Hans Brinker/Silver Skates/etc | Page 3

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Typed by Ng E-Ching

HANS BRINKER OR THE SILVER SKATES
BY MARY MAPES DODGE

To my father James J. Mapes this book is dedicated in gratitude and
love

Preface

This little work aims to combine the instructive features of a book of
travels with the interest of a domestic tale. Throughout its pages the
descriptions of Dutch localities, customs, and general characteristics
have been given with scrupulous care. Many of its incidents are drawn
from life, and the story of Raff Brinker is founded strictly upon fact.
While acknowledging my obligations to many well-known writers on
Dutch history, literature, and art, I turn with especial gratitude to those
kind Holland friends who, with generous zeal, have taken many a
backward glance at their country for my sake, seeing it as it looked
twenty years ago, when the Brinker home stood unnoticed in sunlight
and shadow.
Should this simple narrative serve to give my young readers a just idea
of Holland and its resources, or present true pictures of its inhabitants
and their every-day life, or free them from certain current prejudices
concerning that noble and enterprising people, the leading desire in
writing it will have been satisfied.
Should it cause even one heart to feel a deeper trust in God's goodness

and love, or aid any in weaving a life, wherein, through knots and
entanglements, the golden thread shall never be tarnished or broken, the
prayer 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:
If you all could be here with me today, what fine times we might have
walking through this beautiful Dutch city! How we should stare at the
crooked houses, standing with their gable ends to the street; at the little
slanting mirrors fastened outside of the windows; at the wooden shoes
and dogcarts nearby; the windmills in the distance; at the great
warehouses; at the canals, doing the double duty of streets and rivers,
and at the singular mingling of trees and masts to be seen in every
direction. Ah, it would be pleasant, indeed! But here I sit in a great
hotel looking out upon all these things, knowing quite well that not
even the spirit of the Dutch, which seems able to accomplish anything,
can bring you at this moment across the moment. There is one comfort,
however, in going through these wonderful Holland towns without
you--it would be dreadful to have any of the party tumble into the
canals; and then these lumbering Dutch wagons, with their heavy
wheels, so very far apart; what should I do if a few dozen of you were
to fall under THEM? And, perhaps, one of the wildest of my boys
might harm a stork, and then all Holland would be against us! No. It is
better as it is. You will be coming, one by one, as years go on, to see
the whole thing for yourselves.
Holland is as wonderful today as it was when, more than twenty years
ago, Hans and Gretel skated on the frozen Y. In fact, more wonderful,
for every day increases the marvel of its not being washed away by the
sea. Its cities have grown, and some of its peculiarities have been
washed away by contact with other nations; but it is Holland still, and
always will be--full of oddity, courage and industry--the pluckiest little
country on earth. I shall not tell you in this letter of its customs, its
cities, its palaces, churches, picture galleries and museums--for these
are described in the story--except to say that they are here still, just the

same, in this good year 1873, for I have seen them nearly all within a
week.
Today an American boy and I, seeing some children enter an old house
in the business part of Amsterdam, followed them in--and what do you
think we found? An old woman, here in the middle of summer, selling
hot water and fire! She makes her living by it. All day long she sits
tending her great fires of peat