Docas

DOCAS Frontispiece
HEATH SUPPLEMENTARY READERS
By GENEVRA SISSON SNEDDEN
D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO ATLANTA DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO LONDON
Copyright, 1899, By D. C. Heath and Company Copyright Renewed, 1927, By Genevra Sisson Snedden 3 K 6 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher Printed in U.S.A.
My dear Children:—
What sort of people do you like best to read about—white people or Indians?
I think you will say Indians, because all the children of whom I have ever asked this question have said that they liked best to read about Indians. Indians do everything so differently from the way we do that they are always interesting.
This book which we are now going to read is about Indians,—the Indians who lived near the Pacific Ocean before our grandfathers were born, and before we Americans came west and settled the country.
Do you like best to read about grown-up people or about children? I think I can hear you say, “What a question! Children, of course!” Yes, children can have such fun, running and playing and finding out about all kinds of things for which grown people never have time, that it is much pleasanter to read about them. So this whole book is about children. The first part tells about the little Indian boy, Docas; farther on, when Docas grows to be a man, the book tells about his children and grandchildren.
Last of all, the stories tell about things that actually happened to Indian children long ago in California, so they are what you call “truly stories,” not “made-up ones.”
These are some of the reasons why the children for whom the stories were first written liked them and learned from them, and for these same reasons I think many of you will care to read about Docas, the Indian boy of Santa Clara.