The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1876-07-26
THE, MOTHERS sTRATAGEM.

THE, MOTHERS STRATAGEM.
One sunny morning, few years ago,
Jan Kammerick came up from the cabin
of his barge-which his men were slowly
working through lock near the quaint
and ancient city of Antwerp-and set
his huge feet upon the deck. His first
act was to below ferociously at the
good natured fellows who were doing
their best to get the barge through
without even so much as scrsping the
fresh paint on her sides; his next was
deliberately and cruelty to kick small
boy who was lying on his back, and
looking up at carved wooden figure
whose grotesque head grinned from a
side rail.
Many of the loungers along the banks
of the lock knew old Jan Kammerick for
q mean and cruel Flemish boor, who
maltreated his wife, his children, bis
bargemen, and who sometimes few into
such terrific fits of anger that he
thrashed his own sides with his round
fists. No one in Antwerp-nota a market
woman on the shore of the Scheldt, nor
bargeman on river or canal-liked the
choleric and brutal Jan Kammerick;
many times the wretch had narrowly
escaped ducking at the hands OF a
mob because Of his cruelties; and on
this occasion, seeing the poor child who
was kicked begin to cry and to crawl
away toward refuge under a pile of
rope, every one shouted:
"Jan Ksmmerick Jan Kammerick !!
you are mean, bad man, and no one will
be sorry when you come to harm" or
6 Jan sKanmerick you shall be COM
planned of to the judge of the district"
The women shook their fists at him,
and the men muttered that the boy
must be taken away from his cruel
father and. cared for. Kammerick's
poor wife, who was washing herpots and
kettles on deck, looked as if she in
p, wardly sympathized with the people on
shore; but she trembled, and dared say
nothing.
Jan was in such a dreadful temper
that the cries of the people on shore
made him more furious still.
"It's none of your business" he
shouted. show much I pound and kick
this brat He is good for nothing but
whiting and breaking knives. If he
Graves any more of his pudding faces
out of my boat rails, I'll send him
adrift. Then you will have what you
=, want,lsy Then, neighbors, you will have
pauper on your hands; and when you
feed him in your kitchens, he will carve
doll puppets out of your table legs"
Then he vanished down the hatchway,
followed by the maledictions of the by
ISLANDERS. e..
eff were you," cried one OF them to
the boy. 81 would run away"
: The barge went on through the locks,
and the boy still crouched in his corner.
The tears yet dimmed his eyes, but he
had already forgotten his bruises. There
was no resentment in his heart toward
his wretched father. His mind was fill
ed with a thousand beautiful and fan
tastic images-deicate fancies which he
now and then sought to embody in bits
Of wood that he laboriously carved with
clumsy knives or chisels. He longed to
be free from the rude work which he
was compelled to do upon the barge,
and to study, that he might become a
great sculptor in wood. When the
barge passed near some of the curiously
adorned old houses of which there are
50 many in Antwerp-houses whose
roofs, whose arches, whose doors were
richly and profusely adorned with carv-
ings of birds and foliage, Of beasts and
dragons, of mystical figures from my
thologies, or comical transcripts from
evsry-d day Dutch life-he studied them
carefully and with deep alteration. he
had never been allowed to 60 into the
streets, and look at them for hours at
time, as he could have wished to do
for old Jan, who piled to and from a
little village on the banks of the Scheldt,
at some distance from Antwerp, would
never allow his child to 60 on shore
during his tri-weekly visits to tn, city.
He yesrned for a sight of the grand
churches of which his mother had told
him-cathedrals in whose solemn still.
ness he could stand undisturbed all the
day long, drinking in beauty at every
pore. The harshDess and hardship Of
his life, the beatings of his unnatural
father, would have been as nothing to
him if he could have been allowed to
., learn something of art. But old Jan
: not only refused to allow him to work,
but had thrown into the. river many
beautiful images of saints, of birds, OF
dragons, which the child had carved by
stealth when the bargeman was not near,
and had then offered to the boor. asking
him to sell them and buy tobacco TO,
himself with the money.
"No child of my shall waste his life
over such mummeries, said old Jan.
While the boy was musing bitterly on
his, lot, his mother, who had finished
washing her pots and kettles. came to
him, and while she wrung out her dish
cloth with her lean and blistered hands,
aha said in O lou voiee
"Jan, boy, you are small and feeble,
but you are now thirteen, and I think
you would be brave and resolute. The
good soul down stairs" (she always call
ed Father Jan good soul, because she
knew that he was aa old brute) "the
good soul has made up his mind that
you are to be bargeman, and he is
fstern,s as you know. Now-do not
speak-we must try a new way to gel
q you launched in the world" (Here the
mothers tears begun to fall fast, and
she tho1ghti of the bestings which she
might receive if she carried out hel
rplan.) fMy child, you must leave us
Won must run away I" E. =