ONE of the most interesting places in a Holland village is the "klompen" maker's shop, where klompen, or wooden shoes, are made. Not far from Rotterdam, surrounded by high dikes, lies the little village of Rijsoord; in that village, beside the Skalkydijk River, is a shop in which an old man and his son work early and late, supplying the peasants (who never go barefoot) with shoes. These are first roughly shaped from blocks of willow wood, as a statue is first rudely outlined by chipping the marble block, and afterward the shoes are finished smoothly with sand-paper and pumice-stone. The willow trees are grown for this purpose, and when they attain the required size, they are cut down, the branches are trimmed off and only the trunk is used, being divided into blocks, each one of which is the length of the longest shoe. The work goes on without interruption through the morning, unless some friendly neighbor looks in over the half-open Dutch door; and this is the occasion seized upon by the two men for refilling and lighting their pipes, and drawing a few long whiffs, while they listen to a little village gossip. BLEACHING FOR SUNDAY. At eleven o'clock the good vrouw appears at the door with "koffij, jongens" (coffee, boys), and they follow her into the adjoining room. It has a low, thatched roof of deep-yellow reeds, and contains the great fireplace, where in damp weather the newly-made shoes are placed before the fire to dry. All their food is cooked in the same fireplace, excepting the bread, which in every peasant's home is supplied by the baker. The shoes are piled round the smoldering embers, often with the tea-kettle simmering among them; and while the sap dries out, they give little groans, and sighs, as if they knew the hard fate awaiting them when the time shall come for them to cover the feet of some sturdy Dutch peasant or workman and to clatter over the pavements of the town. After this morning's refreshment, which all of the peasants enjoy, they return to work. children she did n't know what to do," was a Dutch vrouw. The children turn shoes into boats, and paint them a rich deep brown, in imitation of the large boats which sail on the river Maas. As they trim the tiny sails of their ships, and launch them upon the waters of a sloot to some imaginary Van Diemen's land, not to be found in a geography, they seem possessed with the same spirit which inspired the Dutch navigators of earlier days. There are very many sloots (which are deep ditches full of water), used both to fence and to fertilize the land; so the voyage of the shoe may be a long one, and the owner of the little vessel will have abundant opportunity to indulge in faction as if it were a delicious draught from a silver cup. Wooden shoes are ornamental as flower-pots, and many a bright flower whose roots are firmly bedded in a shoe has graced the window of some peasant's cottage- a joy to the owner, and a pleasure to the passing traveler. They are useful as hammers, and it is not uncommon to see a koopman (merchant) by the wayside, with a few taps of his shoe mending his cart, piled high with yellow carrots or little round Dutch cheeses, while his dogs rest in the traces. These shoes also take the place of the obsolete birch-rod of our grandmothers' days. The the military regularity, like the sound of an advancing regiment. Saturday is the great cleaning day in Rijsoord, when everything is made ready for Sunday, the day of rest. The houses are scrubbed inside and out, and among the pots and kettles, are seen the wooden shoes; these, scoured snowy white, hang upon forked sticks near the doorway to dry in the wind and sun as you may see them in the picture at the beginning of this article. The morning brings the sound of klumpen along the dikes, and rows of people are seen walking toward the kirk. At the door they leave their shoes, like faithful servants, to await their return later, after a three hours sermon by the dominie. In the afternoon, the young men and women stroll up and down the Promendijk, which is the "Fifth Avenue" of the village-its general promenade and meeting place. They exchange nods and friendly greetings until sundown, when good vrouw, in her quaint cap of spot less white, with gold spiral pins, called krullen, placed above the ears, does not look very such grandmothers as we have known, but her disci pline re sembles theirs in sever ity if not in kind. During the week, after school hours, the little girls walk along the dikes in rows, knitting; and the clatter of their shoes, to an ear unfamiliar with it, is, except that is without DRYING SHOES BEFORE THE FIRE. the busy week begins again, and the wooden shoes soon take on their week-day coat of tan. MY TRIPLE PLAY. BY THOMAS WORTHINGTON KING. THE road leading to the ball-ground was thronged on that Saturday afternoon, for the juniors and the seniors of the Ridge Academy were to play the deciding game of the series for the school championship, each having won seven of the fifteen games that constituted the year's contests. The vacations at " Ridge's " came in the spring and fall, with recesses of a few days at Christmas and at Easter. From the middle of June until the middle of September was the "long term," and during the Wednesday and Saturday half-holidays the baseball games were played. "Ridge's" ranked high among boardingschools. The location was healthful, the village a pleasant one, the climate salubrious, and the surroundings were of a kind to admit of all sorts of sport. The long hill road that led to the banks of the creek, where the boys swam in summer and skated in winter, furnished admirable coasting facilities during the latter season, and the elevated plateau on which the village stood provided superb ball-grounds, for which nature had done so much that art could make little improvement. To the right and left of the catcher's position, and far enough away not to interfere with that important factor in a well-contested game, stood a dozen or more tall trees that afforded welcome shade to the batting nine and spectators. From the home-plate to center-field the smooth turf lay as even as the top of a table, and the diamond was without a flaw. Deceptive bounds of swift grounders and resulting black eyes or bruised noses were unknown on the grounds of the Ridge Academy Base-ball Club. Long before the hour set for the gamethree o'clock-the shady places under the trees, where benches had been placed, were packed with spectators; for Ridge's was one of the features of the village and all the residents were deeply interested in whatever concerned the school. Besides, there were numerous summer visitors then sojourning at the hotel and at the various boarding-houses, and, as many of them were friends or relatives of the school-boys, they were very enthusiastic attendants. There was a predominance of lavender ribbons as it happened, for lavender was the junior classcolor. The nine of that class was the favorite, and one reason was that though the younger and the weaker club they had held their own so well against the brawny giants who composed the seniors' nine; for the juniors were the lowest class in school. Next above them came the lower middle class, then the upper middle, and finally the seniors; so that it was a contest not only between the "senior" and "junior" classes, but also between the senior and junior members of the school. By two o'clock most of the juniors were on the ground, and by half-past all were there, and practicing furiously. They were slim, slightly built lads, but coached by their captain and short-stop-" Jack Scoop," they called him—to a remarkable excellence in throwing and running. Jack himself was a phenomenon, and had infused a large amount of his own fire, activity, and accuracy into his "team." Splendid fielders, all of them, they made up in this respect for their weakness at the bat. At stealing bases they were most expert thieves. Let one of them but reach first base on a hit or an error, and second was easy prey for him. The modern catapult that officiated in the "box" for the seniors, and the catcher of the same nine, knew this thoroughly, and many were the schemes concocted to catch a runner. But generally, on the first ball pitched he was off for second, and in nine cases out of ten gained it by a desperate slide, while the verdict "Safe!" from the umpire, and a storm of cheers from the crowd, gladdened his heart as he dusted his padded trousers, and smiled kindly on the its normal state, and I played as coolly as if discomfited second-base man. this were the first, instead of the last, of the championship series. Shortly before three o'clock, the seniors reached the ground, looking handsome and strong in their blue uniforms; and their blueribboned friends greeted them warmly and cast pitying glances on the juniors in their gray suits with lavender trimmings. For ten minutes the Our catcher was not at his best that day, and three or four bases had been stolen with impunity. All of his throws to me had been a little slow or a trifle wild, and although I had not let a ball pass me, I had not, as yet, put a "I LEAPED WITH HAND OUTSTRETCHED HIGH IN THE AIR, AND AS THE SWIFT-LINER FLEW OVER MY HEAD, seniors practiced, and then Captain "Scoop" The game progressed rapidly, with few errors, few runs, and many close decisions, none of which, however, were disputed. The umpire was the left-fielder of a noted college nine and he excited the awe and admiration of every boy on the field. I was playing second-base on the juniors' nine, and if at the beginning of the game my heart was in my mouth, who can blame me? But as the game went on that important feature of my organization had resumed man out at second base; a couple of flies, half-a-dozen "assists" to first, and one to home, constituted my fielding, up to that time. At the bat I had been more fortunate, having made two well-timed "singles " that helped wonderfully, and in our half of the ninth inning I had driven the ball for three bases, sending it over the left-fielder's head, bringing in two runs, and perching on third with ease. These two runs tied the score. A moment or two later a desperate dash for home resulted in a momentary fumble by the catcher in his excitement. I slid. "Safe!" cried the umpire; and we were one ahead. The next man went out and we took the field amid |