The Dutch Uncle

It was Christmas Day and little Danny was in disgrace. He had been so eager to get at his presents that he had awakened his parents long before they were ready to get up, he had thrown a tantrum because his presents didn't include the supersonic ray gun he had hoped to get, he had broken one of his new toys, he had quarrelled with his sister Greta and pulled her hair and made her cry, he had fidgeted and fussed in church, and he had wanted to be helped before everyone else at the Christmas dinner. Finally he had been sent to his room. He had been told that he wasn't fit for human company and he was to stay by himself until he was willing to behave better. But he wasn't thinking how badly he had behaved at all. Instead he was thinking that everyone else was mean and unkind and nobody loved him. He was quite determined not to

come out of his room until his parents said they were sorry. If they weren't sorry, then he would

stay there and starve until he was dead. "That would show them!"

Just as he was thinking all these naughty thoughts, a knock came at his door and a voice said, "Danny, may I come in?" Danny recognised the voice of his uncle Jaap who had come over

from Leyden to join the family for Christmas. Danny had never met his uncle before this visit, so he didn't quite know what to expect of him, but he didn't feel he was quite as angry with his uncle as with his parents, so he said, "I guess you can, if you want to." He didn't say it in a very welcoming way and he didn't say it very loud, but Uncle Jaap heard him and came in.

Danny was sitting hunched up on his bed with his knees drawn up and his hands clasped around his knees. He had made himself into a tight little ball of resentment and misery. But

Uncle Jaap came and sat down beside him, making the bed creak with his weight, and put one

arm round Danny. Little by little Danny relaxed and came out of his scrunched up position until he was cuddling up to his uncle. Uncle Jaap held him without saying anything while Danny made himself comfortable. Then he gave Danny a hug and the boy burst into tears. Uncle Jaap let him cry, holding him tight, and then gave him a big white handkerchief to wipe his eyes and blow his nose. It was only after that that Uncle Jaap started talking. But he didn't say anything about how bad Danny had been. Instead he started talking about Christmas, in a thoughtful kind

of way, as if Danny's behaviour wasn't the main thing on his mind at all.

"It's a big day, Christmas," said Uncle Jaap. "It's a big day for Christians, because it's the day Jesus was born and people like to treat their children almost as if they were the baby Jesus, giving them all the presents they would like to give Jesus and feel they can't give him. I think people feel they've been bad during the year and would like to make up for it somehow." Then he stopped and thought for a moment while Danny sat up in surprise. This view of the reason for giving presents was completely new to the boy. Then Uncle Jaap went on, "But maybe it's a mistake to cram so much into one day - the presents and going to church and the Christmas dinner, all at once. Particularly for children. It's tiring, even for the adults, and children get overexcited. Then everyone gets cross. But people don't celebrate Christmas this way all over the world. Not everyone tries to do everything at once the way you do over here. Back in

Holland we space things out a bit." Then he stopped again and sat quietly for a while.

Just when Danny thought his uncle wasn't going to say any more, Uncle Jaap went on,

"Would you like to hear how we do things in Holland?" Danny nodded, rather reluctantly, and

Uncle Jaap said, "Well, we don't give presents on Christmas Day. We just go to church and have a good dinner and the family gets together and drinks a lot of coffee and we all have a good

chat." This didn't sound like much fun to Danny. "Don't the children get any presents at all in Holland?" he asked, interested in spite of himself. "Oh yes, they get presents," said Uncle Jaap. "But they don't get them on Christmas Day. They get them on St. Nicholas Day." "When's that?" asked Danny. "December the fifth," said Uncle Jaap, "So they have plenty of time to calm

down by Christmas."

"St. Nicholas?" asked Danny. "He was a very good man who lived a long time ago," said

Uncle Jaap. "He was a bishop and he was very kind to poor children who had no one to look after them. So it was decided that he was the right man to give children presents. According to

what we tell our children in Holland, St. Nicholas lives in Spain during the year." "Not at the North Pole?" asked Danny. "Why does he live in Spain?" "I don't know," said Uncle Jaap.

"Maybe he likes a warm, sunny climate where it doesn't rain so much. After all, he's been bringing the Dutch children presents for hundreds and hundreds of years, so he must be quite old by now. The wet weather in Holland would be bad for his old joints. And the North Pole would be even worse. Anyway he comes all the way from Spain in a boat on the fifth of December. He has a white horse with him in the boat, and when he gets to Holland he goes up the canals in his boat. Somehow or other he manages to go up all the canals at once all over Holland, which is pretty unusual, but then he's a pretty special kind of person. Once he's got to the middle of a town, he gets out of the boat and gets onto his white horse to visit the children."

"Can you see him riding on his white horse?" asked Danny. "Yes, you can," said Uncle Jaap, "But you can also see him when he comes to each house in the evening. The children are all waiting at home for him, and as he draws near someone with black gloves on his hands

knocks at the door and throws a lot of hard, round cookies into the room. The children scramble

for the cookies and sing a St. Nicholas song as they do so. Then St. Nicholas arrives with his black servant, Black Peter." "Does St. Nicholas look like Santa Claus?" asked Danny. "No," said

Uncle Jaap. "He wears the white and gold robes of a bishop under a scarlet cloak and has a bishop's peaked hat on his head. Black Peter is dressed in rather comic-looking brightly-coloured clothes with black leotards and carries a sack of presents. Black Peter also carries a rod to whip

naughty children with."

"Oh, I don't like that," said Danny. "It's bad enough being sent away and shut up in my room without being whipped as well. Why do you think that's better than the way we do things?

But you're so good, I suppose you were good when you were a little boy, so you weren't scared of being whipped." "Oh, I could be pretty bad when I was a boy," said Uncle Jaap. "I remember that one St. Nicholas Day I was really scared I would get whipped by Black Peter and not get any presents." "What had you done?" asked Danny, beginning to smile. "I had had the idea of pretending to be a minister," said Uncle Jaap. "I took one of my sister's dolls and preached a sermon to it about the bad life it had led and said it must repent because it was about to die. Then I said it was dead and buried it. My mother found me reading the funeral service over the grave, and I was really in hot water for treating religion as a game and spoiling my sister's doll." "Was the doll really spoiled?" asked Danny. "Yes," said Uncle Jaap, "And that was a pity, because it was a very valuable old doll with real hair and a painted complexion. It had belonged to my mother when she was a little girl, and she had looked after it very carefully. But the ground

where I buried it was damp, and it took all the curl out of the doll's hair and made the paint on its face run. My sister never liked that doll so much after that, and it had been her favourite before."

Danny laughed and gave his uncle a nudge. "Did Black Peter whip you?" he asked, sounding quite excited. "No," said Uncle Jaap, "But he threatened to. And St. Nicholas read out the story of my bad deed from the big book he carries in which he lists the good and bad deeds of children throughout the year. It made me feel awful. But then he said that on the whole I had been more good than bad, so I would still get my presents." "What kind of presents did you get?" asked Danny. "Did you get a supersonic ray gun?" "No," said Uncle Jaap., "They hadn't been invented yet. I got a box of paints and some pencils and paper and a really nice picture book and a pair of skates. So I did quite well. But the biggest package of all, the one I opened first, was a great disappointment. I kept unwrapping it and unwrapping it, because there was one layer of paper under another. And at the very centre of all these wrappings was a piece of coal with a

verse attached to it."

"What a funny thing!" said Danny. "Why did St. Nicholas give you that?" "That was for having been bad," says Uncle Jaap. "And the verse was all about my bad deed." "What did it say?" asked Danny. "It's difficult to tell you," said Uncle Jaap, "Because it was in Dutch. In English it would go something like this:

The blackness of this piece of coal Is not much blacker than my soul

Was on that much lamented day

I took my sister's doll away

And buried it in our backyard.

Ah me, that dolly's fate was hard.

I have been told, and now I know, That I must never again do so."

"But the other presents were all right?" asked Danny. "Yes, they were fine," said Uncle Jaap.

"And no one ever mentioned my sister's doll again. Once I had read that verse it was all over

with."

"And you never did anything like that again?" asked Danny eagerly. "Not quite like that," said Uncle Jaap, "But I did do other things from time to time." "What kind of things?" asked Danny Now, now, said Uncle Jaap, "Tcar tspend the whole afermoon up here toline sou the

naughty things I did when I was a boy. Don't you think it's time you came down and made your peace with your father and mother? They must be wondering what you're up to." Danny hesitated. "You don't do things like that now?" he asked. "No, I don't do things like that anymore," said Uncle Jaap. "I think I must have grown out of it." "Will I grow out of it too?" asked Danny. "Of course you will," said Uncle Jaap. So Uncle Jaap and Danny went downstairs and Danny said that he was sorry and now he was ready to be good. So for the rest of Christmas Day he was quite good, and he went to bed feeling really happy with life and particularly happy about his uncle.