Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1902-11-13

past 4 or o'clock, perhaps, says a
writer in the Springfield Republican.
An hour or more afterward the ships
astronomer informed us in perfect
Dutch that it was o'clock by one
local time and $40 by another. Yet
Holland was awake, and had been for
hours, it seemed. When we steamed
up the river in the dim blue morning
the awkward sailboats worked slowly
by, fishermen in blunt-bowed skiffs,
with queer Japanese-shaped fish nets
hanging from the stern, rowed past,
and on the banks, when we had come
to dock, the dogs were barking their
morning chorus as the happy, know
ing little creatures were being has
messed up, for another days endeavor
A little after 6, when We went ashore,
the laborers were hard at work upon
the street pavement, hordes OF hatless
young girls, who didn't care a boot
schen how their skirts hung, were
hurrying down the sidewalks, appar-
emily to the factories We had come
at last to the headquarters of human
industry, to the place where your
good old New England grandfather
could stop preaching thrift and toll,
and come back in the spectators
seats with the rest of us and hear and
see and wonder; to the home of the
odd little fat-faced creatures, who
have learned to harness a woman and
make a real clever driver of her, to
squeeze a couple of horsepower from
a mongrel dog; who have built, like
a colony of coral insects, a land of
their own in defiance of the laws of
gravity and the almighty sea.
1t was certainly foreign territory we
had reached this time. The little cir
cles of clinging-clanging bells on the
brick tower in the center of the town
played gayly the tune for 7 o'clock;
dogs skunk by between the wheels of
the milk and vegetable carts, wadded
men and quilted women slouched by
of the pavement. We reached the
railroad station and passed in one of
those neat and convenient five-pound
posters which the great British nation
uses now instead of wampum In re-
turn we received a pair of enigmatical
tickets and a lovely handful of dirty
hand-bills from the ticket man. We
asked him shyly if this was regarded
as good and conservative money there
abouts; he responded that it was
much preferred. With our hands
clutched wistfully about the little
wads, we proceeded upward toward
the waiting-room with the graceful,
easy manner of a Polish immigrant
left in the union station to be for
warded to Chicopee. There was still
half an hour before the train wen.
we had just time to wander down and
get one real good smell of the canal:
to see the opening and cleaning of the
shops.
A number were already opened; be-
fore doorway a man with divided
skirts and woman with gold anten-
nae on her forehead-no doubt some
members of the local aristocracy-
were beating carpet to death. We
wandered back to the station, were
tucked into our compartment and at
last the train drew out We passed
beyond the red-tiled houses of the
town, through the green country, the
lowered windmills, the canal boats in
the long bitches, the county peddlers
driving their spanking spans of dogs
to town, until over an hour later the
first scent of Amsterdam met our
nostrils. And there, between a double
row of exceedingly polite beggars,
who touched their hats most defer
entially to us as we passed, We found
behind the station the boat for the isle
of Marker.
At 1915 the good ship set out to
canal, manned by Americans, armed
with heavy batteries of kodaks. A
half dozen children from the island,
come to town for a holiday, stood on
the quay to see US off-girls in their
queer red and spangled bodices and
skirts and headdress; a little boy,
more girl than boy in appearance; an
old youth of 10, with a pipe in his
mouth and the wind f1uttering in the
trousers of a bow-legged father, more
terril than an army with banners.
How quaint! How uniquel" shrieked
the Americans A broadside from the
kodaks was exploded in their very
faces. The gawky girls and the awful
youth were in no way daunted.
''Moonie!" he exclaimed, "moonie,"
prophetic and significant request
couched, of course, not at French or
German, but in English-American
you might almost say. These fellow
Americans of ours upon the boat were
the first that we had seen for some 10
days-queer-looking things they are,
too, these Americans, when you don't
see them much-copper complexion,
sharp faces-and after you have heard
week or two the great mushy mouth
fuls of English vowels, how their
voices do go through youl You can
appreciate, almost, how Rudyard
Kipling gets the idiotic universal dia-
lect formula, which Unfortunately
sets all Americans meowing like mid
night cats. These specimens of course
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