of her and no fewer than nine noblemen copied her pretty form and
features into their coats of arms. Instead of the Mermaid's Pool is now
a cheese farm of fifty cows, a fine house and barn, and a family of
pink-cheeked, yellow-haired children who walk and play in wooden shoes.

So this particular mermaid, all because of her entanglement in the
fence, was more famous when stuffed than when living, while all her
young friends and older relatives were forgotten.




THE BOY WHO WANTED MORE CHEESE


Klaas Van Bommel was a Dutch boy, twelve years old, who lived where cows
were plentiful. He was over five feet high, weighed a hundred pounds,
and had rosy cheeks. His appetite was always good and his mother
declared his stomach had no bottom. His hair was of a color half-way
between a carrot and a sweet potato. It was as thick as reeds in a swamp
and was cut level, from under one ear to another.

Klaas stood in a pair of timber shoes, that made an awful rattle when he
ran fast to catch a rabbit, or scuffed slowly along to school over the
brick road of his village. In summer Klaas was dressed in a rough, blue
linen blouse. In winter he wore woollen breeches as wide as coffee bags.
They were called bell trousers, and in shape were like a couple of
cow-bells turned upwards. These were buttoned on to a thick warm jacket.
Until he was five years old, Klaas was dressed like his sisters. Then,
on his birthday, he had boy's clothes, with two pockets in them, of