Helping Holland Rebuild Her Land
395
and daughter sizestood ranged outside the
farmhouse door.
''Means they're not up," said Ernest. "Sun
day's the only morning they can sleep. We'll
leave a thank-you note."
Hoping to photograph islanders in Sunday
costumes, we drove back to Veere. Several
Dutch towns have a unique costume. Wal
cheren women are known, for instance, for
their snowy, starched caps (page 381).
The devout folk of Veere, however, showed
a reluctance to pose on the Sabbath. Respect
ing their feelings, we went down to the harbor
to see the fishing fleet.
Always the boats are home on Sunday.
Nets, drying in the sun, hung from masts like
ghostly sails. Old fishermen spun yarns
near by. Yachtsmen called to each other as
they made ready for a day's sail. Freshly
painted, a blue double-ended boat lay high
on tide-bared yellow sands.
"Look over there!" said Charlie. "Van
Gogh painted a scene just like that."
We went on to Domburg, and there we saw
ramparts which never yield to the sea. Huge
dunes of sand, they serve not only as impreg
nable dikes but as reservoirs.
The sand catches rain. The fresh water col
lects in pools beneath the dunes, and the
Dutch pipe the water to their towns.
Unfortunately, there are not enough natural
dunes. Only 200 miles of coast have them,
whereas the Dutch have built 1,800 miles of
artificial dikes. Beaches rivaling the ones at
Cape Cod front the Domburg dunes.
Week ends like this broke the monotony of
daily shoveling. So did little sights from bus
windows as we rode to and from our work.
Orange Streamer Honors Royal Birthday
One day every flagpole along the way
erupted a fluttering orange streamer above its
Dutch flag. The bus driver told us it was
August 5, Princess Irene's birthday.
"The Dutch love the royal family and fly
orange streamers in honor of the House of
Orange every time one of them has a birth
day," he said.
Our work gave us a chance to kid each
other about our supposed national characteris
tics. Germans and Swiss, we claimed, were
methodical. English and Danes worked hard
and fast. Americans worked in spurts. French
enthusiasm sometimes lagged; Italians on oc
casion sang instead of shoveling.
Because the railroad was single track, the
number-one kipwagen set the pace for all
others behind it. At first we Americans had
the lead car, and, with typical Yankee pride,
went too fast. An Italian team replaced us.
They went too slow.
Finally we called an international council,
which paired a Swiss and an Italian in the
lead. The Swiss worked out an elaborate
timetable, but the Italian wouldn't let him
keep to it. The result was a pace that suited
everybody, including the Dutch boss, and the
work went merrily on.
We daubed names in red clay on kipwagen
sides: Tarzan, Der Optimist, Plato, Malvolio,
the Black Spasm. At noon we swam from the
sea dike or played soccer.
In wooden shoes, the Dutch boys naturally
made unbeatable fullbacks, and never once
did the klompen take off through the air after
the kicked ball.
Nights we sat around hearing about each
other's lives, backgrounds, countries, ambi
tions. Most of the foreign students were
taking technical courses at college. Vittorio
planned to be a doctor, Philippe an architect.
