The Soup - Jorma Rotko

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by saying Frisians wore modest clothing but filled their homes with the best of linen and other costly things. Two antagonistic groups of believers soon came into being.

      Preacher Leenaert Bouwens was a disputed man. During his trips around Friesland, he had re-baptized more than ten thousand believers. Both sides of the quarrel appealed to the preacher’s authority. At first, his sympathies lay with the Flemings, but soon he deserted to the Frisian side.

      A burst of allegations was launched from the Flemish camp against Bouwens including an argument that he bossed parishioners around. They said as well, that the preacher, as an elder of the parish, had collected fifty silver coins as payment for holding spiritual services. These services, they felt, should be held for free. On top of these misdeeds, the Flemings argued that he had used the money for drink.

      Although it was harsh to dismiss such a popular preacher, he was excluded from work for many years. This made the Frisian Mennonites bitter.

      Even though the Frisians and the Flemings inhabited the villages, they kept to their own separate parishes. Marriage, for instance, between people from different sides was frowned upon.

      Dietrich and I slept like logs. We were awakened by questioning villagers, “Who are you and what is your business here”?

      Even on this small island believers were divided. The villagers advised us to go to the house of Eelke Huisman, the elder of the island’s Frisian parish.

      Huisman had heard of the death of our Grandpa, but the news of the massacre in Leeuwarden had not as yet reached him. The names of those killed were unknown to us, but among them must have been some of Huisman’s friends, and perhaps his relatives. He realized it was impossible for us to return to the mainland. But, on the other hand, sailing any further in a small open boat was risky.

      He said he knew of an old skipper, Dirk Boersma, who lived on the island and owned a 60-foot sloop, the Heilige Geest. Boersma, he said, had shipped small freight – mostly contraband – between England and the Low Countries.

      Although Boersma lived on the east end of the island, his boat sat useless in the western harbor.

      “I don’t know if he would be willing to sell, but I know he uses it very rarely,” Huisman said. “When he wants to sail to the mainland, he persuades his son or son-in-law to accompany him. The boat is too big for an old man. I doubt if he can sail it alone”.

      “We haven’t money enough to buy the boat outright, but Dietrich and I could swap our boat for his and pay the difference in gold,” I said. We then asked if he would be willing to come with us and act as a middleman?

      “That is not a good idea,” Huisman said. “Our island has been divided for as long as I can remember. My presence could do more harm than good. I can, however, lend you a horse and carriage”. I said we can walk.

      “Sure, but Boersma can’t and he doesn’t own a horse. If he is interested, he will see your boat and praise his own”.

      Captain Boersma had high praise for his sloop. She was older than the Margareta, but not so bad. She was clinker built of oak planks with a sturdy keel reinforced with bolted keelson. The boat was 60-feet long without a 10-feet bowsprit. She had an 80-feet mast and a gaff-rigged mainsail.

      The space between the mast and gaff made it possible to raise the topsail, and the bowsprit offered space for two headsails.

      “Although the Geest is old, she doesn’t leak,” Boersma boasted. “She’s dry as a bone”.

      Dietrich pointed to the bilge pump. “Well then, we can throw that away!” , he said. Its wooden plunger was shiny from hard use.

      Captain Boersma was undoubtedly interested in our boat. The Margareta was in meticulous condition and is newer and smaller than the Geest, easy to sail alone.

      After extended negotiations, Boersma agreed to the arrangement, and we shook hands. The Geest was ours at the cost of ten guilders and the Margareta. While we transferred our things to the Geest, Boersma spotted the revolving grindstone we had brought with us from home.

      “I want that as a gift of our trade,” he said, pointing to the grindstone. “My tools are blunt and my grindstone is useless. I’ve been planning to sail to the mainland for a new grinder for a long time. Now it has come to me on its own”.

      With mixed feelings, we parted with the stone. Our tools were as much in need of a sharpening as his.

      Sylvius de Bouve, Grandpa’s alchemist friend, had concocted a medicament flavored with juniper berries and called it genever. We had a bottle, and Boersma, Dietrich and I put it “down the hatch” to celebrate our agreement. It seemed to be a first-rate drug.

      While Dietrich drove Captain Boersma home to the east end of the narrow, 16-mile long island, I warmed up the soup. Dietrich returned very hungrily. “Do you think we paid too much”? he said. “Ten guilders is a lot of money”. I comforted him telling that the value of gold had drastically diminished because of a massive export of gold from the New World to Spain.

      We now had a seaworthy sloop, but where did we go from here? France was near, but there the Duke of Guise Henry terrorized people. Jesuits and monks agitated folks against the Huguenots and other Protestants.

      England, too, was close and at least there we need not fear the Catholics. But, she was the most expensive country to live in Europe. With all prices increasing by two-thirds during the reign of Queen Elisabeth, how could we earn enough to live? Later, when we went to the village to return Huisman’s horse, he too, was curious where we planned to go.

      “Let me give you some advice,” he said. “Why not go to Poland? They have reserved land for new immigrants, and are especially seeking men from the Low Countries who can build dams and windmills, and are also able to fend off flooding and dry marsh,” he continued. “The land is available for peanuts, on long-term credits or even, sometimes, free of charge”.Everyone is free to practice his religion, and there are many parishes of Mennonites. I have heard Menno Simons himself traveled to Danzig once to organize a congregation there”.

      Huisman told of a man he knew who had returned from Danzig with news of the von Loytzen brothers’ bank. The King of Poland had borrowed money from the bank and mortgaged a large tract of land east of Danzig. The king, it seems, was unable to pay due to constant wars, and had let the bank reclaim the land. The property is said to be a sloppy bog and marsh, full of bushes, and not cultivatable at the present time. The von Loytzen brothers have invited the lowlanders to establish homesteads and prepare the land for farming. The first ten years are free, after that the rent is half a thaler per acre. “That,” Huisman said, “is small potatoes”.

      We liked Huisman’s idea – it sounded interesting. We returned to the Geest for another meal of bread and soup. Thoughts of the long voyage to Danzig had me feeling unsure, and a bit frightened. I suspected Dietrich was felt the same, but neither of us admitted it to the other. We were anxious to move on. With our navigational aids and everything else onboard the sloop in shipshape order, we decided, if the wind were favorable, we would cast off the next morning. We had never been so far away. Fishing trips to the Wadden Sea, east of Harlingen, were our only experience at sea. We knew by following the long chain of Frisian Islands, we eventually reach East Friesland, Schleswig-Holstein, and Denmark.

      The Geest had no nautical charts on board. Luckily for us, Captain Boersma had left his copy of De Kaert van der Zee. It is a book filled with sailing directions and compass bearings to help us get from one place to another. The real charts are far too dear for common skippers like us. A legend tells of a captain unwillingly married a colleague’s widow just to get her late husband’s charts.

      At the sunrise, we set off, headed for the North Sea. We began our trip with an unusual argument about raising the sails. Even though the wind was light, Dietrich didn’t want to set all sails. His argument was we didn’t know yet how our new boat would behave. Although he is a big man – about two inches taller than me – he was afraid of the sea. In the end, we raised only the mainsail and a jib. I steered us to the open water through the sound between Terschelling and Vlieland. The

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