Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks | Page 3

at each other and their eyes showed how they enjoyed the fun. To have
a merman among them, at that hour, in broad daylight, and crying, was
too much for dignity.
"Boo-hoo, boo-hoo," and the merman still wept salt water tears, as he
tried to catch his breath. At last, he talked sensibly. He warned the
Queen that a party of horrid men, in wooden shoes, with pickaxes,
spades and pumps, were coming to drain the swamp and pump out the
pool. He had heard that they would make the river a canal and build a
dyke that should keep out the ocean.
"Alas! alas!" cried one mermaid, wringing her hands. "Where shall we
go when our pool is destroyed? We can't live in the ocean all the time."
Then she wept copiously. The salt water tears fell from her great round
eyes in big drops.
"Hush!" cried the Queen. "I don't believe the merman's story. He only
tells it to frighten us. It's just like him."
In fact, the Queen suspected that the merman's story was all a sham and
that he had come among her maids with a set purpose to run off with

Silver Scales. She was one of the prettiest mermaids in the company,
but very young, vain and frivolous. It was no secret that she and the
merman were in love and wanted to get married.
So the Queen, without even thanking him, dismissed the swimming
messenger. After dinner, the company broke up and the Queen retired
to her cave to take a long nap! She was quite tired after entertaining so
much company. Besides, since daddy and mother were away, and there
were no beaus to entertain, since it was a dark night and no moon
shining on the water, why need she get up early in the morning?
So the Mermaid Queen slept much longer than ever before. Indeed, it
was not till near sunset the next day that she awoke. Then, taking her
comb and mirror in hand, she started to swim and splash in the pool, in
order to smooth out her tresses and get ready for supper.
But oh, what a change from the day before! What was the matter? All
around her things looked different. The water had fallen low and the
pool was nearly empty. The river, instead of flowing, was as quiet as a
pond. Horrors! when she swam forward, what should she see but a
dyke and fences! An army of horrid men had come, when she was
asleep, and built a dam. They had fenced round the swamp and were
actually beginning to dig sluices to drain the land. Some were at work,
building a windmill to help in pumping out the water.
The first thing she knew she had bumped her pretty nose against the
dam. She thought at once of escaping over the logs and into the sea.
When she tried to clamber over the top and get through the fence, her
hair got so entangled between the bars that she had to throw away her
comb and mirror and try to untangle her tresses. The more she tried, the
worse became the tangle. Soon her long hair was all twisted up in the
timber. In vain were her struggles to escape. She was ready to die with
fright, when she saw four horrid men rush up to seize her. She
attempted to waddle away, but her long hair held her to the post and
rails. Her modesty was so dreadfully shocked that she fainted away.
When she came to herself, she found she was in a big long tub. A
crowd of curious little girls and boys were looking at her, for she was

on show as a great curiosity. They were bound to see her and get their
money's worth in looking, for they had paid a stiver (two cents)
admission to the show. Again, before all these eyes, her modesty was
so shocked that she gave one groan, flopped over and died in the tub.
Woe to the poor father and mother at Urk! They came back to find their
old home gone. Unable to get into it, they swam out to sea, never
stopping till they reached Spitzbergen.
What became of the body of the Mermaid Queen?
Learned men came from Leyden to examine what was now only a
specimen, and to see how mermaids were made up. Then her skin was
stuffed, and glass eyes put in, where her shining orbs had been. After
this, her body was stuffed and mounted in the museum, that is, set up
above a glass case and resting upon iron rods. Artists came to Leyden
to make pictures of her and no fewer than nine noblemen copied her
pretty form and features into their