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Little Brom Boomptie, or Boss Boomptie, as
he was commonly called by his apprentices and
neighbours, was the first man that ever baked Newyear
cakes in the good city of New-Amsterdam.
It is generally supposed that he was the inventor
of those excellent and respectable articles. However
this may be, he lived and prospered in the little
Dutch house in William-street, called, time out
of mind, Knickerbocker Hall, just at the outskirts
of the good town of New-Amsterdam.

Boomptie was a fat comfortable creature, with a
capital pair of oldfashioned legs; a full, round,
good-natured face; a corporation like unto one of
his plump loaves; and as much honesty as a
Turkish baker, who lives in the fear of having his
ears nailed to his own door for retailing bad bread.
He wore a low-crowned, broad-brimmed beaver;
a gray bearskin cloth coat, waistcoat, and breeches,
and gray woollen stockings, summer and winter, all
the year round. The only language he spoke, understood,
or had the least respect for, was Dutch—

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and the only books he ever read or owned, were a
Dutch Bible, with silver clasps and hinges, and a
Dutch history of the Duke of Alva's bloody wars
in the Low Countries. Boss Boomptie was a pious
man, of simple habits and simple character; a believer
in “demonology and witchcraft;” and as
much afraid of spooks as the mother that bore him.
It ran in the family to be bewitched, and for three
generations the Boompties had been very much
pestered with supernatural visitations. But for all
this they continued to prosper in the world, insomuch
that Boss Boomptie daily added a piece of
wampum or two to his strong box. He was
blessed with a good wife, who saved the very parings
of her nails, and three plump boys, after whom he
modelled his gingerbread babies, and who were
every Sunday zealously instructed never to pass a
pin without picking it up and bringing it home to
their mother.

It was on Newyear's eve, in the year 1655, and
the good city of New-Amsterdam, then under the
special patronage of the blessed St. Nicholas, was
as jovial and wanton as hot spiced rum and long
abstinence from fun and frolic could make it. It
is worth while to live soberly and mind our business
all the rest of the year, if it be only to enjoy the
holydays at the end with a true zest. St. Nicholas,
thrice blessed soul! was riding up one chimney
and down another like a locomotive engine in his
little one-horse wagon, distributing cakes to the good
boys, and whips to the bad ones; and the laugh of

[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]

the good city, which had been pent up all the year,
now burst forth with an explosion that echoed even
unto Breuckelen and Communipaw.

Boss Boomptie, who never forgot the main
chance, and knew from experience that Newyear's
eve was a shrewd time for selling cakes, joined
profit and pleasure on this occasion. He was one
minute in his shop, dealing out cakes to his customers,
and the next laughing, and tippling, and jigging,
and frisking it with his wife and children in
the little back room, the door of which had a pane
of glass that commanded a full view of the shop.
Nobody, that is, no genuine disciple of jolly St.
Nicholas, ever went to bed till twelve o'clock on
Newyear's eve. The Dutch are eminently a sober,
discreet folk; but somehow or other, no people
frolic so like the very dickens, when they are once
let loose, as your very sober and discreet bodies.

By twelve o'clock the spicy beverage, sacred to
holydays at that time, began to mount up into Boss
Boomptie's head, and he was vociferating a Dutch
ditty in praise of St. Nicholas with marvellous discordance,
when just as the old clock in one corner
of the room struck the hour that ushers in the new
year, a loud knock was heard on the counter, which
roused the dormant spirit of trade within his bosom.
He went into the shop, where he found a
little ugly old thing of a woman, with a sharp chin,
resting on a crooked black stick, which had been
burned in the fire and then polished; two high sharp
cheek bones; two sharp black eyes; skinny lips,

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and a most diabolical pair of leather spectacles on
a nose ten times sharper than her chin.

“I want a dozen Newyear cookies,” screamed
she, in a voice sharper than her nose.

“Vel, den, you needn't sbeak so loud,” replied
Boss Boomptie, whose ear being just then attuned
to the melody of his own song, was somewhat outraged
by this shrill salutation.

“I want a dozen Newyear cookies,” screamed
she again, ten times louder and shriller than ever.

“Duyvel—I an't teaf den,” grumbled the worthy
man, as he proceeded to count out the cakes, which
the other very deliberately counted after him.

“I want a dozen,” screamed the little woman;
“here is only twelve.”

“Vel, den, and what de duyvel is dwalf but a
dozen?” said Boomptie.

“I tell you I want one more,” screamed she, in a
voice that roused Mrs. Boomptie in the back room,
who came and peeped through the pane of glass,
as she often did when she heard the boss talking to
the ladies.

Boss Boomptie waxed wroth, for he had a reasonable
quantity of hot spiced rum in his noddle,
which predisposes a man to valour.

“Vel, den,” said he, “you may co to de duyvel
and get anoder, for you won't get it here.”

Boomptie was not a stingy man; on the contrary,
he was very generous to the pretty young
damsels who came to buy cakes, and often gave
them two or three extra for a smack, which made

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Mrs. Boomptie peevish sometimes, and caused her
to watch at the little pane of glass when she ought
to have been minding her business like an honest
woman.

But this old hag was as ugly as sin, and the little
baker never in his whole life could find in his heart
to be generous to an ugly woman, old or young.

“In my country they always give thirteen to the
dozen,” screamed the ugly woman in the leather
spectacles.

“And where de duyvel is your gountry?” asked
Boomptie.

“It is nobody's business,” screeched the old woman.
“But will you give me another cake, once
for all?”

“Not if it would save me and all my chineration
from peing pewitched and pedemonologized dime
out of mind,” cried he, in a great passion.

What put it into his head to talk in this way I
don't know, but he might better have held his
tongue. The old woman gave him three stivers
for his cakes, and went away, grumbling something
about “living to repent it,” which Boss Boomptie
didn't understand or care a fig about. He was
chock full of Dutch courage, and defied all the ugly
old women in Christendom. He put his three stivers
in the till and shut up his shop, determined to enjoy
the rest of the night without further molestation.

While he was sitting smoking his pipe, and now
and then sipping his beverage, all at once he heard
a terrible jingling of money in his shop, whereupon

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he thought some losel caitiff was busy with his little
till. Accordingly, priming himself with another
reinforcement of Dutch courage, he took a pine
knot, for he was too economical to burn candles at
that late hour, and proceeded to investigate. His
money was all safe, and the till appeared not to
have been disturbed.

“Duyvel,” quoth the little baker man, “I pelieve
mine vrouw and I have bote cot a zinging in
our heads.”

He had hardly turned his back when the same
jingling began again, so much to the surprise of
Boss Boomptie, that had it not been for his invincible
Dutch courage, he would, as it were, have
been a little frightened. But he was not in the
least; and again went and unlocked the till, when
what was his astonishment to see the three diabolical
stivers, received from the old woman, dancing,
and kicking up a dust among the coppers and wampum
with wonderful agility.

“Wat donder is dat!” exclaimed he, sorely perplexed;
“de old duyvel has cot indo dat old sinner's
stivers, I dink.” He had a great mind to
throw them away, but he thought it a pity to waste
so much money; so he kept them locked up all
night, enjoining them to good behaviour, with a design
to spend them the next day in another jollification.
But the next day they were gone, and so
was the broomstick with which it was the custom
to sweep out the shop every morning. Some of
the neighbours coming home late the night before,

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on being informed of the “abduction” of the broomstick,
deposed and said, they had seen an old woman
riding through the air upon just such another,
right over the top of the little bakehouse; whereat
Boss Boomptie, putting these odds and ends together,
did tremble in his heart, and he wished to
himself that he had given the ugly old woman thirteen
to the dozen.

Nothing particular came to pass the next day,
except that now and then the little Boompties complained
of having pins stuck in their backs, and that
their cookies were snatched away by some one unknown.
On examination it was found that no
marks of the pins were to be seen; and as to the
cookies, the old black woman of the kitchen declared
she saw an invisible hand just as one of the
children lost his commodity.

“Den I am pewitched, zure enough!” cried
Boomptie, in despair, for he had had too much of
“demonology and witchcraft” in the family not to
know when he saw them, just as well as he did his
own face in the Collect.

On the second day of the year, the 'prentice boys
all returned to their business, and Boomptie once
more solaced himself with the baking of the staff of
life. The reader must know that it is the custom of
bakers to knead a great batch at a time, in a mighty
bread tray, into which they throw two or three little
apprentice boys to paddle about, like ducks in a
mill pond, whereby it is speedily amalgamated, and
set to rising in due time. When the little caitiffs

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began their gambols in this matter they one and all
stuck fast in the dough, as though it had been so
much pitch, and, to the utter dismay of honest
Boomptie, behold the whole batch rose up in a
mighty mass, with the boys sticking fast on the
top of it!

“Wat blikslager!” exclaimed little Boomptie,
as he witnessed this catastrophe; “de duyvel ish
cot into de yeast dis dime, I dink.”

The bread continued to rise till it lifted the roof
off the bakehouse, with the little 'prentice boys on
the top, and the bread tray following after. Boss
Boomptie and his wife watched this wonderful rising
of the bread in dismay, and in proof of the
poor woman's being bewitched, it was afterwards
recollected that she uttered not a single word on
this extraordinary occasion. The bread rose and
rose, until it finally disappeared, boys and all, behind
the Jersey hills. If such things had been
known of at that time, it would have been taken
for a balloon; as it was, the people of Bergen and
Communipaw thought that it was a water spout.

Little Boss Boomptie was disconsolate at the
loss of his bread and his 'prentice boys, whom he
never expected to see again. However, he was a
stirring body, and set himself to work to prepare
another batch, seeing his customers must be supplied
in spite of “witchcraft or demonology.” To
guard against such another rebellious rising, he determined
to go through the process down in the cellar,
and turn his bread tray upside down. The

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bread, instead of rising, began to sink into the earth
so fast, that Boss Boomptie had just time to jump
off before it entirely disappeared in the ground,
which opened and shut just like a snuffbox.

“Wat blikslager is dat!” exclaimed he, out
of breath; “my pread rises downward dis dime, I
dink. My customers must go widout to-day.”

By-and-by his customers came for hot rolls and
muffins, but some of them had gone up and some
down, as little Boss Boomptie related after the
manner just described. What is very remarkable,
nobody believed him; and doubtless, if there had
been any rival baker in New-Amsterdam, the boss
would have lost all his customers. Among those
that called on this occasion, was the ugly old woman
with the sharp eyes, nose, chin, voice, and
leather spectacles.

“I want a dozen Newyear cookies!” screamed
she, as before.

“Vuur en vlammen!” muttered he, as he counted
out the twelve cakes.

“I want one more!” screamed she.

“Den you may co to de duyvel and kit it, I say,
for not anoder shall you haf here, I dell you.”

So the old woman took her twelve cakes, and
went out grumbling, as before. All the time she
staid, Boomptie's old dog, who followed him wherever
he went, growled and whined, as it were, to
himself, and seemed mightily relieved when she
went away. That very night, as the little baker
was going to see one of his old neighbours at the

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Maiden's Valley, then a little way out of town,
walking, as he always did, with his hands behind
him, every now and then he felt something as cold
as death against them, which he could never account
for, seeing there was not a soul with him but
his old dog. Moreover, Mrs. Boomptie, having
bought half a pound of tea at a grocery store, and
put it into her pocket, did feel a twitching and jerking
of the paper of tea in her pocket, every step she
went. The faster she ran the quicker and stronger
was the twitching and jerking, so that when the
good woman got home she was nigh fainting away.
On her recovery she took courage, and pulled the
tea out of her pocket, and laid it on the table, when
behold it began to move by fits and starts, jumped
off the table, hopped out of doors, all alone by itself,
and jigged away to the place from whence it
came. The grocer brought it back again, but Madam
Boomptie looked upon the whole as a judgment
for her extravagance, in laying out so much money
for tea, and refused to receive it again. The grocer
assured her that the strange capers of the bundle
were owing to his having forgot to cut the twine
with which he had tied it; but the good woman
looked upon this as an ingenious subterfuge, and
would take nothing but her money. When the
husband and wife came to compare notes, they both
agreed they were certainly bewitched. Had there
been any doubt of the matter, subsequent events
would soon have put it to rest.

That very night Mrs. Boomptie was taken

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after a strange way. Sometimes she would laugh
about nothing, and then she would cry about nothing;
then she would set to work and talk about
nothing for a whole hour without stopping, in a language
nobody could understand; and then, all at
once, her tongue would cleave to the roof of her
mouth, so that it was impossible to force it away.
When this fit was over she would get up and dance
double trouble, till she tired herself out, when she
fell asleep, and waked up quite rational. It was
particularly noticed that when she talked loudest
and fastest, her lips remained perfectly closed, without
motion, and her mouth wide open, so that the
words seemed to come from down her throat. Her
principal talk was railing against Dominie Laidlie,
the good pastor of Garden-street Church, whence
everybody concluded that she was possessed by a
devil. Sometimes she got hold of a pen, and
though she had never learned to write, would
scratch and scrawl certain mysterious and diabolical
figures, that nobody could understand, and
everybody said must mean something.

As for little Boss Boomptie, he was worse off than
his wife. He was haunted by an invisible hand,
which played him all sorts of scurvy tricks. Standing
one morning at his counter, talking to one of
the neighbours, he received a great box on the ear,
whereat being exceeding wroth, he returned it with
such interest on the cheek of his neighbour, that he
laid him flat on the floor. His friend hereupon
took the law of him, and proved, to the satisfaction

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of the court, that he had both hands in his breeches
pockets at the time Boss Boomptie said he gave
him the box on the ear. The magistrate not being
able to come at the truth of the matter, fined them
each twenty-five guilders for the use of the dominie.

A dried codfish was one day thrown at his head,
and the next minute his walking stick fell to beating
him, though nobody seemed to have hold of it
A chair danced about the room, and at last alighted
on the dinner table, and began to eat with such a
good appetite, that had not the children snatched
some of the dinner away, there would have been
none left. The old cow one night jumped over the
moon, and a peweter dish ran fairly off with a horn
spoon, which seized a cat by the tail, and away they
all went together, as merry as crickets. Sometimes,
when Boss Boomptie had money, or cakes,
or perhaps a loaf of bread in his hand, instead of
putting them in their proper places, he would throw
them into the fire, in spite of his teeth, and then
the invisible hand would beat him with a bag of
flour, till he was as white as a miller. As for keeping
his accounts, that was out of the question;
whenever he sat himself down to write his ink horn
was snatched away by the invisible hand, and by-and-by
it would come tumbling down the chimney.
Sometimes an old dishcloth would be pinned to
the skirt of his coat, and then a great diabolical
laugh heard under the floor. At night he had a
pretty time of it. His nightcap was torn off his

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head, his hair pulled out by handfuls, his face
scratched, and his ears pinched as if with a red-hot
pincers. If he went out in the yard at night, he
was pelted with brickbats, sticks, stones, and all
sorts of filthy missives; and if he staid at home, the
ashes were blown upon his supper; and old shoes,
instead of plates, seen on the table. One of the
frying pans rang every night of itself for a whole
hour, and a three-pronged fork stuck itself voluntarily
into Boss Boomptie's back, without hurting
him in the least. But what astonished the neighbours
more than all, the little man, all at once, took
to speaking in a barbarous and unknown jargon,
which was afterwards found out to be English.

These matters frightened some of the neighbours
and scandalized others, until at length poor Boomptie's
shop was almost deserted. People were jealous
of eating his bread, for fear of being bewitched.
Nay, more than one little urchin complained grievously
of horrible, out of the way pains in the stomach,
after eating two or three dozen of his Newyear
cookies.

Things went on in this way until Newyear's eve
came round again, when Boss Boomptie was sitting
behind his counter, which was wont to be thronged
with customers on this occasion, but was now quite
deserted. While thinking on his present miserable
state and future prospects, all of a sudden the little
ugly old woman, with a sharp nose, sharp chin,
sharp eyes, sharp voice, and leather spectacles,

[figure description] Page 161.[end figure description]

again stood before him, leaning on her crooked black
cane.

“Ben je bedondered?” exclaimed Boss Boomptie,
“what to you want now?”

“I want a dozen Newyear cookies!” screamed
the old creature.

The little man counted out twelve, as before.

“I want one more!” screamed she, louder than
ever.

“Men weet hoe een koe een haas vangen kan!”
cried the boss, in a rage; “den want will pe your
masder.”

She offered him six stivers, which he indignantly
rejected, saying,

“I want none of your duyvel's stuyvers—begone,
duyvel's huysvrouw!”

The old woman went her way, mumbling and
grumbling as usual.

“By Saint Johannes de Dooper,” quoth Boss
Boomptie, “put she's a peaudy!”

That night, and all the week after, the brickbats
flew about Knickerbocker Hall like hail, insomuch
that Boss Boomptie marvelled where they could
all come from, until one morning, after a terrible
shower of bricks, he found, to his great grief
and dismay, that his oven had disappeared; next
went the top of his chimney; and when that was
gone, these diabolical sinners began at the extreme
point of the gable end, and so went on picking at
the two edges downward, until they looked just

[figure description] Page 162.[end figure description]

like the teeth of a saw, as may be still seen in some
of our old Dutch houses.

“Onbegrypelik!” cried Boss Boomptie, “put it's
too pad to have my prains peat out wid my own
prickpats.”

About the same time a sober respectable cat,
that for years had done nothing but sit purring in
the chimney corner, all at once got the duyvel in
her, and after scratching the poor man half to death,
jumped out of the chimney and disappeared. A
Whitehall boatman afterwards saw her in Buttermilk
Channel, with nothing but the tail left, swimming
against the tide as easy as kiss your hand.
Poor Mrs. Boomptie had no peace of her life, what
with pinchings, stickings of needles, and talking
without opening her mouth. But the climax of the
malice of the demon which beset her was in at last
tying up her tongue, so that she could not speak at
all, but did nothing but sit crying and wringing her
hands in the chimney corner.

These carryings on brought round Newyear's
even again, when Boss Boomptie thought he would
have a frolic, “in spite of de duyvel,” as he said,
which saying was, somehow or other, afterwards
applied to the creek at Kingsbridge. So he commanded
his wife to prepare him a swinging mug of
hot spiced rum, to keep up his courage against the
assaults of the brickbats. But what was the dismay
of the little man when he found that every time
he put the beverage to his lips he received a great
box on the ear, the mug was snatched away by an

[figure description] Page 163.[end figure description]

invisible hand, and every single drop drank out of
it before it came to Boss Boomptie's turn. Then
as if it was an excellent joke, he heard a most diabolical
laugh down in the cellar.

“Goeden Hemel! Is het mogelyk!” exclaimed
the little man in despair. This was attacking
him in the very intrenchments of his heart. It was
worse than the brickbats.

“Saint Nicholas! Saint Nicholas! what will become
of me—what sal ich doon, mynheer?”

Scarcely had he uttered this pathetic appeal,
when there was a sound of horses' hoofs in the
chimney, and presently a light wagon, drawn by a
little, fat, gray 'Sopus pony, came trundling into the
room, loaded with all sorts of knickknacks. It was
driven by a jolly, fat, little rogue of a fellow, with
a round sparkling eye, and a mouth which would
certainly have been laughing had it not been for
a glorious Meershaum pipe, which would have
chanced to fall out in that case. The little rascal
had on a three-cornered cocked hat, decked with old
gold lace; a blue Dutch sort of a short pea jacket,
red waistcoat, breeks of the same colour, yellow
stockings, and honest thick-soled shoes, ornamented
with a pair of skates. Altogether he was a queer
figure—but there was something so irresistibly jolly
and good-natured in his face, that Boss Boomptie
felt his heart incline towards the stranger as soon
as he saw him.

“Orange Boven!” cried the good saint, pulling
off his cocked hat, and making a low bow to

[figure description] Page 164.[end figure description]

Mrs. Boomptie, who sat tonguetied in the chimney
corner.

“Wat donderdag is dat?” said Boss Boomptie,
speaking for his wife, which made the good woman
very angry, that he should take the words out of her
mouth.

“You called on Saint Nicholas. Here am I,”
quoth the jolly little saint. “In one word—for I
am a saint of few words, and have my hands full
of business to-night—in one word, tell me what
you want.”

“I am pewitched,” quoth Boss Boomptie. “The
duyvel is in me, my house, my wife, my Newyear
cookies, and my children. What shall I do?”

“When you count a dozen you must count thirteen,”
answered the wagon driver, at the same time
cracking his whip, and clattering up the chimney,
more like a little duyvel than a little saint.

“Wat blixum!” muttered Boss Boomptie, “when
you count a dozen you must count dirdeen! je mag
even wel met un stokje in de goot roeron! I never
heard of such counting. By Saint Johannes de
Dooper, put Saint Nicholas is a great plockhead!”

Just as he uttered this blasphemy against the
excellent Saint Nicholas, he saw through the pane
of glass, in the door leading from the spare room to
the shop, the little ugly old woman, with the sharp
eyes, sharp nose, sharp chin, sharp voice, and leather
spectacles, alighting from a broomstick, at the
street door.

“Dere is de duyvel's kint come again,” quoth

[figure description] Page 165.[end figure description]

he, in one of his cross humours, which was aggravated
by his getting just then a great box on the
ear from the invisible hand. However, he went
grumbling into the shop, for it was part of his religion
never to neglect a customer, let the occasion
be what it might.

“I want a dozen Newyear cookies,” screamed
the old beauty, as usual, and as usual Boss Boomptie
counted out twelve.

“I want another one,” screamed she still louder.

“Aha!” thought Boss Boomptie, doubtless inspired
by the jolly little caitiff, Saint Nicholas—
“Aha! Het is goed visschen in troebel water—
when you count dwalf, you must count dirdeen.
Ha—ha! ho—ho—ho!” And he counted out the
thirteenth cooky like a brave fellow.

The old woman made him a low courtesy, and
laughed till she might have shown her teeth, if she
had had any.

“Friend Boomptie,” said she, in a voice exhibiting
the perfection of a nicely modulated scream—
“Friend Boomptie, I love such generous little fellows
as you, in my heart. I salute you,” and she
advanced to kiss him. Boss Boomptie did not at
all like the proposition; but, doubtless inspired by
Saint Nicholas, he submitted with indescribable
grace.

At that moment, an explosion was heard inside
the little glass pane, and the voice of Mrs. Boomptie
crying out,

[figure description] Page 166.[end figure description]

“You false-hearted villain, have I found out your
tricks at last!”

“De Philistyner Onweetende!” cried Boss
Boomptie. “She's come to her speech now!”

“The spell is broken!” screamed the old woman
with the sharp eyes, nose, chin, and voice. “The
spell is broken, and henceforward a dozen is thirteen,
and thirteen is a dozen! There shall be thirteen
Newyear cookies to the dozen, as a type of the
thirteen mighty states that are to arise out of the
ruins of the government of faderland!”

Thereupon she took a Newyear cake bearing
the effigy of the blessed St. Nicholas, and caused
Boss Boomptie to swear upon it, that for ever afterwards
twelve should be thirteen, and thirteen should
be twelve. After which, she mounted her broomstick
and disappeared, just as the little old Dutch
clock struck twelve. From that time forward, the
spell that hung over the fortunes of little Boss Boomptie
was broken; and ever after he became illustrious
for baking the most glorious Newyear cookies in
our country. Everything became as before: the
little 'prentice boys returned, mounted on the batch
of bread, and their adventures may, peradventure,
be told some other time. Finally, from that day
forward no baker of New-Amsterdam was ever
bewitched, at least by an ugly old woman, and a
baker's dozen has been always counted as thirteen.

p314-172

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