Jacobus is in law my name just as much as Teunis, and both of them, I understand, used to be pretty common names among the Vandemarks, Brosses, Kuyckendalls, Westfalls and other Dutch families for generations.

It makes very little difference after all, for most of the neighbors call me Old Jake Vandemark, and some of the very oldest settlers still call me Cow Vandemark, because I came into the county driving three or four yoke of cows--which make just as good draught cattle as oxen, being smarter but not so powerful.

This nickname is gall and wormwood to Gertrude, but I can't quite hold with her whims on the subject of names.

She spells the old surname van der Marck--a little _v_ and a little _d_ with an _r_ run in, the first two syllables written like separate words, and then the big _M_ for Mark with a _c_ before the _k_.

But she will know better when she gets older and has more judgment.
Just now she is all worked up over the family history on which she began laboring when she went east to Vassar and joined the Daughters of the American Revolution.