Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net 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 [Illustration] ILLUSTRATED BY EDNA COOKE PHILADELPHIA GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY PUBLISHERS [Illustration] 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:_ As Messrs. Scribner, Armstrong and Company, of New York, are printing for you the story of "The Silver Skates," perhaps you would like to have a letter from this land of the Brinkers.