Thus the fashion prevailed and still holds among the women of the coast.
Fat or thin, tall or short, they pile on the petticoats and swing their
skirts proudly as they walk or go to market, sell their fish, cry "fresh
herring" in the streets, or do their knitting at home, or in front of
their houses. In some parts of the country, nothing makes a girl so
happy as to present her with a new petticoat. It is the fashion to have
a figure like a barrel and wear one's clothes so as to look like a small
hogshead.

By and by, the men built a dam to get plenty of water in winter for the
rotting of the flax stalks. The linen industry made the people rich. In
time, a city sprang up, which they called Rotterdam, or the dam where
they rotted the flax.

And, because where had been a forest of oaks, with the pool and rivulet,
there was now a silvery stream flowing gently between verdant meadows,
they made the arms and seal of the city green and white, two of the
former and one of the latter; that is, verdure and silver. To this day,
on the arms and flags of the great city, and on the high smoke-stacks of
the mighty steamers that cross the ocean, from land to land, one sees
the wide, white band between the two broad stripes of green.

[Illustration: ON AND ON THE RAGING FLOOD BORE THEM UNTIL DARK NIGHT CAME
DOWN]




THE CAT AND THE CRADLE