soup, she found Jan proudly steering the boat by himself.

"Oh, my soul!" she cried in astonishment. "What a clever boy you
must be to learn so quickly to handle the tiller. Where is Father
De Smet?"

"Here!" boomed a loud voice behind her, and Father De Smet's head
appeared above a barrel on the other side of the deck. "I'm
trying to make the 'Old Woman' look as if she had no cargo
aboard. If the Germans see these potatoes, they'll never let us
get them to Antwerp," he shouted.

"Sh-h-h! You mustn't talk so loud," whispered Mother De Smet.
"You roar like a foghorn on a dark night. The Germans won't have
any trouble in finding out about the potatoes if you shout the
news all over the landscape."

Father De Smet looked out over the quiet Belgian fields.

"There's nobody about that I can see," he said, "but I'll roar
more gently next time."

There was a bend in the river just at this point, and Jan,
looking fearfully about to see if he could see any Germans, for
an instant forgot all about the tiller. There was a jerk on the
tow-rope and a bump as the nose of the "Old Woman " ran into the
river-bank. Netteke, the mule, came to a sudden stop, and Mother
De Smet sat down equally suddenly on a coil of rope. Her potatoes
spilled over the deck, while a wail from the front of the boat
announced that one of the babies had bumped, too. Mother De Smet