“Let’s see who beats to the top!”
That was Coba. She did not wait for an answer, but was off toward the dike at a run. Her brother Art and his friend Len followed close behind.
They didn’t run far. The dike of North Beveland is steep and slippery. The climbers pulled themselves up towards its top by clutching tall grasses, and had to dig their fingers into the mud to make headway where there was no grass.
Halfway to the top, Art came near catching up with Coba, but he lost his foothold. Len was close behind him, and the two boys slid part way down together. So Coba, tomboy that she was, reached the top first.
“Hurray!” she cried, as she pulled herself erect.
But a violent blast of wind snatched the word out of her mouth and nearly blew her over. Quickly she ducked back into the shelter of the dike. It was the boys, after all, who were first to stand on the top.
Coba crept up after them, and sheltered behind them. But when she looked down at the wild sea and heard the screaming wind and the thundering waves, she could not help shivering. The roaring breakers were dashing against the dike with terrible force. They sent splashes of white foam flying high into the air. Ordinarily, the sea viewed from the dike was gray, if the day was cloudy as now. On a sunny day, there were often little feathery tufts of foam sparkling on green wavelets. But today it was a boiling, churning sea; bits of foam flew up into the children’s faces, and the wind was so strong that they had to lean against it to keep from being blown over. Even Art and Len gasped for breath, and the noise was deafening.
“Let’s go!” Art motioned with his arm, for he couldn’t hear his own voice.
As they scrambled down the thick embankment, the roar of the waves was muffled. But it still echoed in their ears. It had deafened them, and there was a noise in their ears like the flapping of sails in the wind.
“It was beautiful, though!” Art declared.
“Grand!” said Len. But Coba said nothing. “How did you like it, Cobie?” Art asked.
Coba was usually ready with her tongue, but she hesitated to answer. She was busy soiling her handkerchief without getting her hands much cleaner. “I ... I think it was terrible!” she said at last with a shiver.
Art shrugged his shoulders. “What is so terrible about the sea? It’s grand. It’s tremendous. But it isn’t terrible. It’s nothing to shiver about.”
They found their school books where they had left them, in the shelter of a bush, and started back toward town. The boys talked as they walked. Coba was quiet. Every now and then she shook.
“Did you get cold?” Art asked her.
She shook her head. “That isn’t it,” she said.
“What, then?”
“Well ... aren’t you the least bit afraid?” she asked.
“Afraid!” both boys exclaimed at once. “Afraid of what?”
“But suppose the dike should break!”
The boys laughed. Coba was proving herself to be a girl, after all, in spite of her tomboy ways. “The dike can’t break!” Len declared.
“The dikes used to break,” Coba protested.
“That was before they were big and strong,” the boys answered together. “Look at it!” Len added.
Coba glanced up at the wall beside which they were walking. It was truly high and thick and strong. But bits of foam came flying over its top with each wave that broke against it, and Coba said, “It’s high on this side, but on the other side there’s all that water. When you stand on top, there doesn’t seem to be any dike at all.”
“Well, there is one, all right,” Len said with a laugh. “And it’s a good strong one.”
Art, laughing, added, “Let the old breakers come!”
Coba tried to laugh with them about her fears. But she couldn’t quite stop shivering.
As soon as they were in the village, in the protection of the houses, she felt a little more at ease. The pounding of the waves wasn’t quite so near and so loud, and she couldn’t see that spray of foam and water flying over the dike.
Art and Coba picked up their bicycles at school. “See you this afternoon,” Art said to Len as they prepared to ride off.
“I’ll be there at three-thirty,” Len promised.
With the wind behind them, they hardly had to use the pedals. They fairly flew along the little path between the fields. But when they turned the corner, and the wind was against them, it was another matter. Before they had gone ten feet, they had to give up and walk. The wind simply blew them off the path. Even walking was next to impossible. Coba managed to get along by sheltering behind Art. But when he got ahead of her she could not get her breath. She had to stop and turn her back to the wind.
“Wait for me!” she called, but Art did not hear her. The wind blew her voice away, and Art was bending against the storm, fighting his way into it.
Coba tried to follow him. A fierce gust of wind blew icy rain and hail into her face. She had to turn her back to it again. No matter how she tried, she could not face it. The wind kept whipping her breath away, so that she gasped for air. If only Art would wait! She couldn’t make him hear. Sobs began to choke her throat as she stood there with the wind and rain beating wildly against her back.
Suddenly Art was beside her. “Come on, Co! What’s the matter? What are you crying about?”
“I’m not crying! And I am coming! Only don’t go so fast!” She wiped her face with her wet coat sleeve. She did not want to cry, and she wouldn’t admit how terribly frightened she was. She set her teeth.
Art laid the two bicycles at the side of the path, under the bushes. They’d find them Monday morning. The one important thing now was to get home safely.
He made Coba put her hands on his shoulders and walk behind him, the way they often skated in wintertime. And so they set out. But the way home seemed endless. The howling wind ripped at them, the rain and hail beat upon them without mercy. They were dead tired and could hardly make headway.
“Toot toot!”
The auto horn sounding close behind them made Art jump aside, dragging Coba along. But the car stopped. The door swung open, and a boy’s voice called, “Jump in!”
It was Len, with his father. Len had told his father that Coba and Art were on their way home with their bikes, and Mr. Cozynse had exclaimed. “They can’t ride their bikes in this weather! They’ll never make it. We’ll pick them up as soon as I can get away.”
There had been a few matters to tend to first, but there they were, and in the nick of time. Coba and Art climbed in with grateful sighs. The door banged, shutting out the storm. In a moment that endless distance to the farm was covered. They drew up beside the kitchen door.
Coba was the first to jump out. The wind jerked her cap from her head and blew her hair about her face. Mother was waiting in the doorway, and Coba flew into her arms. She hid her face on Mother’s shoulder and gave way to the tears that had long been wanting to come. She had been frightened — terribly frightened — by the storm, but especially by the sea that seemed to all but wash the dike away.
Art followed Coba to the door, and Mr. Cozynse began to back away. But Art’s father called, “Why not stay? We were going to the meeting together this afternoon ... ”
“I haven’t had lunch,” Mr. Cozynse protested.
“Eat with us,” said Mr. De Leeuw, and Art’s mother added a hearty invitation. “There’s plenty of gray peas and pork, with buttermilk porridge for dessert. We’ll never be able to eat it without your help!”
“Well,” Mr. Cozynse admitted with a smile, “I told my wife that if I didn’t come right back she could figure that I was eating at Pleasant Acres, and would go right on to Kortgene from here.”
So there were thirteen about the table that noon instead of eleven — three grown-ups and ten little folk. Coba and Len and Art could hardly be called little folk, though. They were nearly grown up, compared with Lenna, who still sat in a highchair. Bud and Joe were little fellows. Mattie and Trena were not much bigger. And then there were Billy and Dottie, who were about middle-sized.
During lunch, the older folk talked about the storm. When Mr. Cozynse mentioned the fury of the sea, Mother De Leeuw said, “The dike will hold all right, you think?”
Coba pricked up her ears. That was the very question uppermost in her mind. What would Father and Mr. Cozynse say?
“The dike is high and strong. The sea cannot get over it nor through it,” Mr. Cozynse answered.
Art gave Coba a gentle kick under the table, and his eyes said, “Didn’t I tell you?”
But Mother De Leeuw was not entirely satisfied. “North Beveland has been flooded many times,” she said.
Mr. Cozynse was well aware of that. He was alderman and polder administrator. He knew the history of the island in detail. North Beveland had been wiped out twice. In the time of Luther it remained under water for several years, because men were too busy fighting each other to fight the sea. Later it was reclaimed, bit by bit, polder by polder. Two centuries of labor finally restored it to what it had been. Now it was bigger than ever.
“But it has been flooded many times since,” Mother De Leeuw persisted. It was evident that she could not quite overcome her anxiety.
“And it always came on top again,” Mr. Cozynse said cheerfully. “That is according to Zeeland’s motto, you know: ‘struggle and rise again.’”
“It can happen again, then,” said Mother.
“It’s possible, of course. I don’t say that it cannot happen. But just because dikes used to give way, that is no reason to fear that it may happen again. The dikes have never been as strong and solid as they are now.”
Art glanced at Coba once more. His eyes asked, “Did you hear that?” If Mr. Cozynse was so confident, there certainly was no reason to worry.
The storm continued to rage. The windows rattled, and the blinds shook. But there was no reason to fear.