PREFACE
When I was a little girl, my favorite books dealt with children whose lives were like my own. I smudged with many readings the pages that told of Susy and Prudy and Dotty in Portland, of their visits to the country, of their every-day happenings. Their adventures were far dearer to me than those of foreign lads and lasses and richly clad little princesses whose ways were not as my ways.
I have thought for some time that the colored children in the United States might also like to have their intimate books telling of happenings that were like their own. They must be tired of reading always of far-away children. So, out of my years of experience among these soft-eyed, velvet-cheeked small friends, I have written this story.
I have purposely avoided dialect. Correct English spelling is difficult enough to young readers without superimposing other forms for the not too-familiar words. I have, however, tried to give the turn of expression in the southern speech.
I hope my colored child friends will smudge my pages. And if the white child stops to read, I trust that she will feel an awakened sympathy for the dark-faced boys and girls whose world is outside her own.
M. W. O.
Brooklyn, N. Y.,
September 15, 1913.