Atondido Stories
to sing, at dawn. In winter, when the bed felt warm and Jack
Frost was lively, he often heard the cows talking, in their way,
before he jumped out of his bag of straw, which served for a
mattress. The Van Bommels were not rich, but everything was
shining clean.
There was always plenty to eat at the Van Bommels' house.
Stacks of rye bread, a yard long and thicker than a man's arm,
stood on end in the corner of the cool, stone-lined basement. The
loaves of dough were put in the oven once a week. Baking time
was a great event at the Van Bommels' and no men-folks were al-
lowed in the kitchen on that day, unless they were called in to
help. As for the milk-pails and pans, filled or emptied, scrubbed
or set in the sun every day to dry, and the cheeses, piled up in
the pantry, they seemed sometimes enough to feed a small army.
But Klaas always wanted more cheese. In other ways, he was a
good boy, obedient at home, always ready to work on the cow-
farm, and diligent in school. But at the table he never had
enough. Sometimes his father laughed and asked him if he had a
well, or a cave, under his jacket.
Klaas had three younger sisters, Trintjé, Anneké and Saartjé;
which is Dutch for Kate, Annie and Sallie. These, their fond
mother, who loved them dearly, called her "orange blossoms";
but when at dinner, Klaas would keep on, dipping his potatoes
into the hot butter, while others were all through, his mother
would laugh and call him her Buttercup. But always Klaas want-
ed more cheese. When unusually greedy, she twitted him as a
boy "worse than Butter-and-Eggs"; that is, as troublesome as the
yellow and white plant, called toad-flax, is to the farmer—very
pretty, but nothing but a weed.
One summer's evening, after a good scolding, which he de-
served well, Klaas moped and, almost crying, went to bed in bad
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