Preface

(1856)

This is Horatio Alger's first published book.

DEDICATION: To my Mother.

As I turn over the pages of this my first book, and mark here and there a name which use has made familiar, I feel the more, that, but for your sympathy and encouragement, much would still remain unwritten. With me you have sorrowed over the untimely death of �Little Charlie.� �Bertha,� with her precious gifts,�whereof so many stand in need,�has grown to you and me not a child of fancy, but a living presence. �Little Floy,� and the �Child of the Street,� will recall, to your mind as to mine, the touching lines of Mrs. Browning:�

�Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers!
Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers;
And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows;
The young birds are chirping in the nest;
The young fawns are playing with the shadows;
The young flowers are blowing toward the West:
But the young, young children, O my brothers!
They are weeping bitterly,�
They are weeping in the play-time of the others,
In the country of the free.
They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their looks are sad to see;
For the man�s grief abhorrent draws and presses
Down the cheeks of infancy.�

To you, then, I dedicate this book,�which is partly yours, in spirit, if not in deed,�confident, that, whatever may be its shortcomings in the eyes of others, it will find a kindly welcome at your hands.