These stories are founded on memories of my childhood on the farm. They first took definite form in response to the requests of my own little boys: "Tell me about when you were little, Mama." Some of them were demanded over and over again; but it remained for Bobby, the youngest, to insist that they be "put into a book."

Many a time, after listening to one of them, he would say: "I wish you would write your stories, Mama, so that other children could hear them."

Always I replied: "I will try sometime."

But never did the time come when there were not other things to do.

Finally, one night, when I had finished telling, "How Rover Got the Cows out of the Corn," he said: "Mama, you always say you will write your stories, but you never do. Truly, I'm afraid the other children will never know them."

I looked up. There were tears in Bobby's eyes.

Did it mean so much to him? Would other children like the stories?

"Bobby," I said, "truly, I will try to write them. After Christmas I will begin."

So after the holidays were over and the older boys had gone back to college, the writing was commenced.

"Will they do?" said I to Bobby when he had heard the last story read. "Do you think a publisher will like them?"

"The children will like them," he replied.

So that is how Prince and Rover happened to be written.

H. F. O.