"Sister, thy boy is a big idiot—a very big idiot!" said Gerrit Van Swearingen, the Schout of New Amstel. Then the Schout struck his long official staff on the ground, and went off in a grand manner to frighten debtors.

The Widow Cloos made no reply, but dropped a couple of tears as she saw her son, Nanking, shrink away before his uncle's frown and roll his head in deprecation of such language.

"My mother," he whispered, "won't the big wild turkeys fly away with my uncle Gerrit if he calls me such dreadful names?"

"Nanking," said the widow, kissing the big idiot, "your uncle is a very great man. I don't know what is greater, unless it is an admiral, or a stadtholder, or maybe a king!"

"Yes," conceded Nanking, "he is a dreadfully great man. He puts drunken Indians in the stocks and ties mighty smugglers up to the whipping-pump. But Saint Nicholas will punish him if he calls me an idiot."

"Ah! Nanking," replied the widow, "nothing can curb your uncle—neither the valiant Captain Hinoyossa, nor the puissant director of every thing, great Beeckman, nor hardly Pietrus Stuyvesant himself."

"I know who can frighten him," exclaimed the big idiot. "Santa Claus! He's bigger than a schout. Mother, his whip-lash can reach clear over New Amstel—isn't it so? How many deers and ponies does he drive? Will he bring me any thing this year?"

"My poor son!" said the poor mother, "we are so far from Holland and so very humble here, that Saint Nicholas may forget us this year; but God will watch over us!"

Nanking could hardly comprehend this astonishing statement: that Saint Nicholas could ever forget little boys anywhere. So he went out by the river to think about it. There were three or four Swedish boys out there rolling marbles and playing at jack-stones. They did not like to play with Dutch boys, but Nanking was only a big idiot, and they did not harbor malice against him.

"He! Zoo!" they cried; "wilt thou play?"

"Yes, directly. But tell me, Peter Stalcop, and you, Paul Mink, do the very poorest little boys in Sweden get nothing on Christmas?"

"Ah, Zon der tuijfel! without doubt," cried the boys. "Old Knecht Clobes, your Santa Claus, is a bad man. That is why he gave the Dutch our country here. And in Sweden, too, he turns people to wolves, and brothers and sisters tear each other to pieces."

"But not in Holland," exclaimed Nanking. "There he gives the strong boys skates and the weak boys Canary wine. He brought, one time, long ago, three murdered boys to life, so that they could eat goose for Christmas dinner. And three poor maidens, whose lovers would not take them because they had no marriage portions, found gold on the window-sill to get them husbands."

"Foei! Fus! You're lied to, Nanking! There is no good Christmas in this land."

Nanking said they were very wicked to doubt true and good things. He believed every thing, and particularly every thing pleasant. His mother, whose house was on the river bank, looked out with a fond sadness as she heard him playing, his heart amongst the little boys, although he was so big.

"Ach! helas!" she said to herself, "what will become of my dear man-lamb? He is simple and fatherless, poor and confiding. Thank God, at least he is not a woman!"

The Widow Cloos had come but recently from Holland, sent out by charity at the instance of her brother, Van Swearingen, the schout or bailiff of New Amstel colony. Her son, who was almost a man in years, had been kept in the Orphan House at Amsterdam until his growth made him a misplaced object there, and his feeble intellect forbade that he should become a soldier, and die, like his father, in the Dutch battles. So the Widow Cloos brought Nanking out in the ship Mill, to the city of Amsterdam's own colony on the banks of the South River, which the English called the Delaware. They came in a starving time, when the crops were drenched out by rains and all the people and the soldiery of the fort were down with bilious and scarlet fever. The widow was just getting over a long attack of this illness, and her brother, the schout, regarded the innocent Nanking as the cause of her poverty.

"Thou hadst better drown him," said the hard official; "he'll eat all thy substance or give the remainder away, for he believes every thing and everybody."

"O brother!" pleaded the widow, "if he did not believe something, how sad would he be! All the children love him, and he is company for them."

It was an odd sight to see Nanking down with the boys, as big as the father of any of them, playing as gently as the littlest. He rode them pig-a-back on his broad shoulders; they liked to see him light his pipe and smoke without getting sick. He worked for his mother, carrying water and catching fish, and was the only person in New Amstel (or Newcastle) who could go out into the woods fearlessly among the Minquas Indians; for the Indians all believed that feeble-minded people were the Great Spirit's especial friends, and saw beyond the boundaries of this world into that better heaven where shad ran all the year in the celestial rivers, and the oysters walked upon the land to be eaten. Nanking believed all this, too. It was his confiding nature which made him useless for worldly business. Hobgoblins and genii, charms and saints, and whatever he had heard in earnest, he held in earnest to be true.

"Dear me!" thought Nanking, when he was done playing marbles, "can't I be of use to somebody? Perhaps if I could do something useful my uncle would not think me a big idiot. Then, besides, little Elsje Alrichs might let me be her sweetheart and carry her doll!"

Elsje was the daughter of Peter Alrichs, the late great director's son, whose father slept in the graveyard of the little log church on Sand Hook, beside Dominie Welius, the holy psalm-tune leader. Nanking believed that when the weathercock on the church tingled in the wind, it was Dominie Welius in the grave striking his tuning-fork to catch the key-note. Peter Alrichs inherited the well-cleared farm of his papa, and had the best estate in all New Amstel except Gerrit Van Swearingen, who was accused of getting rich by smuggling, peculating, and slave-catching. Little Elsje liked Nanking, but her father too, said he was a big idiot. So Nanking had a hard time.

"Elsje," cried Nanking one day, "don't tell anybody if I give you a secret."

"No, big sweetheart!"

"I'm going to catch a stork!"

"We don't have storks in New Netherlands, Nanking."

"That's just where I'm going to be smart," exclaimed Nanking. "Because there are no storks here I'm going to catch one. Then uncle Gerrit cannot call me a big idiot."

Elsje gave Nanking her doll to hold. He sat there as big as a soldier, and handled the doll tenderly; for he believed it to be alive as much as she did, and she was a little girl.

"In Holland," said Nanking, "there is a stork on every happy chimney. The farmers put a wagon-wheel on the chimney-top, and along comes your stork and his family, and they build a nest on the wagon-wheel. There it is, Elsje, all twigs and grass, warm as pie, heated by the chimney-fire, and such a squawking you never heard. It keeps the devil away! The old stork sits up on one long straight leg, and with the other foot he hands the worms around to the family. I used to sit down and watch them by the hour in that other Amstel where ours gets its name."

"By the great city of Amsterdam?" asked Elsje.

"That's it. In Amstel, the suburb of Amsterdam, where you can see such beautiful ships from all parts of the world. If I get a stork for our chimney may I hold your doll another day?"

"Yes, Nanking, and I'll give you a kiss."

Nanking told his mother next day that he was going to the woods, and not to cry if he did not return at dark. The Widow Cloos kissed him, and saw him go happily up the street.

"Om licht en donker!" she moaned. "Between the hawk and the buzzard! Poor, simple son! The Indians may kill him, but here he will only get his uncle's curse!"

Nanking walked out through the little settlement of log and brick, and past the court-house, where the stocks and whipping-post were always standing. He saw his uncle Van Swearingen's smart dwelling, with its end to the street and notched gables, and many panes in its glazed windows, and two front doors, and large iron figures in front, telling the date his uncle built it. A little way off was the fine residence of Peter Alrichs, with a balcony on the roof where the family sat of evenings, smoking their pipes and seeing starlight come out on the river and the flag drop at sunset from Fort Casimir; or hearing the roll of drums as they changed the guard or fired a gun to overhaul a vessel.

"If I get a stork and bring it back," thought Nanking, "won't I astonish this town? It'll be proclaimed, I expect, in a public manner, that Nanking Cloos is no longer the big idiot."

The woods closed round New Amstel not very far from the houses, and only an Indian path led on through the strong timber or marshy copse. Nanking was unarmed and not afraid. He walked until long after sun-up, and waded the headwater swamps of Christine Kill, until he saw before him the hills of Chisopecke rise blue and wooded, and there he knew the Minquas kept their fort. But the Minquas had no storks. He turned the first and second of these hills and then crossed the range and descended to the rain-washed country on the other side, where, amid the low sparse pines on the lonely barrens, he could walk more readily, guided south-westward by the proceeding sun. The fierce Susquehannocks dwelt beyond the next high range, and Nanking had heard from other Indians that they only had some storks. Fierce Indians they were, but all Indians had been good to Nanking; so he advanced right merrily, and at the crossing of the second river snaked a fish out of the water with his line and made a fire with his flint and punk-wood to cook it. When he had finished his meal he looked up and was surrounded by Indians.

They were fierce, grave Indians, armed with spears and bows. Although they looked angry, Nanking wiped his mouth on his ragged sleeve and saluted them all kindly—shaking hands. He perceived that they formed around him closely, in front and rear, but he was not suspicious on this account. The Indians marched him over a long range of very high hills and stopped at a place where, through the timber, could be seen a noble bay.

"It is Chisopecke Bay," cried Nanking gladly, "and there, they say, are storks and plentiful geese. I suppose, when we come to a proper place, these Indians will ask me what I want."

The Indians turned down from the bay-view, backward, by another trail, and entered a very rocky glen, where rocks as big as the houses of New Amstel were strewn all over the country-side. Following downward, by a dangerous way like stair-steps, they entered at length a small shady amphitheatre, where a waterfall plunged down a gorge and foamed and thundered. Nanking fairly danced with delight.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "I have seen paintings of cascades in Holland, but nothing like this. My mother and Elsje must come here."

The Indians, now present in great numbers, looked at Nanking dancing and laughing with the greatest wonder, but still they were far from affable. After a while they began to sit around in a large circle and sing a doleful sort of tune. Then two Indians produced a long piece of grapevine and tied one end of it to a tree and the other end around Nanking's wrists, which were fastened together behind his back. A fire had already been lighted at the foot of the tree, and the coals were now strewn over the ground.

"Hond mold! Keep courage!" thought Nanking. "It is only some kind of play or game. How can I get a stork from them unless I play with them?"

But the Indians still sung their doleful tune and did not laugh a bit. The month was December, and the fire, at first grateful, grew unreasonably warm. At last Nanking trod on a hot coal, which burnt his old shoe through, and raised a blister on his heel.

"Such a game as this I never learned in Amsterdam or New Amstel," thought Nanking, laughing good-naturedly; "I guess I will cut it short by riding one of their boys pig-a-back."

So he picked out a young Indian with his roving eye, one perhaps sixteen years old, and, darting upon him, lifted the Indian boy up in powerful arms and carried him around the fiery circle. The young brave struggled in vain. Nanking clinched his big fingers around the Indian and dandled him like a baby. The effect upon the Indians in the circle was exciting; they seized their spears, stopped their singing, and rushed upon their guest with apparent or assumed fury.

"Ha! herfe!" cried Nanking, "I have changed the monotony of this game, anyhow!"

At this moment an old Indian woman, the mother of the boy whom Nanking had desired to amuse, threw herself between the upraised spears and the laughing widow's son. She shouted something very earnestly, and then stretched herself at Nanking's feet. All the other Indians also flung themselves down in fear or revulsion of feeling, and some crawled in another minute to where the burning coals were strewn over the sward, and with their fingers or with tree-boughs returned these coals to the fire, while others quenched the fire itself with water from the torrent. Nanking had never lost his temper. He put the young Indian down and kissed him, and shook hands with one after another, who only rose as he approached them with a kind countenance. They unbound his hands and overwhelmed him with attentions and professions, and placed their fingers on their foreheads significantly, still looking at him.

"Well," exclaimed Nanking, "I hope they also don't take me for a big idiot! No, they do not. It is only a part of the queer game."

It was now growing late in the day, and Nanking wanted some food. The Susquehannocks produced nuts, venison, fish, hominy, and succotash. Their formerly savage countenances beamed confidence and consideration. Nanking expressed his wishes by signs. He wanted a great, long-legged, long-winged bird, a stork, to carry back alive to New Amstel. The Indian chiefs conferred, and finally replied, by signs and assurances, that they had such a bird, but that it would take two whole days to procure one.

"Very well," thought Nanking, "I may as well stay here until I get it, and not return home like a fool. My mother will trust in God, if not in Saint Nicholas, and I trust in both. Elsje will not forget me at any time!"

All the next day Nanking played ball and bandy with the Susquehannock boys, and taught them jack-stones and how to make a shuttlecock. They put eagle's feathers in his hair, and the old men adopted him into their tribe. On the third day the absent Indians returned with a stork. It was a white stork with a red bill and plenty of stork's neck, but short legs. Nanking doubted if it could stand on one leg on the top of a chimney and feed worms around to the young stork family, but he felt very proud and happy. The whole tribe seemed to have assembled to see Nanking go away. He had become the friend of all the boys and women and the protÉgÉ of the tall warriors. They placed his stork in a canoe, and in a second canoe following it were a couple of large deers freshly killed, which he was to take to his mother as the gift of the fierce Susquehannocks. Amid the cheers and adieus of the nation the two canoes pushed off and, entering the broad bay, paddled up a river under the side of a bar of blue mountains, until the river dwindled to a mere creek, and finally its navigation ceased altogether. By signs upon the head of the dead stag, indicating a larger deer, Nanking knew they were at the "Head-of-Elk" River. His fierce friends left him here with many professions of apology and esteem, and soon after they departed Swedes and Minquas appeared, who had observed the hostile canoes from their lookout stations on the neighboring hills. These also welcomed Nanking, being already well acquainted with him, and taking up his venison proceeded through the woods toward New Amstel. He carried the live stork himself—a rough bird, which would not yield to blandishments or good treatment. After a very fatiguing journey and four days' absence from home, Nanking entered New Amstel in the dead of night.

"To-morrow," he thought, "I shall be repaid for all this. They will say, 'Nanking Cloos is the smartest man in the colony of New Amstel.' Perhaps I shall be a burgomaster, and eat terrapin stewed in Canary wine!"

Nanking was up betimes, looking at the chimneys on his mother's dwelling, of which there were two, and both were the largest chimneys in New Amstel. The Widow Cloos lived in a huge log building with brick ends, long and rather low, which had been built by the commissary of the colony at the expense of the city of Amsterdam as a magazine of food and supply for her colonists; but after several years of unprofitable experiment with the colony, it was resolved to give no more provisions away, and the director, great Captain Hinoyossa, when Van Swearingen became the schout, allowed the latter's sister to inhabit one end of the warehouse, and that the farthest end from the water. The rest was uninhabited, and Nanking, looking at the chimney which surmounted the river gable, said to himself:

"That will never do for my stork, as there is no fire lighted there. I never saw smoke from that chimney in my life. The stork requires a nest where there is heat, and plenty of it."

He therefore prepared to climb to the chimney on the land-side and establish a nest. There was a broken cart-wheel in the warehouse, which Nanking procured and drew to the roof, and when daylight broke upon the town the earliest loungers and fishermen saw the happy simpleton working like a chimney-sweep, as they thought, except that instead of brushing he was piling brush around the chimney on the cart-wheel. His mother came out and looked joy to see him back; the soldiers strolled down from the fort and the boys and women from the town. Uncle Van Swearingen was there, smiting the ground with his shodden staff, and ejaculating, "Foei! weg! fychaam u! Fie! leave off! fie on you! What absurdity is this on the property of our hoofstad, our metropolis?"

"Never mind, uncle!" answered the beaming Nanking. "I have been a great man in the last few days. I have lived among the fierce Susquehannocks. Presently you shall see something that you shall see!"

Peter Alrichs also came down to the quay with his pretty daughter, who could no longer keep her secret. "Good Nanking," she whispered, "is building a nest for a real stork. He has found one, just like the dear creatures in Holland!"

The news was presently dispersed, and all felt an interest, until finally Nanking produced his stork.

"It is like a stork, indeed!" uttered Peter Alrichs; "'tis big as one, too, but its wings are all white!"

"'Tis a stork, yah, op myne eer! Upon my honor, it is!" muttered uncle Van Swearingen.

"Nanking is not an idiot, papa!" said Elsje, overjoyed.

The widow was delighted at the enterprise of her son.

When Nanking had carried the great bird to the nest he made a little speech:

"Worshipful masters and good people all, I have been at great pains to get this stork, not for my own gratification entirely, though there are some here I expect to please particularly. (He looked at Elsje and his mother.) This stork will pick up the offal and eat it, and we shall have no more bad fevers here for want of a good scavenger. By and by he will bring more storks, and they will multiply; and every house, however humble, shall have its own stork family to ornament the chimney-top and remind us of our dear native land. I have done all this good with the hope of being useful, and now I hope nobody will call me wicked names any more."

Nanking cut the fastenings on the bird and set it on the new-made nest. In a minute the stork stood up on its short legs, poked its beautiful head and neck into the air, and with its wings struck Nanking so heavy a blow that it knocked him off the roof of the house, but happily the fall did not hurt him. As he arose the huge bird was spreading its wings for flight. Before Nanking could climb the ladder again, it was sailing through the air, magnificent as a ship, toward its winter pastures on the bay of Chisopecke.

"He! Zoo!" exclaimed the soldiers.

"Foei! weg!" cried the fishermen.

Only three persons said "Ach! helas!"—the Widow Cloos, pretty Elsje, and Nanking.

"Thy stork is a savage bird!" cried Peter Alrichs. "The English on the Chisopecke name it a swan!"

Nanking burst into tears. His uncle struck the ground with his schout's staff, swore dreadfully, and shouted to the Widow Cloos:

"Sister, thy boy is nothing but a big idiot. Thou hadst better drown him, as I told thee!"

Nothing could equal the mortification of Nanking. He thought he would die of grief. He was now known to be more of an idiot than ever, and the fickle Miss Elsje would not let him hold her doll for a whole week.

"My poor son," entreated the widow, "do not pine and lose courage! The venison will feed us half the winter. You can help me smoke it and dry it. Do not give up your sweet simple faith, my boy! As long as you keep that we are rich!"

The next day Schout Van Swearingen, the great dignitary, came in and said to Nanking: "As you are a big idiot and good for nothing else, I will give you an office. Even there you will be a failure, for you are too simple to steal any thing."

Nanking's mother was happy to hear this, and to see her son in a linsey-woolsey coat with large brass buttons, and six pairs of breeches—the gift of the city of Amsterdam—stride up the streets of New Amstel, with copper buckles in his shoes and his hair tied in an eel-skin queue. The schout, his uncle, who was sheriff and chief of police in one, marched him up to the jail and presented him with a beautiful plaything—a handle of wood with nine leather whip-lashes upon the end of it. "Your duties will be light," said the schout. "Every man you flog will give your mother a fee. Come here with me and begin your labors!"

In the open space before the jail and stadt huys were a pair of stocks and a whipping-post. Nanking's uncle released a rough but light-built man, who had been sitting in the stocks, and taking off the man's jacket and shirt, fastened him to the post by his wrists.

"Give this culprit fifty lashes, well laid on!" ordered the schout.

Nanking turned pale. "Must I whip him? What has he been doing that he is wicked?"

"Smuggling!" exclaimed Schout Van Swearingen. "He has taken advantage of the free port of New Amstel to smuggle to the Swedes of Altona and New Gottenburg, and the English of Maryland. Mark his back well!"

The sailor, as he seemed to be, looked at Nanking without fear. "Come, earn your money," he said.

"Uncle," cried Nanking, throwing down the whip, "how can I whip this man who never injured me? Do not all the people smuggle in New Amstel? Was it not to stop that which brought the mighty Director Stuyvesant hither with the great schout of New Amsterdam, worshipful Peter Tonneman? Yes, uncle, I have heard the people say so, and that you have smuggled yourself ever since your superior, the glorious Captain Hinoyossa, sailed to Europe."

"Ha!" exclaimed the bold smuggler. "Van Swearingen, dat is voor u! That is for you!"

"Vore God!" exclaimed the schout; "am I exposed and mocked by this idiot?"

He took up the whip and beat Nanking so hard that the strong young man had to disarm his uncle of the instrument. Then, stripped of his fine clothes and restored to his rags, Nanking was returned with contempt to his mother's house.

"Mother!" he cried, throwing himself upon the floor, "am I an idiot because I cannot hurt others? No, I will be a fool, but not whip-master!"

The shrewd Peter Alrichs came to the widow's abode and asked to see Nanking. He brought with him the worshipful Beeckman, lord of all South River, except New Amstel's little territory, which reached from Christine Hill to Bombay Hook. They both put long questions to Nanking, and he showed them his burnt heel, still scarred by the fagots of the Susquehannocks.

"Ik houd dat voor waar! I believe it is true," they said to each other. "They were burning him at the stake and he did not know it. Yes, his feeble mind saved him!"

"Not at all," protested Nanking. "It was because I thought no evil of anybody."

"Hearken, Nanking!" said Peter Alrichs, very soberly. "And you, Mother Cloos, come hither too. This boy can make our fortunes if we can make him fully comprehend us."

"Yah, mynheers!"

"He can return in safety to the land of the Susquehannocks, where no other Dutchman can go and live. Thence, down the great river of rocks and rapids, come all the valuable furs. Of these we Dutch on South River receive altogether only ten thousand a year. Nanking must take some rum and bright cloth to his friends, the chiefs, and make them promise to send no more furs to the English of Chisopecke, but bring them to Head-of-Elk. There we will make a treaty, and Nanking and thee, widow, shall have part of our profits."

"Zeer wel!" cried Nanking. "That is very well. But Elsje, may I marry her, too?"

"Well," said Peter Alrichs, smiling, "you can come to see her sometimes and carry her doll."

"Good enough!" cried Nanking, overjoyed.

Before Nanking started on his trip, the sailor-man he had refused to whip walked into his mother's house.

"Widow Cloos, no doubt," he said, bowing. "Madame, I owe your son a service. Here are three petticoats and a pair of blue stockings with red clocks; for I see that your ankles still have a fine turn to them."

The widow courtesied low; for she had not received a compliment in seven years.

Nanking now began to show his leg also, as modestly as possible.

"Ah! Nanking," cried the sailor, "I have a piece of good Holland stuff for you to make you shirts and underclothes. 'Tis a pity so good a boy has not a rich father; ha! widow?"

The widow stooped very low again, but had the art to show her ankle to the best advantage, though she blushed. She said it was very lonely for her in the New World.

"Now, Widow Cloos," continued the sailor, "I am Ffob Oothout, at your service! I am a mariner. Some years ago, when Jacob Alrichs was our director, I helped to build this great warehouse with my own hands. They were good men, then, in charge of New Amstel's government. Thieves and jealous rogues have succeeded them. Would you think it, they suspect even me, and ordered Nanking to whip me with the cat! But for Nanking I should have a bloody back at this minute, and you would be wiping the brine out of it for me, I do not doubt!"

Nanking had gone out meantime, seeing that he was to get no clock-stockings.

"Widow, come hither," said the sailor. "Do you know I like this big barn of a warehouse. It is my handicraft, you know, and that attaches me to it. Well, you say nothing to anybody, and let me sleep in the river end. In a little while the noble veteran, Alexander D'Hinoyosso, will be due from Holland on the ship Blue Cock. Then we will all have good protection. In that ship are lots of supplies of mine. Of evenings we can court and drink liquor of my own mulling. And when the Blue Cock comes to port you shall have more petticoats and high-heeled shoes than any beauty in New Amstel."

Ffob Oothout stole a couple of kisses from the widow, like a bold sailor-man, and she promised that he should lodge in the river end of the Amsterdam warehouse.

For the rest of that afternoon Nanking carried Elsje's beautiful doll, and his feelings were very much comforted.

"Big sweetheart," she said, "what a smart man you would be if you could only make me a bigger doll than this, which would open and shut its eyes and cry 'fus; hush!'"

Nanking left New Amstel at moonlight, at the head of a little procession, carrying gay cloths and plenty of rum for the Susquehannocks. The last words Peter Alrichs said to him were: "You must talk wisely, Nanking. It is a mighty responsibility you have on this errand. Remember Elsje!"

Next morning Nanking pushed off in a boat, all alone, from the Head-of-Elk, and rowed under the blue bar of mountain into the Chisopecke, and turned up the creek below the rocky mouth of the great river toward the council-fire retreat of the fierce Susquehannocks. As he was about to step ashore a band of Englishmen confronted him, with swords and muskets.

"Whom art thou?" cried their leader, a stalwart man, with long mustaches.

"Only Nanking Cloos, mynheers, who used to be the big idiot of New Amstel. But," he added, with confidence, "I am now a great man on a very responsible mission to the Indians. I am to talk much and wisely. They are to send to New Amstel thousands of furs and peltries, and I am to give them this rum and finery!"

"He talks beautifully," exclaimed the English; and the chief man added:

"Nanking, I know thee well. Thy mother is the pretty widow in the house by the river. I am Colonel Utye, who swore so dreadfully when I summoned New Amstel to surrender. Come ashore, Nanking."

Nanking felt very proud to be recognized thus and receive such compliments for his mother. The English poured out a big flagon of French brandy and gravely drank his health, touching their foreheads with their thumbs. The brandy elated and exalted Nanking very much.

"Nanking," said Colonel Utye, "we desire to spare thee a long journey and much danger. Leave here thy rum and presents, and return to thy patrons, Alrichs and Beeckman, bearing our English gratitude, and thou shalt wear a beautiful hat, such as the King of England allows only his jester to put upon his head."

Nanking felt very much obliged to these kind gentlemen. They made the hat of the red cloth he had brought. It was like a tall steeple on a house, and was at least three feet long. As proud as possible he re-entered New Amstel on the evening of the day after he left it. It was now within a few days of Christmas, and the Dutch burghers and boors, and Swedes, English and Finns, were anticipating that holiday by assembling at the two breweries which the town afforded, and quaffing nightly of beer. Beeckman and Alrichs were interested in the largest brewery, and their beer was sent by Appoquinimy in great hogsheads to the English of Maryland in exchange for butts of tobacco.

As Nanking walked into the big room where fifty men were drinking, his prodigious red hat rose almost to the ceiling, and was greeted by roars of laughter.

"Goeden avond! Hoe yaart gij! How do you do, my bully?"

Nanking bowed politely, and singling out Beeckman and Alrichs, stood before them with child-like joy.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I gave all your presents to the noble Colonel Utye, who sends his deepest gratitude, and presented me with this exalted cap in acknowledgment of my capacity."

"Thou idiot!" exclaimed Beeckman; "'tis a dunce's cap!"

"Dunder and blitzen!" swore Peter Alrichs, "hast thou lost all our provision and made fools of us, too?"

They struck the dunce's cap off Nanking's head with their staves, and threw their beer in his face.

"Two hundred guilders are we out of pocket," cried both these great men. "Was ever such a brainless dolt in our possessions?"

The room rang with the cry, "Incurable idiot!" and Gerrit Van Swearingen cried louder than any, "Go drown thyself, and spare thy mother shame!"

"Then I shall not marry Elsje?" exclaimed Nanking, bursting into tears.

"No!" stormed Peter Alrichs; "thou shalt marry a calf. Away!"

When Nanking arrived home he found his mother sitting very close to Ffob Oothout. He told his tale with a broken heart.

"My man," exclaimed the rough sailor, in his kindest tone, but still very rough, "take this advice from me: Whatever thou believest, tell it not. Where thy head is weak, hold thy teeth tight. Then thou canst still have faith in many things, and make no grief."

The next day the Blue Cock sailed into the roadstead and the fort thundered a salute. Fort and vessel dipped the tricolor flag of the States-General and the municipal banner of Amsterdam. Beeckman surrendered all the country on South River to Hinoyossa, who came ashore very drunk and very haughty, and threatened to set up an empire for himself and fit out privateers against the world.

"Let him lose no time," muttered Ffob Oothout; "the English have doomed these Western Netherlands!"

Amidst the festivity Nanking was in a condition of despair. He had seen Elsje on the street and she turned up her nose at him. Christmas was only one day off, and Santa Claus, the Swede boys insisted, never came to the sorrowing shores of New Amstel.

"My uncle Gerrit was right," thought Nanking. "I had better drown myself. Yes; I will watch on Christmas eve for Santa Claus. I will give him plenty of time to come. He is the patron saint of children, and if he neglects poor, simple boys in this needful place, there is no truth in any thing. On Christmas morning I will fall into the river without any noise. My mother will cry, perhaps, but nobody else, and they will all say, 'It was better that the big idiot should be drowned; he had not sense enough to keep out of the water.'"

Nanking spent half the day watching the chimneys of his mother's house. Both chimneys were precisely alike in form and capacity, and the largest in the place. But the chimney next the river did not retain the dark, smoky, red color of the chimney on the land side.

"No wonder," thought Nanking, "for no fire nor smoke has been made in that river chimney for years. It almost seems that the bricks therein are oozing out their color and growing pale and streaked."

Night fell while he was watching. Nanking hid himself upon the roof of the house, determined to see if Saint Nicholas ever came to bless children any more by descending into chimneys, or was only a myth.

It was a little cold, and under the moonlight the frost was forming on the marshes and fields. The broad, remorseless river flowed past with nothing on its tide except the two or three vessels tied to the river bank, of which the Blue Cock was directly under the widow's great dwelling. From the town came sounds of revelry and wassail, of singing and quarrel, and from the church on Sand Hook softer chanting, where the women were twining holly and laurel and mistletoe. Nanking lay flat on the roof, with his face turned toward the sky. The moon went down and it grew very dark.

"Lord of all things," he murmured, "forgive my rash intention and comfort my poor mother!"

The noise of the town died on the night air, and every light went out. Nanking said to himself, "Is it Christmas at all, out in this lonely wilderness of the world? Is it the same sky which covers Holland, and are these stars as gentle as yonder, where all are rich and happy?"

He heard a noise. A voice whispered, just above the edge of the chimney on the river gable: "Fus-s-s! Pas op!"

"What is that?" thought Nanking; "somebody saying, 'Hist! be careful?' Surely I see something moving on the chimney, like a living head."

The voice whispered again: "Maak hast! Kom hier!" Or, "Hasten! Come here!"

Nanking raised up and made a noise.

"Wie komt, daar?" demanded the voice, and in a minute repeated: "Wie sprecht, daar?"

They ask, "Who comes and who speaks?" said Nanking. "Blessed be the promises of heaven! It is Santa Claus!"

Then he heard movements at the chimney, and people seemed to be ascending and descending a ladder. There seemed, also, to be noises on the deck of the Blue Cock, and sounds of falling burdens and spoken words: "Maak plaats!" or make room for more.

"I never heard of Santa Claus stopping so long at one humble house," thought Nanking.

After awhile all sounds ceased. Nanking crept to the chimney and touched it with his hand. It had no opening whatever in the top.

He felt around this mysterious chimney. "He! Zoo!" he said aloud, "there is more wood here than brick. 'Tis a false chimney altogether!"

Then he saw that his close observation had not been at fault. The chimney over the river gable was a painted chimney, a mere invention. Yet, surely Santa Claus had been there.

After a time Nanking opened the top and side of this chimney as if they were two doors. He found it packed with goods of all kinds—a ton at least.

"I will run and awaken my mother," he thought. "But no. Did not Ffob Oothout tell me to blab no secrets and shut my teeth tight? I will tell nobody. These costly things are all mine; for there are no other boys in this whole dwelling but Nanking Cloos, the fatherless idiot!"

He slipped down and hastened to his boat, which lay in a cove not far below. Towing it along the bank to a sheltered place convenient, Nanking began to load up the goods from the chimney. Before daylight broke he had secured every thing, and hoisting sail was speedily carried to the island of the Pea Patch, far down the bay—that island which shone in the offing and seemed to close the river's mouth. Here, in the wreck of an old galiot, he hid every article dry and secure; kegs of liquors and wine, shawls and blankets, pieces of silk, gunpowder, beautiful pipes, bars of silver and copper, and a whole bag of gold. Nanking covered them with dry driftwood and boughs of trees, and sailed again to New Amstel, where he arrived before breakfast.

At breakfast Nanking found upon his bench a beautiful new gun.

"It is thine, good child," said Ffob Oothout, "for sparing me those lashes. Thy churlish uncle felt so reproved by thy innocent words that he set me free. Widow, here is a spiegel for thee, a looking-glass to see, unseen, whoever passes up or down the street. That is a woman's high privilege everywhere. Thou shalt be, erelong, the best-dressed wife in all New Amstel. Nanking, wouldst thou like to have a father?"

"I would like you, Ffob Oothout, for a father."

"Widow," said Ffob, "he has popped the question for me; wilt thou take an old pirate for thy man?"

"They are all pirates here," replied the blushing widow, "and thou art the best pirate or man I have seen."

"Well, then, when the English conquer this region I have that will make thee rich. Till then let us wait on the good event, but not delay the marriage."

That Christmas Day they were married in form. As the three sat before the fresh venison and drank wine from the store of the Blue Cock, Nanking said:

"Father Ffob, you are wise. Give me yet another word of advice, that I may not continue to be a big idiot."

"Trust whom thou wilt, Nanking, yet ever hold thy tongue. If thou hast now a secret, hold it close. Begin this instant!"

"Even the secrets of Santa Claus?"

"Yes, even them."

Nanking said no more. He found compensation for Elsje's contumely in his gun, and roved the forests through, and peeped from time to time at his mystic treasures.

One day the news came overland that the English had taken New Amsterdam. Then the great Hinoyossa and uncle Van Swearingen and Alrichs and Beeckman swore dreadfully, and said they would fight to the last man. Ffob Oothout went around amongst the Swedes and the citizen Dutch, and prepared them to take the matter reasonably.

One day in October of that same wonderful year, 1664, two mighty vessels of war, flying the English flag, came to anchor off New Amstel and the fort. They parleyed with the citizens for a surrender, and Ffob Oothout conducted the negotiations. The citizens were to receive protection and property. The fort replied by a cannon. Then the English soldiery landed and formed their veteran lines. They charged the ramparts and broke down the palisades, and killed three Dutchmen and wounded ten more. Proclamation was made that New Amstel should for all the future be named New-castle, and that Gerrit Van Swearingen, the refractory schout, should yield up his noble property to Captain John Carr, of the invaders, and Peter Alrichs lose every thing for the benefit of the fortunate William Tom.

The English soldiery proceeded to make barracks of the Amsterdam warehouse. The first night they inhabited it they strove to light a fire under the wooden chimney in the river gable. The chimney caught fire and burnt out like an old hollow barrel.

"Wife," exclaimed Ffob Oothout, looking grimly on, "in that chimney was all my property and thine. Poor boy," he said to Nanking, "we must all be poor together now."

"No," cried Nanking, "I have yet the gifts of Santa Claus which I took from that chimney on the night before Christmas. Yours, father, may be burnt. Mine are all safe!"

He sailed his father and mother to the island since called the Pea Patch, and Ffob Oothout recognized his property.

"Wonderful Nanking!" he cried, "thy faith was all the wisdom we had. God protects the simple! Thou art our treasure."

The great Hinoyossa condignly fled to Maryland. Uncle Van Swearingen was exported to Holland, and in the dwelling of Peter Alrichs the family of Ffob Oothout made their abode.

"Nanking," asked the houseless Alrichs, "is not Elsje pretty yet?"

"Not as pretty," answered Nanking, "as my little baby sister. I will carry nobody's doll but hers."

"Humph!" said Peter Alrichs, "you are not the big idiot I took you for!"