Mary Mapes Dodge

“ I saw much to admire in England, and I hope I shall be sent back with you to study at Oxford, but, take everything together, I like Holland best."
"Of course you do," said Ben in a tone of hearty approval. "You wouldn't be a good Hollander if you didn't. Nothing like loving one's country. It is strange, though, to have such a warm feeling for such a cold place. If we were not exercising all the time, we should freeze outright."
Lambert laughed.
"That's your English blood, Benjamin. I'M not cold. And look at the skaters here on the canal--they're red as roses and happy as lords. ”

“ Sometimes they stopped to exchange a word with the guards who were stationed at certain distances along the canal. These men, in winter, attend to keeping the surface free from obstruction and garbage. After a snowstorm they are expected to sweep the feathery covering away before it hardens into a marble pretty to look at but very unwelcome to skaters. Now and then the boys so far forgot their dignity as to clamber among the icebound canal boats crowded together in a widened harbor off the canal, but the watchful guards would soon spy them out and order them down with a growl. ”

“ Nearly every one you see is built over a ditch. Probably I feel it more, from having lived so long in England."
"Perhaps I shall notice it too," said Ben, "if a thaw comes. The early winter has covered up the fragrant waters for my benefit--much obliged to it. Holland without this glorious skating wouldn't be the same thing at all."
"How very different you are from the Poots!" exclaimed Lambert, who had been listening in a sort of brown study. ”