Hendrik Wageman is a good tradesman; however, it has taken him years to learn his trade.

Jeus sees that he cannot learn that work by looking at it or talking about it now and again, it takes too long for him, and then you are still a mere joiner.

“No, mother”, Crisje hears.

“That is nothing for me!”

That cutting pieces of wood and building castles of wood which uncle Otto does ,means nothing to him either, it is too fiddly for his life, you have to sit in one place for too long, he has no patience for that.

And then what are you?

Three days later he is back in Emmerik again, at Breitenstein, where Bernard worked.

He has to turn iron from iron, the beginning of a good trade, and enough to get married with later, because that is everything and a person lives in this world for that purpose.

Only when you have a house full of children, are you a man.

If you have not achieved this, you are nothing.

He wants to get married later and that must mean his happiness.

Were father and mother not happy because of the boys?

Bernard talks to him, he hears all kinds of things and now asks:

“Does chocolate now mean so much, Bernard?”

“Make sure you are there, because that is where the money is”, he gets to hear from Bernard, and he knows.

“Yes”, Bernard continues, “because they have nothing more of anything there in Emmerik.

The krauts are already starving.

But we are doing well!

Then they should just not have gone to war!”

Jeus sees that Bernard takes his artificial leg apart in the evenings.

Then about a dozen bars of chocolate disappear into the wooden knee of his leg.

Bernard gets some thirty cents more for each piece.

Just add that up for a week.

Another weekly wage and you can now earn that with your eyes closed.

Life is good, also for Bernard.

Our Lord said to Bernard: ‘Bernard.

I got you, didn’t I, but now there is something to be earned, make sure you are there.’

And Bernard is there.

So are Hendrik and Gerrit, they no longer know what to do with their money, because Crisje may not know.

They cannot spend it, but they are real bankers.

‘How much do you want from me, Jeus?’

Hendrik is just twelve years old and little Gerrit is ten, but there is plenty of money.

The children are going to ‘catch tadpoles’ and run across the border.

At the water’s edge of the Wetering, there are always people who want to have bars of chocolate, and you earn money like water.

Johan cannot do it.

The border guards see by his face that he has something with him that is not allowed.

They would get Johan immediately, Crisje sees that Johan is not at all like the Tall One!

Hendrik, Gerrit, and Bernard a bit for himself now have the character of the Tall One.

It is a sport of the best kind, which makes you sing whether you like it or not.

You are never grumpy at all now.

You should see Bernard and Jeus on a Sunday.

They leave well dressed; but Jeus does not yet dare so well.

He is envious of Bernard’s artificial leg.

They will never get him.

You hear the craziest stories here and everyone excuses everything, but what do you want?

It is the truth!

They are only taking back their sweat and blood.

They have been sucked empty for long enough by the krauts.

This is their guarantee!

They know that this is their only chance in this life.

Now make sure you are there.

In a while it will be over, and you can sweat and bleed again, but then not me!

There is now no longer a gap between poor and rich, the leading citizens and the poorest, they have all sorts of things!

The leading citizens now have to eat humble pie.

They have power!

What do you want?

Here is the money.

You will get nothing more from me, nothing!

The debts are settled.

The man in his little cabin now looks straight into the human form of Our Lord, a satisfaction, which they have not known for years.

That has now disappeared in one go!

You were mad to neglect this happiness, not to see it, otherwise it would laugh right in your face, and that must not happen.

‘Of course’, you now hear.

‘Our Lord is good to us.’

Father sees that there were never so many grateful people in the church before.

The old Father should have seen that; then he would have seen something else entirely.

Are the children obedient?

Just take a look, sexton.

They are gambling in your church.

And they are not afraid, not at all.

They feel, large and small, this is the time of Our Lord!

And when Bernard also said that, Wageman had to laugh heartily.

A miracle in itself, Crisje thought, how a person can change, after all.

Crisje does not know that the boys have so much money.

Bernard says that you earn more there, because the krauts have lost all their men.

Wageman says dryly:

“Yes, I can understand that, Bernard, but as a result of the chocolate!”

“Is that true, Bernard?”... Crisje asks.

“I didn’t think that about you.”

For Crisje, it is devil’s money.

Bernard laughs, he has a good life.

What would mother say to five hundred guilders, which little Gerrit and Hendrik now carry in their pockets?

Then there is the other lot, which they have hidden under the roof tiles?

Bernard knows that Crisje would just succumb if she knew everything.

Jeus investigates the matter, but he does not dare,

He is worried about jail.

He is not a scaredy cat either.

At Rossem and De Bruin people are already being laid off.

There is nothing more to be earned there now.

All the factories are working at half power.

Only the machine factories pay heavy money.

Crisje has everything.

The boys pay their money, so she has nothing to say.

However, Crisje is not stupid.

She thinks day and night.

And in a few years it will happen; the boys will get a surprise.

Crisje already has a plan for herself.

The boys, she knows, are now working away from Our Lord.

She will bring those scales back into the universal balance, and Our Lord will not be able to accuse them later.

However, she needs some time for this yet.

Hendrik is working; he does not get involved in that smuggling, he never goes to Emmerik either.

When Jeus got the opportunity to talk to Crisje, she told him how she had changed life.

It was after the last nervous convulsion, when she heard the Tall One say, as it were:

‘Cris, you must take a different approach to that monkey.

You must let him stew in his own juice.

You must not pay any attention to him, otherwise you will go under.

And that, must not happen, Cris.

You still have the children!’

“Then Jeus, I knew”, Crisje said.

‘Yes, he was still grumpy for a while after you left, but I taught him successfully not to do that.”

When he came home with a drink in him, and thought he could get away with nonsense, Crisje left him alone.

Otto and Trui have also changed a lot.

Otto now saw that Hendrik, his brother, did not know what he was doing.

Trui started to feel sorry for her sister and from that moment, Wageman got no more help.

His sister Marie was also chucked out.

Otto and Trui understood that Marie was spoiling him.

She did not want either of the women to have her brothers, as a result of which Trui understood for the first time that Marie needed a man, and that changed her spirit with regard to Crisje.

Hendrik was now alone, Crisje went to Trui and Otto and now the big, but yet small man was left flabbergasted.

Does Hendrik not want any coffee?

No?

Hendrik has not had coffee from Crisje for days.

Tomorrow is another day.

Does Hendrik not want the special coffee today?

Yes, that is okay, that is being nice for a change.

Does Hendrik not want any food?

Well done, but try throwing the food from the table again.

Then Hendrik will have to leave!

“I had to laugh about it myself, Jeus”, Crisje now says, “he was sitting there getting terribly annoyed.

But, I went away and left him to it.

But he does not throw food any more.”

Jeus thought mother was great!

“My God, mother, how happy I am now.”

Mother was good and strong.

Crisje has brought Wageman to the real human part through her unbelievable patience and love.

There will also come a time, which will happen, that Wageman will cry like a small child, because he is missing his Crisje.

Then the realization will have dawned on him, and he will enjoy the mighty love which the Tall One once received, and he experienced his paradise as a result, but then Crisje will be back with her Tall One.

Or he will, as it now appears, enjoy it sooner and Wageman will understand that a person like Crisje can be declared a saint and has nothing to do with nonsense, because he knows all about it!

Yes, Jeus, within a short time miracles have happened here.

Even if he grumbles now and again, a lot has still been brought under control, and he is now hanging on her skirts.

Crisje did not want anything more to do with long faces.

The Tall One was watching out!

Good work.

We knew that you would not leave Crisje alone.

It is a great example for this world; all those beaten children of Our Lord should know this now.

But they will know one day, Tall One, and that through Jeus!

Crisje can now say: life is great, however, she still misses her Tall One.

And aunt Trui has cultivated her first flowers for Our Lord.

At the moment, it is mere ‘clover’ but it is there!

Her Saviour also accepts the most trivial.

Crisje is enjoying it!

So you see, every person can be worked upon.

Wageman has lost!

Trui bows her head.

What used to live in her, has now been beaten to death completely and she has worked on herself.

Would you have imagined this, Jeus?

That is also a miracle!

Crisje’s troubles brought the other life to deep thought.

If you are faced with death almost every day and the real human ‘going crazy’, you have to learn to think, and then you learn something as well.

And because the misery was so awful, it also happened so quickly.

Every day was a spoke in his own wheels for the other person, a trembling for that little human heart that greased the inner machine, and now those human brains began to think differently.

The sun now shines through aunt Trui’s gate.

The neighbourhood likes her.

She has cleared her path now, not through the life of feeling of another person, but by her own sensible thinking and understanding.

The fact is that you have to start sometime.

The great things such as Crisje has accomplished kindle the sensitive plant, and Crisje saw the first little flower.

Congratulations, Trui!

Also Otto!

He now also proves to be a person of good will, or is Gradus behind it?

But so what?

You have to do it yourself, such inspirations, such as Crisje receives and can experience cannot chase or direct Trui’s inner life.

It is her good core, of course, that’s it!

And now that Marie has shown herself, now the men see what she really wanted, she does not need to try any more to separate these people.

If there is any separation to be made, the two brothers are most proficient at that.

Be careful, Marie, or they will also make a coffin for your life!

Only now did aunt Trui get to hear who had really plucked her beautiful cockerel, when the Tall One and Gradus were still alive.

Yes, Bernard, you can laugh about it now, but I knew that you had done it!

Aunt Trui was not that stupid either.

How they could laugh at it now and judge that it was a daring piece of fun by Bernard.

Yes, times change, look for yourself.

People’s pockets are bursting with money.

It has never been so good here before.

The murder weapons are now buried, but Wageman lived between ‘life and death’ and did not know it.

Death ‘floated’ behind him but he certainly did not feel it.

He is still here!

Miets and Teun have lost their pins.

They all saw that father was having a quiet chat with mother, everything was gone, the sun shone again and life was wonderful once more!

Only Johan was still walking about without any hair on his head and with a burnt face and that was really all that was left of it.

And it all started when Johan wanted to try it with red-hot fire, he felt like having a pancake.

Crisje was gone for a moment.

Johan threw a lot of oil on the fire and was ready to toss the pancake in the same way as Crisje could do, but the pancake flew into the fire with all the oil.

Whiz, it said, but that whiz cost him his face, his hair, and almost his eyes as well, and Johan did not even cry.

Johan did not tell Crisje, what had been the real reason behind him making the pancake, but it was bad!

So you see if you dig a hole for another person, Johan knows all about it, you will fall into it yourself.

This was almost a big hole, but there were also blisters, so that Johan had to rest for a few weeks.

Was there not enough misery in the world?

To top it all.

Crisje could never even go out for a moment and Wageman said nothing, other then they should just have stayed away from the stove.

And Hendrik was right about that!

The hatchets were buried, life carried on, even if the human discovery was still there, the ship on which you stood was floating towards pleasant waters.

They had just left that puddle with stinking oil and there were no more cliffs.

What you saw was an open space and now Crisje could get her breath back for a moment, Jeus; her gall bladder got peace, her hair could fill out again, and Crisje had a bit left from a pound of rice a week, and that meant something, after all.

And can you believe it, just look in the shed.

Yes, Jeus, we have a pig in the sty again, our own pig!

We also have a piece of land again as well.

Is life not good to us now?

This is how Jeus sees the ship, of which the Tall One now sees that he, if he had still been there, could have made a palace.

Then to have to find out that the worst part is still to come.

What the boys experience, what everyone here experiences is just child’s play, compared to the other mighty thing which will come, soon, because it will be deadly serious, and Hendrik and little Gerrit will start on a large scale.

One thing is certain, the angels, dear Crisje, now know whether a second marriage like that brings blessings, how you must serve your husband or wife if you want to achieve something.

Only then will Our Lord be behind you!

That is inspiration, Crisje, the pointer of your Tall One, and counts for everyone.

This is for every person who wants to live in peace and quiet, and who has a will, otherwise life will not mean a thing.

Now you could say again, that is different for everyone, but that is not true; because, the human machine remains the means and that clockwork can work magic as well, the most wooden heart will get new blood, if you only persist and continue to pray.

Only then will Our Lord know that you are serious!

HE has no longer any respect for laziness.

Then your life will transfer to another life.

And if you do not want to believe that, there also comes: a person is made from Divine fire.

So make yourself fiery, Crisje could do that.

And her flame, can you believe it, transferred to Wageman and set fire to his inner life and everyone’s spirit.

Jeus, you will understand, of course!

In Emmerik Jeus is working behind a machine and talking to the soul of the iron, he is making little screws and bolts for another machine, as a result of which people destroy each other.

He does not need to think about his household now; times have changed.

Crisje asks him whether he also takes chocolate with him and he replies: “No, mother.

I am afraid to do that.”

However, first it was five bars and a while later ten bars.

The money is also there for the picking for him.

He does gymnastics, cycles, and plays football and you need money for that.

The thing that Jan Lemmekus is so good at, flinging someone over his back, he is learning that now.

You must be quick for that and he can think; he is as fast as lightning.

Now they talk about when they were little.

Do you still remember that, Bernard?

They talk about when they went out to discover the neighbourhood as children.

Now they are already men, they play their lotto and drink their beer, have fun and live like Gods.

Marinus Jaspes is also there.

They now have their own bicycles, and Jeus is one of the best acrobatic cyclists there is here.

He cycles on one wheel, does wheelies as well; they know, he is thinking and by thinking, you have everything.

The Emmerik of the olden days was beautiful.

It is now as poor as a church mouse.

The mice are lying here dead in front of the cupboard, but those crazy krauts wanted that themselves.

You should not start a war, because then you can expect poverty.

And that ‘where we come from’ has already gone.

The ‘Stolzen Fels am Rein’ means nothing any more.

A pound of sausage costs a fortune, whether there are dogs in it, does not matter.

Everyone likes a nice spicy sausage.

‘Oh well, delicious sausage is now nice and spicy.

And my wife has to have nice sausages.

If you wish to pay ...

Fanny from the Grintweg, he still takes vegetables to Emmerik, and can tell you the best stories.

Fanny is a friend of Bernard and Jeus, and this pair is hilarious.

Fanny could earn a pile of money in the town due to his natural nonsense.

Fanny is a born comedian.

His stories are spiced up.

You always have to laugh; Willem Ernst knows that as well, when Fanny is there, the place is full.

And now these three together.

Also Bernard and Jeus telling their party pieces.

Bernard and Jeus can sing.

There is great fun.

Now they can hear the boys at the border control laughing.

It is strange, but the whole neighbourhood comes together here, there is always something to laugh about here.

Here you never sit with your drink grumbling, here you get something lively, because Fanny carries all the thoughts of hundreds of people in him and knows what to do with them.

His horse Fanny, which, he was also named after, is already just like his boss.

Fanny says: “It is already desperate to get hold of the chocolate in my bag!

It already knows when it has to run and it understands marks and Dutch guilders!

My God!” he utters, “how I had to laugh this week.

They had got that one of the little goose.

And now he can no longer sit at the front of the church.

Father does not want to see him any more.

And now he cannot look anyone in the eye any more.

But what I meant, Jeus?

You know, that boss of yours at van Gimborn, not that good one, but that bad one, who got rid of so many, he came to me at the market this week.

He asked me: ‘Hendrik, do you not have any sausage, my wife is starving.’

‘Oh well’, I said.

‘But of course.

I have also sausage”, and I immediately held a nice piece of sausage under his nose.”

Fanny now looks at everyone in turn.

Now here it comes, when he utters: “But did you think that he saw that Diekman’s dog was looking him right in the face?

I let him pay twelve marks and then I thought, times have changed.

That is for you and your wife.

But we have not yet forgotten you, as long as you know.

He has to have a few more pounds, his mother-in-law also likes dog sausage.”

The prudish people of the area are also followed and betrayed.

They know about that smuggling to the border and Red Mina already knows what to do.

And they also have fun with that.

There are enough who do not want to know.

They do not want to lose their little crowns and they now throw those things from those heads.

Just admit it.

We know very well, that you would not have food otherwise.

If Father could do it, he would smuggle as well.

They have already grabbed blackcoats (clergymen) at the border.

The bars of chocolate rolled out from under the skirts, but they were not from the nuns, they were lying just like that on the street.

You now hear the strangest things.

But are they wrong?

Our Lord is now on their side.

What would you say to one mark twenty per piece?

And that paid out a hundred times and a thousand times?

No one has counted on these times.

So unexpectedly did Our Lord put them all in riches, because they do not want to listen there on the other side.

The Tall One would have wanted to experience this, Crisje.

He would have transferred millions of them and this would therefore have been the sport of his life.

Of the two hundred and fifty men and women who work in Emmerik, six hundred smuggle!

Out of greed?

Not at all.

They are getting their sweat and blood back there.

Only the big ones, who smuggle cows and horses, they are the thieves.

And if the little ones can betray them, they do that as well, because those men do it in a dirty way, they walk with guns in their pockets and do not hesitate to gun a person down, which makes the little ones tremble and shake and they do not want anything to do with that kind either.

Young and old, rich and poor, smuggle!

One does it for the family there, another one does it in order to get back his sweat and blood, the enormous hiding which they had to swallow during their life amongst the krauts, but is now exchanged for their own marks.

And they have almost nothing more there.

The saints are suffering poverty here.

The prominent people have nothing more to say.

The baron can tell them more, they no longer believe that man, and they also make a grab for money.

What do you expect?

The people of the Grintweg now live differently.

The shopkeepers are becoming rich, you do not see the things at home for a minute, everything disappears before your eyes, but they have settled and there are no more credit books to be seen.

What do you want?

Does this not mean a single thing any more to you?

Did you think that Our Lord did not know what HE means with his children?

You do not need to confess this, you do not fall into purgatory either, but for Crisje it is and will remain devil’s money!

Fetching trees on German soil is possible, they already saw that happen before the war.

But, customs officer, just look at your landlord, what is under the wagon?

That man always sits at the front of the church.

That man behaves in a saintly way, but that man is also smuggling.

And yes, the landlord was caught.

They got ten thousand bars of chocolate from under the wagon, and now?

Just look at those heads, they are already bent!

There is not one of them in the church without margarine on his head.

The church is slippery because of it.

Father knows, his sermons also change.

After the morning when they caught the blackcoats, and then?

Good heavens, but how they laughed.

And then what disappears over the Hunzeleberg.

That takes place at night, those men found a hole in order to escape paradise and do it on a large scale.

Hendrik and little Gerrit are already discussing the matter.

They also want to go higher up.

There is more to be earned.

What did you say, Hent?

“I thought so, Fanny.

First, a new suit for me.

Then, my Alie a new pair of shoes and a nice Sunday coat.

Then a new suit again for me and all kinds of things for the children.

How do I look now, Fanny?”

But what has happened to all those men and women?

They laugh day in day out.

They enjoy life and they tell each other nice things.

Life has never been so good before.

Father does not need to get on to his children to pray, they now do it of their own accord.

Our Lord gets the profit.

You do not see any exhausted men and women now.

They allow themselves treats.

They now have their happiness.

“This one is for me, Bernard!”

“And this one and this one as well and then another three, those are for me, Bad!”

Bernard and Jeus can now say that.

They can all say that and there is fun now, life is good, people have never understood each other so well.

“Come and have a look in my house, Hent, then I will show you my pigs.

I will show you what we live for today!”

And that is the way it is!

They all have their little pig, their piece of ground as well, some cattle, for their wife and children.

This is how Our Lord really meant it to be.

It is strange; you have to take care of it yourself.

The people from the State cannot do it; they throw money away.

The ministers do not know.

Did Our Lord not promise a paradise for all HIS children?

This is it!

However, they are building it for themselves, and if you were to still listen to the State, you would be off the mark again and outside Our Lord’s paradise.

But that does not exist now, they take care of themselves!

And believe it, they take their hats off.

Look their Saviour straight in the eye, they are not committing any sins.

Do you know what a sin is?

That is when you throw the people’s money about.

Or did you think that they had no brains here?

When Jeus gave a kraut in Emmerik a hiding because that same kraut behaved strangely and put out his hands to him, he was sacked.

When he had to go to the highest power and said what he thought about it, he was told:

‘We are not krauts!

We are not blighters!

Understood?

What do you want?

To give the German people a bad name?

Cursed dung eaters!’

That means dung eaters, Jeus learned in Nijmegen, but then there came: ‘Out of here!’

However, the others did not accept that and then they all left.

The boss had to change his mind and they were allowed to stay.

Now there was no fun in it anymore for him.

Everything came to a standstill in Emmerik as well, better to be at home with the farmers on the land.

Digging up stumps and getting potatoes out of the ground is a nice job, especially if you are able to do that with Dien Gutter Pisser, Anneke, and Mieneke Hosman.

If you work with girls, the time passes more quickly.

However, the ‘Stolzen Fels Am Rhein’ continues.

Gerrit and Hendrik will make him out to be a scaredy cat, Crisje, and then they will smuggle together.

Crisje is now absolutely sure.

That she had to marry Wageman.

Johan has been called up.

And will go to The Hague; he will become a grenadier.

Bernard no longer needs to join the army and then Jeus will come later, unless he draws a blank in the army lottery process.

Nevertheless, the sun is still shining here day and night.

Everywhere you see new things, and you hear snoring in the little houses.

That is the pigs which they are fattening and will soon sell for a lot of money or slaughter for themselves.

You can never know how long it will still last.

And Our Lord said: .

‘Just continue, My children.

The rest of this world has gone completely mad!’

Hendrik and Gerrit have found a hole for themselves in order to escape the paradise.

If you want to go to the border, then you can manage that in only ten minutes, but it now takes them three hours.

They have found a path for that, through the woods, straight to the Hunzeleberg, which crosses the three hundred metres.

Twenty times a day, then ten times a night in order to get used to it, and only then did they know how to reach a little road of one metre wide in Germany.

This road is a miracle.

Because no one can find it, and no customs officer is capable of it.

They know the woods!

Do you not feel like going with us, Jeus?

We will now take a thousand with us, tomorrow five thousand and we do not know any more what to do with all our money.

Crisje saw that their beds were empty, and they had to confess.

They laid all the money for her on the table.

Only little Gerrit was not stupid.

he kept some for a rainy day.

However, Hendrik couldn’t be bothered.

Crisje has her plan ready.

She has thought about it day and night.

Her boys are working away from Our Lord.

She will bring the scales back to the universal balance and they will not even need to confess in the end.

Did you think, Gerrit, that you could fool Crisje?

The boys wander peacefully into the woods, the bars of chocolate are under their jackets.

If there are enough hidden there, they will smuggle.

In one night Hendrik and Gerrit come home with a profit of three hundred guilders and that sometimes three times a week, that mounts up and it is making Crisje nervous.

She is barely able to spend it in one week; the boys are earning that much, they possess all the qualities of the Tall One.

In the Grintweg someone asks:

“Do you know where Mother Crisje lives?”

“There beside the pump.”

“Oh, thank you.”

Crisje says: “Listen, you are behaving as if you have to pay for everything.”

“But of course, Mother Crisje.”

People get everything for nothing.

In Berlin, they already know where Mother Crisje lives.

People cross the border from Poland and go straight to the Grintweg.

They disappear again with a good store, the boys show them the way back, but do not know that the money is going back to where it came from, only Crisje and Our Lord know.

However, Bernard and Jeus also quickly realize it.

Crisje knows what she wants, that money is from the devil and if the boys won’t stop smuggling, she will do it her way.

It is the only thing in order not to come to grief and Our Lord said:

‘It is good like that, Crisje, we will not allow ourselves to be cheated either, what about you?’

Crisje has plenty of money.

Masses of people can eat from it and it now continues in this way.

Wageman does not interfere in anything, it is none of his business, and that is just as well.

He had better not try to forbid her that, it is her task, her satisfaction as well, she stakes her blood and her life for it.

It is the most beautiful thing you can do for Our Lord.

True or not, you can see it for yourself of course!

‘But what a time, but what a time this is!’

And the Tall One says that in his world.

The Tall One also says:

‘Cris, if I had known that, they would not have been able to destroy me.

Then I would not have died myself, of course.’

Yes, Tall One, everyone believes that of you.

What kind of a life would he have made of it?

You would now have played the part of Baron.

You would have made it into a farm with a hundred cows.

True or not, Tall One, you would have smuggled that sparks flew from it, but you with your brains, you would have done it differently, very differently.

Now you have just missed it.

You have something else to do, you can now watch over your Crisje.

Does Bernard not need a new and better artificial leg?

Do it, Bernard, buy ten of them, you will probably not be able to do it soon and the krauts have plenty of them.

Bernard gets a new leg again, but one in which some thirty bars of chocolate disappear, in which a kilo of butter fits and something else.

Can you believe it, Bernard told them himself how they should make his knee.

And Our Lord also had to laugh about it.

Even the angels.

The nice stories from here and the boys move to the heavens.

On Sunday mornings they are each told Fanny said, so he talked along the lines of Gerrit Noesthede, because Gerrit knows all about it.

And now say so yourself, how much precious money is not being wasted, you hear every day and they send it to St Peter.

Pass it on, St Peter.

Gerrit, try out my new bicycle.

How do you like these doves?

They are flying back home again from England.

And we will win first prize with these.

Will you come for a game of billiards, we are waiting for bad weather, after all, and then we will have something to do.

It is at that stage that the customs officers accept their money.

Some of them have their own little houses and that is better, a thousand times better than putting poor people behind bars.

But the big ones are suffering and of course, there are always the sticklers for regulations.

The remainder sit at the table with them and laugh.

The State can ‘drop dead’!

Everyone here acts as minister of finances and they do not need The Hague for that.

Johan now knows and can convince Crisje, they are throwing money away there.

And that is our money.

Just let the people smuggle, mother, what you see there is pitiful.

Amazing that Johan has already realized that now!

Johan has never been so astonished as he is now.

He cannot understand it, money is so precious, and they waste so much money there.

Well, then the crumbs are for us!

And now everyone here has a crumbs’ biscuit tin behind the box bed with thousands.

Real hard Dutch guilders, happily swapped for marks, because not a cent will remain there.

Did you think, Jan Treup, that they were mad here?

Is Jeus really a scaredy cat, Crisje?

Gerrit calls him names day and night.

He calls him a monkey-balls; and you know what that means.

Jeus thinks about his life.

But he is not a scaredy cat.

If he lets Gerrit see what he saw day and night here in the attic, little Gerrit would run out of the attic.

But Jeus is not afraid of that.

Miets and Teun aren’t either.

Strange things happen there.

It started in Nijmegen.

There pieces of wood made ticking noises and pieces of wood went for a walk.

Now Jan Knie’p and uncle Gradus are walking around.

Now and again, he sees father as well.

What do they want from him?

They walk just like that through your bed, through your body, they roll over you, and nothing happens.

But that is why it is so strange.

Casje is there as well sometimes, but he does not see Fanny.

And he wants to get away occasionally even if it was only because of these strange things.

Jan Knie’p said to him: ‘

Jeus, it is so wonderful here.

You look back at your own life and that is now the best part.

I feel so happy if I feel and see Crisje again for a moment.

And you know all of that.

Is that not the case, Jeus?

From time to time I come and visit mother.

I must do something for your father and that is a nice job.

Uncle Gradus as well.’

Jan Knie’p said that to him.

Jan came to pay Crisje a visit and found it so nice on earth and in the attic.

It was then that Jeus said to Gerrit and Hendrik:

“Look, Jan Knie’p is walking about there”, they were in a bad way and he knew that he was not a scaredy cat, but he would also prove it to them by smuggling!

Hendrik replied with: “you can pull the other one”, he meant, ‘Jan Knie’p is not there.’

But when Hendrik heard the creaking and the footsteps of Jan, big Hendrik, who is not afraid of any devil, became pale and he could laugh about it again; they were even!

But he wants to get away from these matters for a change.

“Good day, Jan!”

“Good day, Jeus.”

“Just tell father that I will smuggle this evening!”

“Yes, Jeus”, Jan Knie’p said.

And now Tall One, there will be smuggling.

Now your whole family is smuggling!

What do you have to say to that?

“Oh, mother, they have got him.”

And now to ‘Stolzen Fels Am Rhein’.

I will not get my blood back, but I will show them that I am not a scaredy cat!

That is all for now!