This invitation to turn over the royal villain to her for religious instruction was repeated so often that it was necessary to give her an answer.
"But, dear Juffrouw, the boy don't want to. He's stubborn; and what can one do with such a child?"
Walter knew that his mother was not quite truthful; but, after his former experience with his friendly enemy, he found it desirable to keep quiet. When pressed, however, for an explanation he said:
"The man wanted snuff, and nobody would give him any; so I----"
Juffrouw Laps knew enough. Walter was as good as her prisoner: she now knew exactly how to take his fortifications, if they could be taken at all.
"If he doesn't want to come to me, don't compel him," she said sweetly on leaving. "To force him won't do any good. Let him exercise his own pleasure. I'm afraid you pick at the child too much, anyway. What an awful fuss we've made over a stiver!"
"That's what I say, too," replied the mother. "It looks as if we begrudged him the money! We could have spared another stiver, and we wouldn't have missed it, would we, Stoffel?"
"Yes, mother, but it's time for Walter----"
"Goodness, what a hullaballoo to raise about a few pinches of snuff! The Master will repay it seven times seventy times. Whatever ye have done to the least of my brothers----"
With this consoling passage on her lips she took her leave of the astonished family.
Yes, it wasn't so easy to see through Juffrouw Laps!
In his efforts to reconcile the various conflicting authorities contesting for supremacy in his soul, Walter threw himself into a severe spell of blues. He was not conscious of the contrast between the world of his high-flown fancy and the earthy environment of his home-life. The sympathetic care which he should have received after his illness had not fallen to his lot.
"Femke!" he thought; and he longed for her fresh healthy face, for her pure, unselfish glance, for her friendly smile. The Fancy that had led him away to the stars in search of his misty sister had got lodged on that girl of the Amsterdam lowlands, Femke--with her unpoetical length, breadth, thickness, and weight.
"I am going to see her," he cried. "I will! And if Mrs. Claus asks me about worms a dozen times, it's all the same to me; I am going to see her!"