Sidney, Margaret: Ben Pepper. v1, 15 Jul 2013
 

Margaret Sidney was the pseudonym of American author Harriett Mulford Stone Lothrop (June 22, 1844–August 2, 1924). In addition to writing popular children's stories, she ran her husband Daniel Lothrop's publishing company after his death. After they bought The Wayside country house together, they worked hard to make it a center of literary life.

Excerpt
It was quite impossible that the detailed records presented through the later Pepper books, of the doings and sayings of the "Little Brown House" family, should omit Ben. He, the eldest-born of Mother Pepper's brood, and her mainstay after the father died, the quiet, "steady-as-a-rock boy," as the Badgertown people all called him, with lots of fun in him too, because he could not help it, being a Pepper, was worthy of a book to himself.