The Wrath of the Zuyder Zee by Thomas A. Janvier

Certainly, if ever old Jaap had cursed any particular little boy it would have been Krelis Kess -- who was quite the worst boy on the island, and who usually was the leader of the troop that hung about the old man's heels.

And even when Krelis got to be a big young fellow of twenty -- old enough to go on escapades in Amsterdam of which the rumour, coming back to Marken, made all steady-going folk on the island look askance at him -- he still took an ugly pleasure, as occasion offered, in stirring up old Jaap's wrath. If the old man chanced to pass by while he was sitting of a Sunday afternoon in Jan de Jong's tavern, drinking more gin-and-water than was good for him, it was one of his jokes to call out through the open window "Mad old Jaap! " in the shrill voice of a child; and to repeat his cry, with different inflections but always in the same shrill tones, until the old man would go off into a fury and shout his curse at the little boys who seemed to be so close about him but who could not anywhere be seen. At that Krelis would fall to laughing mightily, and so would the loose young fellows his companions -- who had found out that that would send his hand to his pocket and give them free drinks all around.