When the friends of the Pepper family found that the author was firm in
her decision to continue their history no further, they brought their
appeals for the details of some of those good times that made the
"little brown house" an object-lesson.
In these appeals, the parents were as vigorous as the young people for
a volume of the stories that Polly told, to keep the children happy in
those hard days when her story-telling had to be a large factor in
their home-life; and also for a book of their plays and exploits,
impossible to be embodied in the continued series of their history, so
that all who loved the "Five Little Peppers" might the better study the
influences that shaped their lives.
Those requests were complied with; the author realising that the
detailed account held values, by which stronger light might be thrown
on the family life in the "little brown house."
And now the pressure is brought to bear for a book showing the Little
Peppers over the ocean, recorded in "Five Little Peppers Midway." And
the author is very glad to comply again; for foreign travel throws a
wholly different side-light upon the Pepper family. So here is the book.
It is in no sense to be taken as a story written for a
guide-book,--although the author lives in it again her repeated
enjoyment of the sights and scenes which are accurately depicted. A
"Baedeker," if carefully studied, is really all that is needed as a
constant companion to the traveller; while for supplementary helps and
suggestions, there are many valuable books along the same line. This
volume is given up to the Peppers; and they must live their own lives
and tell their own story while abroad just as they choose.
As the author has stated many times, her part is "simply to set down
what the Peppers did and said, without trying to make them say or do
anything in particular." And so over the ocean they are just as much
the makers of their own history as when they first opened the door of
the "little brown house" to