Brother. Andrew - Gods smuggler

F rom the time I first put on wooden shoes klompen we call them in HollandI dreamed of derring-do. I was a spy behind the lines, I was a lone scout in enemy territory, I crept beneath barbed wire while tracer bullets scorched the air about me.

Of course we didnt have any real enemies in my hometown of Wittenot when I was very smallso we made enemies out of each other. We kids used our klompen to fight with; any boy who got himself hit with a wooden shoe just hadnt reached his own fast enough. I remember the day I broke a shoe over my enemy-friend Keess head. What horrified us both wasnt the enormous bump on his forehead but the ruined shoe. Kees and I forgot our war long enough to try repairing it. But this is a skill gained only with time, and that night my hard-working blacksmith father had to turn cobbler as well. Already that day Papa had got up at five to water and weed the garden that helped to feed his six children. Then he had pedaled four miles on his bicycle to his smithing job in Alkmaar. And now he had to spend the evening gouging a little trough across the top of the wooden shoe, pulling a wire through the trough, nailing the wire down on both sides, and repeating the process at the heel so that I could have some shoes to wear to school.

Andrew, you must be more careful! said my father in his loud voice. Papa was deaf and shouted rather than spoke. I understood him perfectly: He didnt mean careful of bones and blood, but of hard-earned possessions.

There was one family in particular that acted as the enemy in many of my boyish fantasies. This was the Family Whetstra.

Why I should have picked on the Whetstras I do not know, except that they were the first in our village to begin talking about war with Germanyand this was not a popular subject in Witte. Also they were strongly evangelical Christians. Their God-bless-yous and Lord-willings seemed sickeningly tame to a secret agent of my stature. So in my mind they were the enemy.

I remember once passing Mrs. Whetstras kitchen window just as she was putting cookies into the oven of her woodburning stove. Leaning against the front of the house was a new pane of window glass, and it gave me an idea. Here would be my chance to see if the ever-smiling Whetstras could get as mad as other Dutchmen. I picked up the piece of glass and moved ever so stealthily through the lines to the back of enemy headquarters. The Whetstras, like everyone in the village, had a ladder leading to their thatched roof. Off came my klompen, and up I went. Silently I placed the pane of glass on the chimney. Then I crept back down the ladder and across the street to post myself out of sight behind a fish-peddlers cart.

Sure enough the smoke backed down the chimney. It filled the kitchen and began to curl out the open window. Mrs. Whetstra ran into her kitchen with a scream, jerked open the oven door and fanned the smoke with her apron. Mr. Whetstra raced outside and looked up at his chimney. If I had expected a stream of rich Dutch prose I was disappointed, but the expression on his face as he climbed the ladder was entirely of-this-earth, and I chalked up for myself a tremendous victory against overwhelming odds.