Peter searches for and manages to contact Dr. Boekman

Peter van Holp’s search for Dr. Boekman carries Hans Brinker’s plea for help from the family cottage into the boys’ skating journey. Peter does not simply pass on a message: he tries more than once to reach the surgeon, leaves a note when he cannot find him, and returns to check whether it has been received. The eventual news that Dr. Boekman has read it and gone to Broek offers a possibility of help, but not the clean assurance Peter needs: the surgeon was summoned by another patient, and the message’s part in his departure is left unresolved.

The search begins in Leiden

In Leiden, Peter tells an innkeeper that he is looking for Dr. Boekman. The landlord says the surgeon is not in the city, but Peter persists rather than treating that answer as the end of the matter. He secures permission to leave a note for Dr. Boekman—or, as the narrator wryly presents the transaction, pays the landlord for the privilege of writing it there—and obtains a promise that it will be delivered when the doctor arrives. Only after arranging this does Peter return to the Red Lion Inn with Jacob Poot.

The small negotiation matters because Peter has no direct access to the doctor and cannot make him appear. His practical choice is to turn an unsuccessful search into a message that may wait for its recipient. The landlord’s promise gives him a means of carrying Hans’s appeal forward, but it is only a promise of future delivery, not confirmation that Dr. Boekman has seen the note. Peter’s persistence is therefore both purposeful and limited by circumstance.

An errand carried alongside the journey

The search does not stop the boys’ travel. After another fruitless attempt to find Dr. Boekman, the party prepares to skate again. They are thirteen miles from The Hague; unlike when they left Broek early the previous day, they are no longer fresh, though their spirits remain good and the ice is excellent. Peter’s errand runs within this larger movement across the country: the group continues onward while the answer to Hans’s appeal remains elsewhere, dependent on the doctor’s arrival and the innkeeper’s follow-through.

At The Hague, Peter writes to tell his friends at Broek that the party has arrived safely. He asks his mother to inform Hans that Dr. Boekman has not yet reached Leiden, but that Peter has left a letter containing Hans’s message at the hotel where the surgeon usually stays during his visits to the city. Peter also says that he intends to call there again as he passes through Leiden. The letter records the search with care: it identifies where the message was left, explains why Peter has not yet seen the doctor, and gives Hans notice that the effort is still in progress.

Peter’s report also distinguishes his own hope from what he thinks is likely. He believes Hans had been sure that the doctor would hasten to save his father; Peter, by contrast, doubts that the famously gruff surgeon will hurry. He suggests that an Amsterdam physician might be sent to the cottage at once, while recognizing that Dame Brinker may not consent to receive anyone other than Dr. Boekman. Thus the message is not treated as a guaranteed rescue. Peter communicates both the practical obstacle and the family’s dependence on whether another doctor would be accepted.

A second call and an uncertain result

On the return journey, Peter makes good on his promise to call again. In Leiden he goes to the Golden Eagle Inn on his errand. This time he learns that Dr. Boekman has been there, has read the note containing Hans’s message, and has departed for Broek. At last Peter has confirmation that the appeal reached its intended reader; the note was not merely left behind or forgotten.

The landlord immediately qualifies the apparent answer. He cannot say that Peter’s letter caused Dr. Boekman to leave so soon: a wealthy woman in Broek had suddenly fallen ill, and the surgeon had been summoned urgently. Peter turns pale at this explanation. The news joins the destination Hans needs with a separate reason for the doctor’s journey, leaving Peter unable to know whether the appeal has prompted action or merely crossed the surgeon’s path. The episode ends not with a reported consultation or treatment, but with the crucial fact that Dr. Boekman is on his way to Broek and the uncertainty over why.

Place in the narrative

The episode links the family crisis at the Brinker cottage to the boys’ travel without making the journey pause for a complete resolution. Peter’s repeated searches, his paid opportunity to leave a note, the letter sent from The Hague, and the later visit to the Golden Eagle form a chain of attempts rather than a single successful encounter. Each step narrows the distance between Hans’s message and Dr. Boekman, while preserving the delay and doubt that shape Peter’s experience of the errand.

That interleaving also gives the skating journey a second purpose. The boys move through Dutch places and continue their trip, while Peter carries a private responsibility within the group’s public adventure. The eventual news is consequential but deliberately incomplete: the doctor has read Hans’s plea and is headed to Broek, yet the evidence does not establish that the plea caused his departure. Peter’s pale reaction marks the emotional force of that distinction. Contact has been made; help is still not certain.