cherished a boundless pride and love. Both in her home study and her editorial office his picture decorated the wall above her desk.
While still a very young woman, however, she became the wife of William Dodge, a prominent lawyer of New York, and for several happy years a new love reigned supreme in her life, while the claims of husband and children—for two boys had come to bless the fireside—filled the days with peace and joy. Her own home, like her father’s, was an ideal one, where the best people and the best influences found always an open door and open hearts. All too soon, however, it was desolated and closed by the sudden death of the head of the household, and with her two children Mrs. Dodge returned to the homestead, a large country house near Newark, New Jersey.
Here her life was mainly devoted to her children. She was not only their mother, but their comrade and friend. She entered into all their daily interests, their work and play; and as time went on she found herself obliged to provide the money for their education. It was for this purpose that she turned to writing.
A small cottage or farm-house which adjoined the orchard on her father’s estate was confiscated for use as a study, and Mrs, Dodge and her boys soon transformed it into a cozy “den.” In this simply furnished and quaint little abode, far enough away from the great house to insure quiet, she set to work in earnest. Fortunately, everything that she wrote was successful. The periodicals to which she sent even her earliest manuscripts accepted them all and eagerly asked for more,
After the publication in leading magazines of several essays and stories for grown-up readers, Mrs. Dodge brought out, in 1864, her first book— made up of short tales for children—under the title “Irvington Stories.” So great was its popularity that the publisher begged for a second series or a sequel. But Mrs. Dodge, meantime, had begun work upon a longer narrative. She was really improvising it as a “good-night story” for her boys “making it up as she went along,” as children say, From Motley’s histories and other books her mind was filled with admiration of the sturdy, heroic little nation which for centuries has held its own against the mightiest powers of Europe and a still mightier enemy—the sea. In the heat of kindled imagination she began to tell her children a story of life in Holland, weaving into it much interesting material from the history of that quaint and valiant country, which at that time she had never seen.
The subject grew more and more absorbing to her. She worked upon the manuscript from morning till night, and sought eagerly for every source of information which could make her
pages more true to life or more entertaining to her readers. “She ransacked libraries, public and private, for books upon Holland; made 
Professor James J. Mapes, Mrs. Dodge’s father.every traveler whom she knew tell her his tale of that unique country; and submitted every chapter to the test of the criticism of two accomplished Hollanders living near her. It was the genius of patience and toil, the conscientious touching and retouching of the true artist, which wrought the seemingly spontaneous and simple task.”
