jan’s grandmother lives in a little pink and white house by the sea. you can hear the waves as they come up on the sandy shore.

you can stand in grandmother’s garden and look away out over the sea.

sometimes the water looks bright and blue. sometimes it looks deep and green. sometimes it looks dark gray, and the waves have white caps of foam. the children call them the “sea-king’s white horses.”

grandmother’s house is very neat and clean. she has brick floors in her house. she covers her brick floors with clean white sand.

grandmother has a very old black table in her house. she has some old black chairs, too. she rubs them every day. they are always bright and shining.

grandmother loves to keep them so.

jan says he can see his face in the top of grandmother’s table. it is so shiny that it is like a looking-glass.

grandmother has a row of plates on her wall. they look like silver.

she has some blue dishes, too. katrina says that they are like her mother’s dishes. they have boats and windmills on them.

grandmother says they are delft dishes. they were made in delft. delft is a city in holland where they make beautiful dishes.