his neck to halfway down his back, all bare skin. He carefully scooped
his hands full of water and let it trickle gently inside Bertje's shirt.
The boy growled; and Fonske, screaming with laughter, skipped out of the
brook. Now came a romping and stamping in the water, a dashing and
splashing with their hands till it turned to a rain of gleaming drops
that fell on their heads and wetted their clothes through and through.
And a bawling! And a plashing with their bare legs till the spray spouted
high over the bank.

"The constable!" cried Horieneke.

The sport was over. Like lightning they all sprang out of the brook,
caught up their wooden shoes with the little fish in them and ran as hard
as they could through the grass to the bridge. There only did they
venture to look round. Hurriedly they turned down their breeches, dried
their shiny cheeks and dripping hair with one another's handkerchiefs and
then marched all together through the sun and wind to school.

In the village square they wandered about among the other boys, silently
showed their catch, hid their shoes in the hawthorn-hedge behind the
churchyard and stayed playing until schoolmaster's bell rang.

Boys and girls, each on their own side, disappeared through the gate; and
the street was now silent as the grave. After a while, there came through
the open window of the school first a sort of buzzing and humming and
then a repetition in chorus, a rhythmical spelling aloud: b-u-t, but;
t-e-r, ter: butter; B-a, Ba; b-e-l, bel: Babel; ever on and more and more
noisily. In between it all, the sparrows chattered and chirped and
fluttered safely in the powdery sand of the playground.