Monday, May 14, 2007

THE BOY WHO WANTED MORE CHEESE



Klaas Van Bommel was a Dutch boy, twelve years old, who lived where cowswere plentiful. He was over five feet high, weighed a hundred pounds,and had rosy cheeks. His appetite was always good and his motherdeclared his stomach had no bottom. His hair was of a color half-waybetween a carrot and a sweet potato. It was as thick as reeds in a swampand was cut level, from under one ear to another.Klaas stood in a pair of timber shoes, that made an awful rattle when heran fast to catch a rabbit, or scuffed slowly along to school over thebrick road of his village. In summer Klaas was dressed in a rough, bluelinen blouse. In winter he wore woollen breeches as wide as coffee bags.They were called bell trousers, and in shape were like a couple ofcow-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, ofwhich he was proud enough.Klaas was a farmer's boy. He had rye bread and fresh milk for breakfast.At dinner time, beside cheese and bread, he was given a plate heapedwith boiled potatoes. Into these he first plunged a fork and then dippedeach round, white ball into a bowl of hot melted butter. Very quicklythen did potato and butter disappear "down the red lane." At supper, hehad bread and skim milk, left after the cream had been taken off, with asaucer, to make butter. Twice a week the children enjoyed a bowl ofbonnyclabber or curds, with a little brown sugar sprinkled on the top.But at every meal there was cheese, usually in thin slices, which theboy thought not thick enough. When Klaas went to bed he usually fellasleep as soon as his shock of yellow hair touched the pillow. In summertime he slept till the birds began to sing, at dawn. In winter, when thebed felt warm and Jack Frost was lively, he often heard the cowstalking, in their way, before he jumped out of his bag of straw, whichserved for a mattress. The Van Bommels were not rich, but everything wasshining clean.There was always plenty to eat at the Van Bommels' house. Stacks of ryebread, a yard long and thicker than a man's arm, stood on end in thecorner of the cool, stone-lined basement. The loaves of dough were putin the oven once a week. Baking time was a great event at the VanBommels' and no men-folks were allowed in the kitchen on that day,unless they were called in to help. As for the milk-pails and pans,filled or emptied, scrubbed or set in the sun every day to dry, and thecheeses, piled up in the pantry, they seemed sometimes enough to feed asmall army.But Klaas always wanted more cheese. In other ways, he was a good boy,obedient at home, always ready to work on the cow-farm, and diligent inschool. But at the table he never had enough. Sometimes his fatherlaughed and asked him if he had a well, or a cave, under his jacket.Klaas had three younger sisters, Trintjé, Anneké and Saartjé; which isDutch for Kate, Annie and Sallie. These, their fond mother, who lovedthem dearly, called her "orange blossoms"; but when at dinner, Klaaswould keep on, dipping his potatoes into the hot butter, while otherswere all through, his mother would laugh and call him her Buttercup. Butalways Klaas wanted more cheese. When unusually greedy, she twitted himas a boy "worse than Butter-and-Eggs"; that is, as troublesome as theyellow and white plant, called toad-flax, is to the farmer--verypretty, but nothing but a weed.One summer's evening, after a good scolding, which he deserved well,Klaas moped and, almost crying, went to bed in bad humor. He had teasedeach one of his sisters to give him her bit of cheese, and this, addedto his own slice, made his stomach feel as heavy as lead.Klaas's bed was up in the garret. When the house was first built, one ofthe red tiles of the roof had been taken out and another one, made ofglass, was put in its place. In the morning, this gave the boy light toput on his clothes. At night, in fair weather, it supplied air to hisroom.A gentle breeze was blowing from the pine woods on the sandy slope, notfar away. So Klaas climbed up on the stool to sniff the sweet pinyodors. He thought he saw lights dancing under the tree. One beam seemedto approach his roof hole, and coming nearer played round the chimney.Then it passed to and fro in front of him. It seemed to whisper in hisear, as it moved by. It looked very much as if a hundred fire-flies hadunited their cold light into one lamp. Then Klaas thought that thestrange beams bore the shape of a lovely girl, but he only laughed athimself at the idea. Pretty soon, however, he thought the whisper becamea voice. Again, he laughed so heartily, that he forgot his moping andthe scolding his mother had given him. In fact, his eyes twinkled withdelight, when the voice gave this invitation:"There's plenty of cheese. Come with us."To make sure of it, the sleepy boy now rubbed his eyes and cocked hisears. Again, the light-bearer spoke to him: "Come."Could it be? He had heard old people tell of the ladies of the wood,that whispered and warned travellers. In fact, he himself had often seenthe "fairies' ring" in the pine woods. To this, the flame-lady wasinviting him.Again and again the moving, cold light circled round the red tile roof,which the moon, then rising and peeping over the chimneys, seemed toturn into silver plates. As the disc rose higher in the sky, he couldhardly see the moving light, that had looked like a lady; but the voice,no longer a whisper, as at first, was now even plainer:"There's plenty of cheese. Come with us.""I'll see what it is, anyhow," said Klaas, as he drew on his thickwoolen stockings and prepared to go down-stairs and out, without wakinga soul. At the door he stepped into his wooden shoes. Just then the catpurred and rubbed up against his shins. He jumped, for he was scared;but looking down, for a moment, he saw the two balls of yellow fire inher head and knew what they were. Then he sped to the pine woods andtowards the fairy ring.What an odd sight! At first Klaas thought it was a circle of bigfire-flies. Then he saw clearly that there were dozens of prettycreatures, hardly as large as dolls, but as lively as crickets. Theywere as full of light, as if lamps had wings. Hand in hand, they flittedand danced around the ring of grass, as if this was fun.Hardly had Klaas got over his first surprise, than of a sudden he felthimself surrounded by the fairies. Some of the strongest among them hadleft the main party in the circle and come to him. He felt himselfpulled by their dainty fingers. One of them, the loveliest of all,whispered in his ear:"Come, you must dance with us."Then a dozen of the pretty creatures murmured in chorus:"Plenty of cheese here. Plenty of cheese here. Come, come!"Upon this, the heels of Klaas seemed as light as a feather. In a moment,with both hands clasped in those of the fairies, he was dancing in highglee. It was as much fun as if he were at the kermiss, with a row ofboys and girls, hand in hand, swinging along the streets, as Dutch maidsand youth do, during kermiss week.Klaas had not time to look hard at the fairies, for he was too full ofthe fun. He danced and danced, all night and until the sky in the eastbegan to turn, first gray and then rosy. Then he tumbled down, tiredout, and fell asleep. His head lay on the inner curve of the fairy ring,with his feet in the centre.Klaas felt very happy, for he had no sense of being tired, and he didnot know he was asleep. He thought his fairy partners, who had dancedwith him, were now waiting on him to bring him cheeses. With a goldenknife, they sliced them off and fed him out of their own hands. How goodit tasted! He thought now he could, and would, eat all the cheese he hadlonged for all his life. There was no mother to scold him, or daddy toshake his finger at him. How delightful!But by and by, he wanted to stop eating and rest a while. His jaws weretired. His stomach seemed to be loaded with cannon-balls. He gasped forbreath.But the fairies would not let him stop, for Dutch fairies never gettired. Flying out of the sky--from the north, south, east and west--theycame, bringing cheeses. These they dropped down around him, until thepiles of the round masses threatened first to enclose him as with awall, and then to overtop him. There were the red balls from Edam, thepink and yellow spheres from Gouda, and the gray loaf-shaped ones fromLeyden. Down through the vista of sand, in the pine woods, he looked,and oh, horrors! There were the tallest and strongest of the fairiesrolling along the huge, round, flat cheeses from Friesland! Any one ofthese was as big as a cart wheel, and would feed a regiment. The fairiestrundled the heavy discs along, as if they were playing with hoops. Theyshouted hilariously, as, with a pine stick, they beat them forward likeboys at play. Farm cheese, factory cheese, Alkmaar cheese, and, to crownall, cheese from Limburg--which Klaas never could bear, because of itsstrong odor. Soon the cakes and balls were heaped so high around himthat the boy, as he looked up, felt like a frog in a well. He groanedwhen he thought the high cheese walls were tottering to fall on him.Then he screamed, but the fairies thought he was making music. They, notbeing human, do not know how a boy feels.At last, with a thick slice in one hand and a big hunk in the other, hecould eat no more cheese; though the fairies, led by their queen,standing on one side, or hovering over his head, still urged him to takemore.At this moment, while afraid that he would burst, Klaas saw the pile ofcheeses, as big as a house, topple over. The heavy mass fell inwardsupon him. With a scream of terror, he thought himself crushed as flat asa Friesland cheese.But he wasn't! Waking up and rubbing his eyes, he saw the red sun risingon the sand-dunes. Birds were singing and the cocks were crowing allaround him, in chorus, as if saluting him. Just then also the villageclock chimed out the hour. He felt his clothes. They were wet with dew.He sat up to look around. There were no fairies, but in his mouth was abunch of grass which he had been chewing lustily.Klaas never would tell the story of his night with the fairies, nor hashe yet settled the question whether they left him because thecheese-house of his dream had fallen, or because daylight had come.

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