HANS BRINKER
Or, The Silver Skates
To
my father,
JAMES J. MAPES,
this book
is dedicated in gratitude
and love
HANS BRINKER
OR THE SILVER SKATES
BY MARY MAPES DODGE
ILLUSTRATED BY
EDNA COOKE
PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
PREFACE
This little work aims to combine the instructive features of a book oftravels with the interest of a domestic tale. Throughout its pages thedescriptions of Dutch localities, customs, and general characteristics,have been given with scrupulous care. Many of its incidents are drawnfrom life, and the story of Raff Brinker is founded strictly upon fact.
While acknowledging my obligations to many well-known writers on Dutchhistory, literature, and art, I turn with especial gratitude to thosekind Holland friends, who, with generous zeal, have taken many abackward glance at their country for my sake, seeing it as it lookedtwenty years ago, when the Brinker home stood unnoticed in sunlight andshadow.
Should this simple narrative serve to give my young readers a just ideaof Holland and its resources, or present true pictures of itsinhabitants and their every-day life, or free them from certain currentprejudices concerning that noble and enterprising people, the leadingdesire in writing it will have been satisfied.
Should it cause even one heart to feel a deeper trust in God's goodnessand love, or aid any in weaving a life, wherein, through knots andentanglements, the golden thread shall never be tarnished or broken, theprayer with which it was begun and ended will have been answered.
M. M. D.
A LETTER FROM HOLLAND
Amsterdam, July 30, 1873.
Dear Boys and Girls at Home:
As Messrs. Scribner, Armstrong and Company, of New York, are printingfor you the story of "The Silver Skates," perhaps you would like to havea letter from this land of the Brinkers.
If you all could be here with me to-day, what fine times we might havewalking through this beautiful Dutch city! How we should stare at thecrooked houses, standing with their gable ends to the street; at thelittle slanting mirrors fastened outside of the windows; at the woodenshoes and dog-carts near by; the windmills in the distance; at the greatwarehouses; at the canals, doing the double duty of streets and rivers,and at the singular mingling of trees and masts to be seen in everydirection. Ah, it would be pleasant, indeed! But here I sit in a greathotel looking out upon all these things, knowing quite well that noteven the spirit of the Dutch, which seems able to accomplish anything,can bring you at this moment across the ocean. There is one comfort,however, in going through these wonderful Holland towns without you—itwould be dreadful to have any of the party tumble into the canals; andthen these lumbering Dutch wagons, with th