Dear Boys and Girls:
When your grandfather tells you a story, do you ever interrupt him to ask: "But is it all true?" And doesn't he often answer: "I don't know," or "I don't know when it's really true, and when it begins to be like a story book." And so, when you read through my little book—if you do read right through it to the very last page—you may wonder whether all my history stories really happened.
Yes—and no! I do know that cross old Peter Stuyvesant of New Amsterdam hated our people, but I never found any record of the Jewish boy who wanted to play with the governor's niece, pretty Katrina. The histories tell us how gallant young Franks became the friend of George Washington, but none of them mention that the Jewish soldier saved a Tory from the angry mob.
You understand now, don't you? So I'm going to turn the page right away that you may read for yourselves of the three Jews who whispered together on the deck of the "Santa Maria," as Columbus and his crew crossed the Sea of Darkness in search of a New Land.
E.E.L.
Note: The author expresses her thanks to the editors of The Hebrew Standard and The Jewish Child in which the stories, "In the Night Watches" and "A Place of Refuge," originally appeared.
CONTENTS.
| PAGE | |
| [IN THE NIGHT WATCHES] | 9 |
| The Three who came with Columbus. | |
| [WHEN KATRINA LOST HER WAY] | 14 |
| A tale of the First Jewish Settlers of New Amsterdam. | |
| [A PLACE OF REFUGE] | 33 |
| How the Wanderer came to Rhode Island. | |
| ["DOWN WITH KING GEORGE"] | 39 |
| How Isaac Franks, of the American army, first heard the Declaration of Independence. | |
| [THE LAST SERVICE] | 52 |
| The story of a Rabbi who lived in New York when it was captured by the British in 1776. | |
| [THE GENEROUS GIVER] | 68 |
| The story of a Jewish money-lender of the Revolution. | |
| [ACROSS THE WATERS] | 88 |
| A story of the City of Refuge planned by Mordecai Noah. | |
| [THREE AT GRACE] | 105 |
| The story of the first Jewish settler in Alabama. | |
| [THE LUCKY STONE] | 122 |
| The adventures of Uriah P. Levy, the first naval officer of his day. | |
| [THE PRINCESS OF PHILADELPHIA] | 140 |
| The story of Rebecca Gratz and Washington Irving. | |
| [A PRESENT FOR MR. LINCOLN] | 160 |
| How President Lincoln set out for Washington and how he returned. | |
| [THE LAND COLUMBUS FOUND] | 173 |
| The story of the tablet placed upon the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. |