THE SANDMAN.

HIS FARM STORIES

Copyright, 1902

By The Page Company

All rights reserved

Made in U.S.A.

PRINTED BY THE COLONIAL PRESS INC.
CLINTON, MASS., U.S.A.

To
that
Little John
of to-day
who has inspired these stories
of that other
Little John
of long ago
this volume is
most affectionately
dedicated

PREFACE

Whatever may be thought of these stories by older people, they have served, with some others, to induce a certain little boy to go to sleep, and for nearly three years my one listener has heard them repeated many times, and his interest has never flagged. As the farm stories slowly grew in number, they entirely displaced the other stories, and that farm has become as real in the mind of my audience as it was in fact when little John was driving the cows, or planting the corn, seventy-five years ago.

The detail, which may seem excessive to an older critic, was in every case, until I had learned to put it in at the start, the result of a searching cross-examination. If the bars were not put up again, the cows might get out; and if the oxen did not pass, on their return, all the familiar objects, how did they get back to the barn? It is the young critics that I hope to please, those whose years count no more than six. If they like these farm stories half as well as my own young critic likes them, I shall be satisfied.

William J. Hopkins.

CONTENTS