Four years have come and gone since first you asked me to write a Story of the United States lest you should grow up knowing nothing of your own country. I think, how ever, that you are not yet very grown up, not yet too proud and great to read my book. But I hope that you know something already of the history of your own coun try. For, after all, you know, this is only a play book. It is not a book which you need knit your brows over, or in which you will find pages of facts, or politics, and long strings of dates. But it is a book, I hope, which when you lay it down will make you say, I'm glad that I was born an American. I'm glad that I can salute the stars and stripes as my ?ag. Yes, the ?ag is yours. It is in your keeping and in that of every American boy and girl. It is you who in the next generation must keep it ?ying still over a people free and brave and true, and never in your lives do aught to dim the shining splendour of its, silver stars.