dollars, for a 
 whole year ; not quite twenty cents a day. 
 Just think of it ! I often travelled two 
 hundred miles in a whole day, and my 
 trip would cost less than twenty cents. 
 
 That our money is different from yours, 
 you know. Our smallest coin is called a 
 centime, but the value is only one-fifth 
 of one United States cent; in other 
 words, one hundred and twenty-five 
 Belgian centimes is only one quarter 
 of a United States dollar. Our measures 
 and weights are also different ; we use 
 the metric system, that is, grams, deci- 
 grams, hectograms, and kilos, in weight. 
 One kilo is a little more than two pounds 
 avoirdupois ; to be more exact, one hun- 
 dred and twelve English pounds equal 
 fifty Belgian kilos. 
 
112 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 I had my troubles while travelling ; 
 but I enjoyed many experiences, and my 
 customers became my friends. The hard- 
 est customer I ever had was a man at 
 Ghent. I had been to his store perhaps 
 a dozen times, and I could not even get 
 a word with him, for he would wave his 
 hand at me as soon as I opened the door, 
 signifying that he did not want anything. 
 I could not even bring him to explain 
 why he did not want to trade with us. 
 
 One day, while he was waving his 
 hand, as usual, to send me away, I 
 walked into the store and up to the 
 counter behind which he was standing, 
 and said : 
 
 " Give me a kilo of your best coffee." 
 
 And then his tongue became loosened. 
 Had I come to live in the neighborhood ? 
 Did I no longer travel for my firm of 
 dealers in canned vegetables and so on ? 
 
 I did not give him a direct answer, 
 but letting him take an affirmative an- 
 swer for granted, I inquired : 
 
SOME BUSINESS EXPERIENCES 113 
 
 11 Mr. Vercammen, tell me now, why 
 did you never want to buy any of my 
 goods when I came to sell them? " 
 
 " I was told that they were no good," 
 he answered. 
 
 " Well, that is singular," I replied. 
 " I just met a friend of mine, who 
 told me you sold the worst coffee in the 
 city." 
 
 You should have seen that man's 
 temper flare. What, his coffee no good? 
 It was the best in the city ; he sold only 
 the best goods. His store was noted for 
 that fact, and if his coffee was so bad, 
 why did I buy it there ? 
 
 11 Exactly, why do I buy it here ? " I 
 repeated. " Because I want to find out if 
 what that fellow said was true. I do not 
 believe everything that is told me, I want 
 to find out myself. It is the same thing 
 with our preserves : you have been told 
 they were no good, but you are now go- 
 ing to give a trial order, and find out for 
 yourself if that is true." 
 
114 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 Mr. Vercammen saw the point, gave 
 me a small trial order, and became one 
 of my best customers. 
 
 Once I met in the train the traveller 
 for another firm dealing in canned goods, 
 and all the way home he sat boasting of 
 the large orders he had taken that day, 
 of the bigness of his firm, of the superi- 
 ority of their goods over ours, and so on. 
 As a last straw, he told me that his firm 
 had received a big order to be exported 
 to the Congo. The next day they were 
 going to have driven through the princi- 
 pal streets of Antwerp ten huge wagons 
 laden with the cases for that Congo order, 
 and decorated with posters telling about 
 their goods. That would be a sensational 
 advertisement ; I had better stay at Ant- 
 werp next day to see the fun. 
 
 He had annoyed me all the way with 
 his brag, and when I arrived at the office, 
 I went at once to see the " boss," and told 
 him about the wagons and about a certain 
 little plan I had just conceived. When 
 
SOME BUSINESS EXPERIENCES 115 
 
 he heard about it, he gave me a free hand 
 to do as I liked. 
 
 On the next day about twelve o'clock, 
 when the streets were packed with peo- 
 ple, surely enough, the ten big vans came 
 from the factory of our competitor, which 
 I had been watching. As long as they 
 were in the factory district of the city, I 
 did not do anything ; but once they reached 
 the Meir, that is, the main street, twenty 
 workmen from our factory appeared, 
 each one with a big poster on a board. 
 Two men walked by each wagon, one on 
 each side. On our posters was printed in 
 red, flaring letters this advertisement : 
 
 We do not need to send our goods 
 to Africa. 
 
 We cannot make enough for home 
 trade. 
 
 Our goods are appreciated right 
 here, not in africa. 
 
 The name of our firm was under these 
 statements. And the people laughed and 
 
116 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 laughed. It was one of our best adver- 
 tisements, and it did not cost us much. 
 
 There was one representative of another 
 firm who always impressed me very 
 much. He was a big man about forty 
 years old, who went to the best hotels for 
 dinner, and who would never ride in an 
 electric car but took a taxi-cab, or, in the 
 smaller cities, a carriage, to visit his cus- 
 tomers. He and I sold the same line of 
 goods, and I felt that I had little chance 
 to do any business, when he was in the 
 vicinity. I was only a mere boy, and he 
 looked down upon me as if I were dust 
 in the street. 
 
 One of our regular customers at Bruges 
 had written to our firm that he needed 
 some goods, but before giving his order 
 he wanted especially low quotations. I 
 was sent to interview him, and whom 
 should I see, when I descended from the 
 train at Bruges, but my big competitor 
 going out of the station ? 
 
 Instinctively I realized that we were 
 
SOME BUSINESS EXPERIENCES 117 
 
 on the same errand, and I felt that my 
 chances were small, if he was first with 
 my customer. Yet what could I do ? I 
 saw him step into the only carriage which 
 was to be had, and now he would surely 
 be there before me. 
 
 But no ! As the carriage moved away, 
 I hopped on the back spring of the car- 
 riage and there I sat, like any little boy 
 " hooking " a ride. You should have 
 seen me sitting there, with my back 
 against the carriage, doing my very best 
 to keep my equilibrium. 
 
 We arrived safely, and while my big 
 friend stepped out of the carriage and 
 leisurely paid the cabman, I walked 
 briskly into the office, found my cus- 
 tomer, and booked the order. 
 
 Perhaps it was not quite right to obtain 
 a ride at the expense of another and then 
 get an order away from him, but I was 
 young, eager to advance my employer's 
 interests, and had often been unfairly 
 treated by my large competitor. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 HAPPY YEAKS 
 
 And now time sped on. I was a 
 traveller, a full-fledged business man, 
 and I was not nineteen years old. Next 
 year was only to be my " lottery year." 
 Since that time the law of compulsory 
 military service has been changed, and 
 every boy in Belgium must become a 
 soldier when he is twenty years old. 
 But fifteen years ago, when I was twenty, 
 only about fifty boys out of each hundred 
 had to enter the army, and these fifty 
 were drawn for the service. If you drew 
 a high number, you were exempt from 
 all military service, but if you drew a 
 low number, it meant service for three 
 years. 
 
 As the time for the lottery approached, 
 
 we lived through anxious days at home. 
 
 118 
 
HAPPY YEARS 119 
 
 If I had to become a soldier, what would 
 happen to Mother and Sister? How 
 could they live without my support for 
 three long years ? 
 
 But we were anxious without reason, 
 because when the actual day for conscrip- 
 tion arrived, I drew one of the highest 
 numbers. Picture for yourself with what 
 joy I let my pigeon fly home with the 
 lucky number attached to his foot, and 
 how glad Mother felt when that prompt 
 messenger of good tidings brought her 
 the news ! 
 
 I kept several carrier-pigeons at home 
 for my amusement. I would often take 
 a couple of them with me on a trip, and 
 when miles away, I would let them fly 
 home with a greeting for Mother and 
 Sister. 
 
 Now the pigeon had brought a better 
 message than ever before. 
 
 With this care off my shoulders, I 
 worked harder under the canning firm 
 than ever before. My business route 
 
120 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 now comprised two provinces, and nearly 
 every fortnight I went to my home town, 
 Roulers, where I renewed acquaintance 
 with many friends of my boyhood. 
 
 I was glad now that I had made the 
 decision to go to Antwerp when I did. 
 But it had not all been plain sailing. 
 There were many days when it was a 
 hard fight to get any orders for my 
 goods, and often enough the idea would 
 come to me that other work was easier 
 and better paid. But then Mother re- 
 minded me : 
 
 " Robert, better a bird in the hand 
 than three in the sky." 
 
 So I stuck to my work, and became 
 more and more successful. 
 
 When I was twenty-two years old, I 
 met in the train a man whom I had 
 known while we lived in Roulers, but to 
 whom I had never spoken. He was a 
 pleasant man, and we had quite a chat 
 together on all kinds of topics. When 
 we separated at the station he told me 
 
HAPPY YEARS 121 
 
 to come to his home the next time I was 
 at Roulers. 
 
 This I did about a week later ; as I had 
 to stay over the night on that trip, I was 
 glad of the opportunity to spend the 
 evening out of the hotel. I had supper 
 with his family, and after supper we 
 spoke about religious matters, and it 
 developed that this man was a Protestant. 
 And I, who had lived so many years in 
 the same small town, did not fully know, 
 then, what a Protestant was. 
 
 Let me cut things short. I went again 
 and again to his house, and after a while 
 I did not go to see him, but one of his 
 daughters. 
 
 A year later I was married. 
 
 About this time I saw an opening to 
 begin business for myself, and I built 
 a small factory in a town near Antwerp, 
 called Contich. There I manufactured 
 jelly-powders, cake-flour, custard-pow- 
 ders, and several other articles carried 
 by grocers. 
 
122 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 The business acquaintances that I had 
 formed while travelling for my Antwerp 
 employer now stood me in good stead ; 
 in fact, they were my biggest asset. All 
 the grocers to whom I had been selling 
 goods for several years had become my 
 friends, and when I told them that I 
 was starting in business for myself, they 
 were all glad to help me by giving me 
 orders. 
 
 I well remember my first order. My 
 wife, my mother, and myself packed the 
 goods between us ; and I put them into 
 the boxes and mailed them. I had only 
 a very little money to start with, so I had 
 to travel to get orders in the daytime 
 and to prepare each day's orders that 
 night, in order that the goods could be 
 shipped next day. It was strenuous work, 
 but what did I care ? Was I not in busi- 
 ness for myself now, was I not mar- 
 ried, and were we not all happy together? 
 Mother lived in a small house with Sister 
 not far from where my wife and I were 
 
HAPPY YEARS 123 
 
 living, and my mother came to help us 
 each day. 
 
 Soon our children arrived ; first Mar- 
 garet, then Anneke and the next year, 
 Henry, and the year after that, Robert. 
 After we had been married ten years we 
 had seven children. Walter, Lieseken, 
 and Martha were the last three. 
 
 My business had grown with the chil- 
 dren. I had built a good-sized factory ; 
 I employed twenty-two workmen ; and I 
 had two young Germans selling my goods 
 on the road. My own hands were full 
 with the office work. I had also bought 
 a fine house in Contich. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE OUTBKEAK OF THE WAR 
 
 This was my life until the fateful year, 
 1914, was reached. We were happy at 
 home, and I can say with truth that all 
 the people in Belgium were happy. They 
 were a quiet, industrious folk, transacting 
 business from all over the world, welcom- 
 ing the citizens of all nations, and being 
 friends with all men. 
 
 That the Germans also were our friends 
 before the war, everybody knows. Just 
 think that at Brussels more than eight 
 thousand Germans lived, at Antwerp 
 more than fifteen thousand, and so it 
 was all over Belgium. We were glad to 
 have them in our midst, and had learned 
 to appreciate their perseverance and busi- 
 ness ability. 
 
 When at the end of July, therefore, 
 124 
 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR 125 
 
 rumors of war were spreading, when a 
 wave of seeming madness swept over 
 Europe, all of us in Belgium were quiet, 
 and felt that if war should come, we, at 
 least, as in the seventies, would have 
 nothing to do with it. Were not all 
 nations our friends, and had not all these 
 friends given their solemn word that Bel- 
 gium was a neutral country, and that 
 they would for all time respect that 
 neutrality ? 
 
 And then came the crash, the thun- 
 derbolt. Germany declares war upon us, 
 because we keep our given word ! Do 
 you feel that thrill of indignation which 
 went through all of us? Do you wonder 
 at the refusal of our glorious King to 
 accept the Kaiser's proposition? King 
 Albert knows his people ; he knows that 
 his soldiers will fight as heroes to the 
 last man ; that Belgium may be overrun 
 by the enemy, but that it never will be 
 conquered. 
 
 To understand the love of the Belgians 
 
126 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 for their King, Queen, and Princes, you 
 must realize the love of the King for his 
 people, — a love which has been evident 
 in all the circumstances of his reign. Did 
 the King and Queen not always help 
 when there was distress? In 1912 the 
 dykes broke through near Antwerp, and 
 the Scheldt River flooded a long stretch 
 of territory, causing disaster to many of 
 my countrymen. The calamity happened 
 during the night of the autumnal equi- 
 nox, and early the next morning the 
 King was there, directing the work of 
 salvation, while the Queen was speaking 
 consoling words to the mothers and 
 children. 
 
 How the Queen's heart must bleed now ! 
 She is a Bavarian princess, and all the 
 members of her own family are fighting 
 against the country of which she is Queen. 
 Since Liege she has worn a simple mourn- 
 ing dress without a single ornament ; she 
 has been at work each day in the Red 
 Cross hospitals, helping everywhere, wash- 
 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR 127 
 
 ing with her own royal hands the bleeding 
 feet of the soldiers. She now is called 
 " Mother " by our soldiers, and she may 
 be proud of that name. Think of it, is 
 there any honor more to be desired by a 
 queen than to be called the mother of her 
 people ? 
 
 But the horror and the pity of it all ! 
 Let me tell you a little of what war means 
 by relating the experience of a Brussels 
 family. A friend of mine, the minister 
 of the Evangelical Church at Brussels, 
 has a son of twenty. This boy was a sol- 
 dier in the Belgian army ; he fought in 
 the trenches at Liege, he was in the bat- 
 tles of Diest and Louvain, and at last, with 
 the rest of the army, he was driven back 
 to Antwerp. 
 
 Just before Antwerp was attacked, I 
 received a letter from his father telling 
 me that for weeks he had not had word 
 from his son, and that he himself could 
 not get through the German lines. He 
 wondered if I could go to make a search 
 
128 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 for his son in the Fifth Infantry Regi- 
 ment. 
 
 Of course I tried at once to locate the 
 boy, and finally learned that the Fifth 
 Regiment was at the fort of Wavre St. 
 Catherine, only six miles from where we 
 lived. So I set out that very morning. 
 It was a long walk, and the booming of 
 the German cannons in the south never 
 ceased. That Monday the Germans were 
 attacking Lierre and Duffel, and the 
 farther I went, the more did I realize how 
 terrible this war was. 
 
 The road was swarming with fugitives : 
 it was a never-to-be-forgotten sight to 
 watch these poor people trying to get 
 away, all staggering under loads of such 
 things as they could take away with them 
 in their haste. I saw old men pushing 
 carts laden with children ; young women, 
 many of them carrying young babies in 
 their arms ; and old women with shuffling 
 feet. 
 
 In the ditch by the side of the road sat 
 
I 
 
 WBBBM^mm 
 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR 129 
 
 a young girl ; she may have been twenty, 
 not over. She held a tiny baby pressed 
 against her breast, and she looked so de- 
 jected that I spoke to her. She came 
 from Lierre, more than nine miles away, 
 she told me ; her baby had been born 
 the day before her soldier-husband had 
 been killed at Namur. It was a warm 
 day, but she felt cold. A peasant with a 
 three-wheeled cart, drawn by a cow, hap- 
 pened by, and he helped me to put the 
 young woman and her child on top of 
 the furniture on his cart. And so they 
 went away, I wonder where. 
 
 But to return to my search for my 
 friend's son. I did not find him at the 
 fort. His comrades told me that he had 
 been wounded in the battle of Eppeghem, 
 and that he must now be in the hospital at 
 Boom. It was another long walk, but I 
 wanted to see the boy ; and so on I went 
 to Boom, until I came to the hospital, 
 a big house with many Red Cross flags on 
 top. 
 
130 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 And here I found Paul in bed. A piece 
 of shrapnel had struck him in the back, 
 and his spinal column was broken. He 
 could not speak ; he could not move ; only 
 his eyes were eloquent, and they burned 
 like two fires. When I spoke to him of 
 his mother, of his father, and of home, I 
 saw one single tear come into his eyes, 
 and I could understand his thirsty long- 
 ing to see once more the faces of these 
 dear-beloved ones, and to forget the awful 
 horror of battle. And he could not say 
 a word. 
 
 Oh ! the pity of it all ! For there were 
 so many other young men in that big 
 white room — all badly wounded, some 
 with arms gone, some with half a face 
 blown away. They, too, had mothers; 
 some had wives and children. Oh, the 
 deadly quietness of such a hospital room ! 
 Where is Paul now ? Does he still live, 
 and will my friends ever see their son 
 again ? 
 
 But let us leave the warriors alone and 
 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR 131 
 
 see how the civilians fared. When the 
 war began, all business came to a stand- 
 still. The railways were in the hands 
 of the military authorities, and trans- 
 portation was to be had only for the 
 troops. Travelling by rail was either 
 totally impossible, or else it took a 
 whole day to go fifteen or twenty miles. 
 Transportation of food, coal, and all 
 other industrial products was entirely 
 out of the question, unless the things 
 were for the army. All private busi- 
 ness was put aside. The army and the 
 defense of the mother-land was now the 
 only object of the nation. Remember 
 that this was at the outset of the war, 
 when the Germans were still counting 
 their dead before Li&ge. 
 
 As a consequence of these conditions, 
 practically all the working people could 
 not earn a penny after the beginning of 
 the war. What this means in a coun- 
 try of low wages, — where in times of peace 
 the wages vary between forty and eighty 
 
132 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 cents a day, — any thrifty mother will 
 understand. We are of a country where 
 we still hold the old belief that chil- 
 dren are given us as a blessing ; nearly 
 all the families have three or four chil- 
 dren, and those with seven to twelve 
 children are not at all uncommon. 
 
 All these small wage-earners were 
 in need of help from the first days of the 
 war ; there were municipal kitchens in 
 every city and village of Belgium, where 
 the poor could get two pounds of bread 
 in the morning and a large bowl of bean 
 soup at noon. I will not tell you the 
 length of the lines of waiting men and 
 women at these places; you would tax 
 me with exaggeration. 
 
 And then came that fleeing from one 
 village to another, seeking safety which 
 was not be found anywhere ! 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 OUR MARCH FROM CONTICH TO ANTWERP 
 
 But, I hear you say, " How about your 
 own family ? " 
 
 When we left our village of Contich, 
 which lies between Antwerp and Malines, 
 the heavy German artillery was booming 
 all day long. For weeks preparations 
 had been made to defend Antwerp 
 bravely. The forts were ready : barbed 
 wire was laid everywhere ; deep trenches 
 were dug between the forts, and all the 
 houses, trees — everything — for half a mile 
 in front of the forts were cut away and 
 destroyed, so that there was nothing left 
 but an open field, where the enemy could 
 find no shelter for their attack. 
 
 Although it was in the heart of all the 
 soldiers to defend the city to the last man, 
 we knew that if a German attack should 
 
 133 
 
134 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 come, we should not be able to hold the 
 city. Our field army, which was to de- 
 fend the trenches, was tired to death. 
 Since Liege its men had been constantly 
 in the field ; in fact nearly all of the 
 soldiers had been in ten battles. And 
 it is a nerve-destroying thing to know 
 that however hard you fight, you can- 
 not hold out in the end against the 
 overwhelming masses of the enemy. 
 In all the battles where they have 
 fought, the Belgians have shown that 
 they fight without fear and with a 
 courage indescribable ; but after each 
 seemingly victorious battle, they have 
 had to retreat the next day. 
 
 From the first week at LiSge, we knew 
 that we could not stand alone, that if the 
 advance of the Kaiser's troops was to be 
 checked, help must come. Each day 
 help had been promised to our soldiers ; 
 and each day they fought more fiercely 
 for the independence of our dearly loved 
 Belgium. But when week after week 
 
Wounded Belgian Soldier telling his Children of the 
 Thrilling Fight with the Germans at Liege. 
 
FROM CON TIC H TO ANTWERP 135 
 
 they had to fight alone, when no 
 French or British troops came to help 
 them repulse the Germans, the knowl- 
 edge of having an impossible task to 
 perform took the heart out of our 
 soldiers. 
 
 I was at home that fateful Monday, 
 when exactly at eight o'clock in the 
 morning the first heavy boom was heard 
 in the distance. The German attack 
 upon Antwerp and upon the fort of 
 Waelhem had begun. And on it kept 
 throughout the whole day, two boomings 
 every minute. We were quite at ease, 
 nevertheless, because we felt so sure that 
 it would be a long time before these forts 
 would be destroyed, and by that time the 
 oft-promised help from England would 
 surely have come. Therefore, when at 
 night the cannonading ceased, we spoke 
 of the attack lightly. We did not be- 
 lieve that the Germans would use their 
 guns again ; we supposed that this at- 
 tack had been only a feint, and that 
 
136 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 our forts of Waelhem and Wavre St. 
 Catherine had caused them heavy losses 
 that day. 
 
 But the next morning we were thrown 
 out of bed. At six o'clock the firing 
 had started again, and this time it 
 sounded much louder and nearer. Oh, 
 that awful Tuesday, when the first cupola 
 of the fort Waelhem was smashed by the 
 heavy shells from the German guns, shall 
 I ever forget it ? That never-ending line 
 of Red Cross automobiles, carrying the 
 wounded Belgian soldiers, the pitiful 
 groans coming from the powder-black- 
 ened lips, the dreadful sight of the poor 
 boys with atrocious wounds, — limbs, feet, 
 noses gone, — oh, it was horrible ! Those 
 moans will always resound in my ears. 
 
 And when the evening came again, 
 and the people gathered in the streets, ac- 
 cording to their custom since the war be- 
 gan, to talk over the ever new topic of the 
 day's events, the ease and tranquillity of 
 the day before were gone. We knew that 
 
FROM CONTICH TO ANTWERP 137 
 
 once the forts were taken, the end would 
 soon come, unless England or France 
 came to our aid. And we also knew 
 that they had their hands full. 
 
 Another morning, and Wednesday 
 came. The attack was raging every- 
 where now : Waelhem, Willebroeck, 
 Lierre, Duffel — all the forts — were belch- 
 ing fire. We did not sleep much that 
 night, for another song had startled us, — 
 the clack, clack, clack of the machine- 
 guns. We realized that the fight was at 
 closer quarters now. 
 
 In the morning we saw that awful pro- 
 cession on the road again, peasants with 
 furniture-carts, men wheeling bicycles 
 laden with two sacks of clothes, one 
 hanging on each side, women crying, 
 children weeping, — an endless procession 
 of misery. Duffel is on fire, Waerloos is 
 shelled, Lierre is on fire. When is Con- 
 tich's time coming ? 
 
 I had not long to wait for the answer. 
 I was at the outskirts of the village when 
 
138 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 I saw the first big shell explode with a 
 noise like a train running at full speed. 
 The pieces struck the ground about one 
 hundred and fifty yards from where I 
 was standing. The crash was terrific. 
 We had crouched instinctively ; and our 
 eyes were blinded as if by lightning. 
 And then the whole village began to 
 run. 
 
 With the German cannon in the south 
 and east spreading ruin and destruction 
 and with the Scheldt to be crossed in the 
 west, the only way open to us was at the 
 north. This was in the direction of 
 Antwerp and Holland. 
 
 That tramp along the ten long miles of 
 road leading from Contich to Antwerp, 
 where I hoped to be safe, can you im- 
 agine what it was like ? Just think of 
 shells falling behind us ; think of that 
 long, dusty road jammed with carts and 
 cows, with people, young and old, all going 
 the same way to the north, with army 
 automobiles rushing past in the middle 
 
FROM CONTICH TO ANTWERP 139 
 
 of the road to Antwerp, and horsemen, 
 soldiers, and cannons travelling south. 
 Let your imagination paint for you all 
 that indescribable chaos of vehicles and 
 men. 
 
 Now imagine that you have five chil- 
 dren with you, the oldest only ten years, 
 the others seven, three, and two, and 
 that you carry the youngest, a baby of 
 nine months, in your arms ; and then 
 take that ten-mile tramp with us. 
 
 Is it to be wondered that children 
 were lost, that wives were left exhausted 
 by the roadside, and that endless mis- 
 eries were suffered in such a flight? We 
 had formerly watched this wretched pro- 
 cession ; we had looked on for many 
 days when the citizens of the villages 
 farther south had been fleeing. But 
 now we were on the road ourselves, 
 driven from our homes like sheep going 
 to the market ! 
 
 When we started, I knew that this long 
 march could never be accomplished in 
 
140 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 one stretch, but that if we were to keep 
 together, and reach our goal at all, we 
 must not hurry, but must take our time. 
 Every fifteen or twenty minutes, there- 
 fore, or as soon as the children told us 
 that they were tired, I called a halt. We 
 did not listen to our neighbors 7 urging us 
 to go on, but quietly squatted down in 
 the ditch by the roadside, petting the 
 children. In their innocence, the chil- 
 dren made fun of the never-ceasing boom- 
 ing of the big guns, which now made a 
 louder noise for them than the fireworks 
 at the village fair. 
 
 Then after a while we would march on 
 along the road, through other villages, 
 Edeghem, Bouchout, Vremde, where the 
 inhabitants looked with commiseration. 
 They felt safe enough that day, but they 
 were waiting, as we had waited, for the 
 fatal hour, when they also would have to 
 flee from the coming horrors. 
 
 Should you ask me how long it took 
 us to reach Antwerp, I could never tell 
 
05 «8 
 
 s 
 
 s 
 
FROM CONTIGH TO ANTWERP 141 
 
 you. We left Contich in the morning, 
 and now it was as pitch-dark as only a city 
 can be where all lights are extinguished 
 at eight o'clock in the evening, and where 
 with the dark all activity stops. 
 
 We slept that night in an empty room 
 of a house in the Rue Br6derode. We 
 had no beds, we had eaten nothing since 
 the morning, but we were grateful for 
 the shelter. We just fell down and slept. 
 If you do not sleep well at night, just try 
 a ten-mile walk on an empty stomach, 
 with a baby in your arms and two other 
 children clinging to your coat. You will 
 sleep well after that ! 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 OUR FLIGHT FROM ANTWERP 
 
 And so passed the next few days, with 
 good tidings every morning and bad tid- 
 ings every evening, with that anxious 
 waiting for news and for the morning 
 and evening papers ; extra editions were 
 not allowed. It was a terribly long week. 
 
 Then came the visit of Lord Churchill 
 and the promise that the British troops 
 would soon be in Belgium to help. There 
 was joy again. 
 
 But each day the outlook was worse. 
 The German troops had taken Waelhem. 
 Now they had crossed the River Nethe at 
 Lierre, and were advancing on Antwerp. 
 
 They had not crossed the river without 
 
 a struggle. It took them a whole day to 
 
 get the first man over, and the river was 
 
 filled with the bodies of their soldiers. 
 
 142 
 
OUR FLIGHT FROM ANTWERP 143 
 
 That night at Ruppelmonde, where the 
 Nethe flows into the Scheldt, the stream 
 of blood tinted the sandy, yellow waters 
 of the Scheldt with long red streaks. 
 
 But the end would soon come. A proc- 
 lamation from the governor, stating that 
 the city would be shelled within twenty- 
 four hours, was on the walls, as a warn- 
 ing to all those who wished to flee. The 
 way to the north was still open. Those 
 who did not want to leave the city must 
 take to their cellars with food and drink 
 for five days. 
 
 And the people fled. That day two 
 hundred thousand citizens, at least, left 
 the city, all going to the north, some in 
 boats from the river piers, most of them 
 on foot. 
 
 We wished to stay another day, for it 
 was no use to try to keep together in 
 these thronged masses of escaping people. 
 We had made our preparations for the 
 night ; we had fitted the cellar comfort- 
 ably with straw ; we had bedclothes for 
 
144 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 the children, and food, water, and can- 
 dles. It was fun that night to go to bed 
 in the cellar; this ever-changing mode 
 of living was a continuous treat for our 
 children. 
 
 It was a short night, and with the first 
 glimmer of dawn came the report of the 
 first shell bursting over the city. The 
 street where we were staying is situated 
 in the southern part of the city, and 
 nearly all the shells fell there. The 
 morning wore on, and although from 
 time to time we heard the sound of feet 
 rushing past the house and of shells burst- 
 ing not so very far away, we kept to our 
 cellar like rats in a hole. 
 
 At first the shells burst only occasion- 
 ally, but later in the day the intervals 
 between explosions were shorter. 
 
 In the Rue Br6derode and in the ad- 
 joining Rue Anselmo there were many 
 citizens who had taken to their cellars. 
 About noon there came a cry, " Fire ! 
 Fire ! " I went to the front door, and 
 
OUR FLIGHT FROM ANTWERP 145 
 
 saw the street filled with smoke, and the 
 houses at the end of the street on fire. 
 
 That was the end of our stay in the 
 cellar. We crept out, and followed the 
 other running citizens. As if the houses 
 could be any protection, everybody kept 
 close to the walls. 
 
 It was a tedious walk, with many stops. 
 The whole southern part of the city was 
 on fire ; dense black smoke, coming from 
 the burning oil-tanks, overhung the whole 
 city ; and all the time the shells kept on 
 bursting right and left, tearing holes in 
 the houses, and crumbling the walls to 
 pieces. 
 
 That we ever reached the pontoon 
 wharf at the Scheldt seems a wonder 
 now. The pontoon wharf was packed 
 full with people who all wanted to get 
 away by tugs and other small river craft 
 sailing for Holland. 
 
 After more than three hours of waiting 
 we were crammed standing, with over a 
 thousand others, into the hold of a coal- 
 
146 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 barge. A cry of hope went up when at 
 length we felt the barge move on. All 
 that we could see from the port-holes was 
 a piece of the sky, for the holds of these 
 coal-barges are more than twelve feet 
 deep. 
 
 It was night when we landed at Hans- 
 weert among thousands and thousands of 
 other refugees. Hansweert is only a tiny 
 village, and no accommodation was to be 
 had anywhere that night. Yet again we 
 could only thank God for our preserva- 
 tion and for the help He had granted us. 
 
 We walked on to Vlake, only a short 
 distance away, and found a train in the 
 station. There was no question of buy- 
 ing tickets ; everybody could travel free 
 in those days. We boarded the train and 
 three hours later we were at Rotterdam. 
 
 I must not forget to thank the kind 
 women at the way-station of Roesendael 
 who gave us bottles of milk for our 
 children and sea-biscuits for ourselves. 
 Neither can I forget that young mother 
 
H 
 O 
 
 ft 
 
OUR FLIGHT FROM ANTWERP 147 
 
 on the train with an apparently sleeping 
 baby in her arms. During the whole 
 long ride she did not say a word, but 
 kept looking at her child. Not until we 
 were nearing Rotterdam did we see that 
 her child was dead. 
 
 At Rotterdam more than one hundred 
 thousand refugees had already received 
 accommodation, and there were no more 
 lodgings to be had. So we were sent on 
 to a neighboring village, Overschie, where 
 we arrived in the early hours of the morn- 
 ing. Our reception there was most cor- 
 dial, and our worst trouble was now over. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 WE COME TO THE UNITED STATES 
 
 At Overschie preparations had been 
 made for the reception of the refugees, 
 and there were one hundred and thirty- 
 nine of us all together in a big barn, where 
 we slept on straw. The food given us in 
 the morning was good enough, but we 
 could not stay long in such a situation 
 with so many little children. 
 
 On the next day more refugees came 
 to Overschie, and as it happened, some 
 people from our own village came. They 
 had left Contich two days later than we 
 had. From them we learned that two 
 shells had burst through the roof of our 
 house and left it in ruins : it was now 
 only a tangled heap of stones, wood, 
 glass, and broken furniture. The fac- 
 tory was destroyed by fire, although they 
 
 148 
 
WE COME TO THE UNITED STATES 149 
 
 could not tell how this had happened. 
 But only the four walls were now stand- 
 ing. All these were Job's tidings for us. 
 The work of many years was gone, and 
 our hopes of building up a good business 
 in Contich were shattered. 
 
 At the beginning of the summer holi- 
 days we had sent two of our children 
 to England to visit a friend of ours in 
 London. The war had come in the 
 meantime, and Anneke and Henry were 
 still at London, while we were refugees 
 in Holland, all our earthly possessions 
 gone. 
 
 After much talking and deliberation, 
 my wife and I came to the decision that 
 the best thing we could do was to come 
 to the United States, where my wife had 
 a brother living. Mother, who feared 
 the ocean trip, would go to England, 
 and stay for a while with Anneke and 
 Henry there, and join us in America the 
 following summer. 
 
 We had to stay at Overschie twelve 
 
150 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 days, until there was a boat sailing for 
 America, and these twelve days there in 
 the barn in the company of all these 
 other refugees, with news coming from 
 Belgium that Antwerp had fallen, and 
 that the Germans were overrunning the 
 whole country, were sad days ; and 
 neither my wife nor I will ever forget 
 them. 
 
 Finally the steamer sailed. We left 
 Holland at night, and no one on board 
 dared to sleep that first night for fear 
 we should strike a mine, as so many 
 ships had done in the last few days. 
 But happily this calamity did not oc- 
 cur. We saw the British fleet when 
 we passed through the Channel, and we 
 were glad to see the last of the Scilly 
 Islands the next day. It meant that the 
 war was behind us, and that we should 
 see a free and peaceful country within a 
 few days. 
 
 We landed in New York on the third 
 of November after a rough passage of 
 
WE COME TO THE UNITED STATES 151 
 
 fourteen days. We have been in this 
 country four months now, and our re- 
 ception has been most sympathetic every- 
 where. All the people to whom I have 
 spoken about the war have expressed 
 admiration for the Belgians and their 
 valorous King. 
 
 We wondered at first to see everybody 
 at work and business going on as usual. 
 We had forgotten about that in the last 
 months. And then to see all these men 
 mingling together ; and to have only 
 one class on the railway and the street 
 cars, whereas in Europe we had two or 
 three, or even four different classes of 
 railway carriages, thus drawing a sharp 
 line between men of different conditions. 
 And here all are together, — the working 
 man sitting on the same seat as the em- 
 ployer. It is ideal liberty. 
 
 But do you not go too far sometimes? 
 Do you not misunderstand your own 
 ideal of liberty and equality ? 
 
 We had supper one night at the home 
 
152 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM 
 
 of a family here with whom we have be- 
 come friendly. These friends have only 
 one child, a little daughter five years old. 
 At supper her mother said to her : 
 
 " Mary, will you please fetch me that 
 book there on the chair ? " 
 
 And the answer was : " Do it your- 
 self!" 
 
 At this retort her father burst out 
 laughing, and the mother went herself 
 to fetch the book. 
 
 My heart and that of my wife were 
 oppressed. We had held our breath at 
 the answer of the child, waiting for the 
 coming punishment, but it did not come ; 
 and w^e understood then that these kind 
 people were educating their child on a 
 principle of absolute liberty. 
 
 I would not speak of it now, if I 
 thought that it was a single instance 
 of American training. But in the short 
 time we have been here, we have seen 
 so many children utterly disregarding 
 the words of their parents that we are 
 
WE GOME TO THE UNITED STATES 153 
 
 obliged to infer that it is not unusual to 
 let children behave that way. 
 
 We have not been here long enough 
 to appreciate the good points which there 
 may be in such an education. Never- 
 theless, although we are full of admira- 
 tion for the many fine traits we have 
 observed in the citizens of the United 
 States, we feel that your ideal of liberty 
 is abused when children are allowed to 
 do whatever they like. True liberty is 
 founded upon obedience to all the prin- 
 ciples of truth and love ; and for children 
 liberty starts with prompt obedience to 
 the wishes of their parents, in which they 
 should find these ideals of truth and love 
 fulfilled. 
 
 THE END 
 
U. S. SERVICE SERIES 
 
 By FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER 
 
 Illustrations from photographs taken in work for U. S. Government 
 Large 12nio Cloth $1.50 per volume 
 
 "There are no better books for boys than Francis Rolt-Wheeler's 
 * U. S. Service Series.' " — Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 THE BOY WITH THE U. S. SURVEY 
 
 HPHIS story describes the thrilling advent* 
 * ures of members of the U. S. Geological 
 Survey, graphically woven into a stirring 
 narrative that both pleases and instructs. The 
 author enjoys an intimate acquaintance with 
 the chiefs of the various bureaus in Washing- 
 ton, and is able to obtain at first hand the 
 material for his books. 
 
 ,€ There is abundant charm and vigor in the 
 narrative which is sure to please the boy readers 
 and will do much toward stimulating their patriot, 
 ism by making them alive to the needs of conser- 
 vation of the vast resources of their country."— 
 Chicago News. 
 
 THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FORESTERS 
 
 THE life of a typical boy is followed in all its adventurous detail — the 
 mighty representative of our country's government, though young in 
 years— a youthful monarch in a vast domain of forest. Replete with 
 information, alive with adventure, and inciting patriotism at every step, 
 this handsome book is one to be instantly appreciated. 
 
 " It is a fascinating romance of real life in our country, and will prove a great 
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 THROUGH the experiences of a bright American boy, the author shows 
 how the necessary information is gathered. The securing of this of- 
 ten involves hardship and peril, requiring journeys by dog-team in the 
 frozen North and by launch in the alligator-filled Everglades of Florida, 
 while the enumerator whose work lies among the dangerous criminal 
 classes of the greater cities must take his life in his own hands. 
 
 •' Every young man should read this story from cover to cover, thereby getting 
 a clear conception of conditions as they exist to-day, for such knowledge will have 
 a clean, invigorating and healthy influence on the young growing and thinking 
 mind." — Boston Globe. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers or seat postpaid on receipt of 
 price by the publishers 
 
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U. S. SERVICE SERIES 
 
 By FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER 
 
 Many illustrations from photographs taken in work for U.S. Government 
 Large 12mo Cioth $1.50 per volume 
 
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 Service Series/ " — Chicago Record- Herald* 
 
 THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FISHERIES 
 
 WITH a bright, active American youth as 
 a hero, is told the story of the Fisheries, 
 which in their actual importance dwarf every 
 other human industry. The book does not 
 lack thrilling scenes. The far Aleutian Islands 
 have witnessed more desperate sea-fighting 
 than has occurred elsewhere since the days of 
 the Spanish buccaneers, and pirate craft, which 
 the U. S. Fisheries must watch, rifle in hand, 
 are prowling in the Behring Sea to-day. The 
 fish-farms of the United States are as inter- 
 esting as they are immense in their scope. 
 c * One of the best books forboys of all ages, so 
 attractively written and illustrated as to fascinate 
 the reader into staying- up until all hours to finish 
 it," — Philadelphia Despatch, 
 
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 THIS book tells all about the Indian as he 
 really was and is; the Menominee in his 
 birch-bark canoe; the Iroquois in his wigwam in 
 the forest; the Sioux of the plains upon his war- 
 pony; the Apache, cruel and unyielding as his 
 arid desert; the Fueblo Indians, with remains of 
 ancient Spanish civilization lurking in the fast- 
 nesses of their massed communal dwellings; the 
 Tlingit of the Pacific Coast, with his totem-poles. 
 With a typical bright American youth as a central 
 figure, a good idea of a great field of national 
 activity is given, and made thrilling in its human 
 side by the heroism demanded by the little-known 
 adventures of those who do the work of * l Uncle 
 Sam." 
 
 •• An exceedingly interesting" Indian story, because it is true, and not merely 
 a dramatic and picturesque incident of Indian life," — JV. Y. Times. 
 
 M It tells the Indian's story in a way that will fascinate the Youngster."— 
 Rochester Herald. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt 
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JlJoy W a Qommm 
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 in his youth, but it cannot be understood 
 how delightful a story this is until it is see$ 
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 Varian make this book superior among 
 juveniles. 
 
 M Not a boy lives who will not enjoy this book thoroughly. There is a good 
 deal of first-class historical information woven into the story, but the best part of it 
 is the splendid impression of times and manners it gives in old England a thousand 
 years ago."— Louisville Courier. Journal* 
 
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 ward the Great, and from mighty meagre materials creates a story that hangs to 
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 By KAte E. Carpenter Illustrated by 
 &my Brooks, also from paintings, and 
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 THE favorite story of Joan of Arc is here 
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 M Aunt Kate " tells the story of Joan of Arc 
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 ^hile hearing the thrilling story , told in such 
 Simple language that they can readily under- 
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 be greatly interested in this book from an 
 (educational point of v ew« -...,, , 
 
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JOHN AND BETTY'S ENGLISH 
 HISTORY VISIT 
 
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 THE CRiriSON RAHBLERS 
 
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 CAriP ST. DUNSTAN 
 
 ATYPICAL summer camp for boys, with all its interesting routine, is 
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