Posted on by TracyC

A Year Down Yonder

YearDownYonderA Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck, 2000.

This is the sequel to A Long Way from Chicago. The story takes place shortly after the Great Depression, in 1937.

Times are still hard, and a recession has left a lot of people out of work again. Mary Alice’s father is out of work, and her brother Joey is out west working for the Civilian Conservation Corps. Because her family has to move to a smaller apartment, fifteen-year-old Mary Alice leaves Chicago to stay with her Grandma in the country for the year. Times are hard in Grandma’s small town as well, but Mary Alice’s Grandma is as wily and eccentric as ever.

Like the first book, this book is really a series of short stories about Mary Alice’s adventures with her Grandma during their year together. The stories generally have a hilarious turn as Grandma gets the better of everyone, often in the name justice or a good cause.  (Although, Grandma’s sense of justice is debatable since it involves “borrowing” pumpkins from the neighbors in the dead of night and other questionable activities.)

These stories present a detailed picture of rural life during the 1930s, from pranks played on Halloween to how Armistice Day was celebrated in the years following World War I, when people were still alive who had strong memories of that war. The stories also capture some of the personalities and politics of life in a small town, from a disreputable family of outcasts to the local elite, who have more money than the others and brag about having ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War (which may or may not be so).

Rich Chicago Girl: Mary Alice arrives in Grandma’s small town and is enrolled in the local school.  She meets the class bully, and Grandma helps her to deal with her.

Vittles and Vengeance: At Halloween, Grandma gets revenge against a group of pranksters and raids her neighbors for ingredients to make the school Halloween party better.

A Minute in the Morning: Armistice Day, November 11, has more meaning for people who have actual memories of The Great War (World War I).  Grandma makes sure that those who can afford it pay what they owe to the veterans of that war and shows Mary Alice the price that some soldiers paid for supporting their country.

Away in a Manger: Mary Alice is picked to play Mary in the school’s Christmas Nativity play.  The baby Jesus turns out to be a surprise for the whole town, and Grandma arranges a special surprise for Mary Alice.

Hearts and Flour: The head of the local branch of the DAR pushes Grandma to make cherry tarts for their annual tea in honor of George Washington’s birthday.  Since she will neither allow Grandma to join the DAR (because Grandma doesn’t have the proper lineage) nor pay Grandma for her work (she thinks Grandma should ‘volunteer’ her services as part of her patriotic duty), Grandma insists that if she bakes, she must host the tea as well . . . with a couple of special surprise guests.  Meanwhile, a handsome new boy named Royce joins Mary Alice’s class at school.

A Dangerous Man: An artist working for the WPA rents a room from Grandma, treating Mary Alice and Royce to a scandalous but hilarious sight when his subject matter gets out of hand.

Gone with the Wind: A tornado sweeps through the town, and Grandma and Mary Alice go to check on residents who live alone.  Mary Alice also prepares to return home to her parents in Chicago.

Ever After: The final story in the book is about Mary Alice’s wedding, years later, toward the end of World War II.

This book is a Newbery Award winner.  There are multiple copies currently available online through Internet Archive.

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A Long Way from Chicago

LongWayChicagoA Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck, 1998.

Joey and Mary Alice live in Chicago during the Great Depression, but every summer, they go to stay with their grandmother in a small town in Illinois. At first, the kids think that staying with their grandmother will be boring, but they soon find out that Grandma is anything but. She’s an eccentric woman who doesn’t let anyone boss her around and doesn’t have much respect for any rules but her own. Although she’s pretty tough, Joe and Mary Alice learn that, deep down, Grandma really does care about other people and tries to help them, even though she often gets into a lot of trouble in the process. Each chapter is a short story from each of the summers that the kids spend with their grandmother, from 1929 to 1935:

Shotgun Cheatham’s Last Night Above Ground (1929): When a reporter comes looking for information about a recently deceased local character, Grandma volunteers to hold a wake for him in order to teach everyone a lesson about truth and gossip.

The Mouse in the Milk (1930): When a group of local pranksters needs to be punished, Grandma decides to play a little trick of her own to get even.

A One-Woman Crime Wave (1931): Grandma turns to trespassing and illegal fishing in her quest to feed the hungry.

The Day of Judgment (1932): Grandma enters a baking contest at the county fair for the glory of her home town and a chance to ride in an airplane.

The Phantom Brakeman (1933): Mary Alice tries to help a young woman escape from her abusive mother, and Grandma brings a ghost story to life for the sake of young love.

Things with Wings (1934): Effie Wilcox, a neighbor of Grandma’s, loses her house to the bank, but Grandma comes to the rescue by demonstrating the power of rumors.

Centennial Summer (1935): As Grandma’s town celebrates its centennial, Grandma decides that uppity Mrs. Weidenbach, the banker’s wife, needs to be taught a lesson.

The Troop Train (1942): Joe, now much older, has enlisted in the Army Air Corps during World War II. As the train taking him to his basic training passes Grandma’s town, she’s there to wave to him.

During the course of the stories, the author includes details about how Prohibition and the Great Depression affected people and other details about life in the early 1930s. This book is a Newbery Honor Book.  There are multiple copies available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Tornado Jones

TornadoJonesTornado Jones by Trella Lamson Dick, 1953.

This book was recommended by a reader of this blog.  I haven’t been able to find a copy of it myself, but the reader thoughtfully supplied a picture of the cover.

The reader says:

“I lived in North Platte Nebraska from about February of 1953 till about April of 1955. During that time a book was written by Trella Lamson Dick entitled “Tornado Jones”. Everyone in my school in North Platte read that book many many times. We all loved it. Trella Lamson Dick was born, lived and died in small town of Orleans, Nebraska, Just East and a bit South of North Platte Nebraska. I have two copies of the book one for each of my grandsons. It may be something you might look into investing in I know there are copies available.

It is about a boy whose parents had died and he lived with his Aunt on a farm. In his adventures he discovered people who were digging dirt out in a gully and a pit in the middle of prairie land and he could not figure out why. It turns out that the book is a work of fiction but it is based on fact about the determination that the ‘Jeffrey Reservoir’ East of North Platte could actually be built and would function.”

The orphan boy, Tornado Jones, also has a mystery surrounding his name.  He doesn’t like to talk about it with other people, but when he makes a friend (the first one he’s ever had), Paul, he finally confides that the only clue he has to his real name is a glass bell.  The secrecy surrounding his name has made him uneasy for his entire life.  Tornado also believes that there is gold buried in the canyon nearby, and when he sees people digging there, he is sure that’s what they’re looking for.  Paul is fascinated at the secrets Tornado confides in him, and he and Tornado team up to uncover both the secret of the gold and Tornado’s name.  At the same time, Tornado’s family is worried about the beginning of the reservoir and dam, the construction of which threatens to flood the family’s home.  Can they save their home or will they have to give it up in the name of progress?

This book won the Charles W. Follett Award and is actually the first in a series about Tornado Jones.  There are two others.

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Prayers at Eastertime

PrayersEastertime

Prayers at Eastertime by Pamela Kennedy and Stephanie McFetridge Britt, 1989.

This was a present given to me one Easter many years ago, and I always liked it, especially because of the nice pictures.  Some of the prayers and accompanying Bible quotes are specifically for Easter and springtime, but others are just more general.

There are multiple copies of this book available online through Internet Archive.

Happy Easter!

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Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Make Way for Ducklings

MakeWay

Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey, 1941.

Mr. and Mrs. Mallard are looking for a new home where they can raise their babies.  After trying several places, they finally find a place that seems right on an island in the Charles River, not far from the Public Garden where people fed them peanuts.

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Then, one day, Mr. Mallard decides to take a trip to explore the river, leaving Mrs. Mallard and their ducklings on the island.  The two of them agree to meet again with their ducklings in the Public Garden in a week.  However, the journey from the river to the garden is perilous.  Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings need the help of some friendly policemen to make it safely through the city!

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The classic children’s picture book is cute and gentle with a happy ending for the Mallard family. This book is a Caldecott Medal winner and the Official State Children’s Book of Massachusetts.

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The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Ginger’s Upstairs Pet

GingerUpstairsPet

Ginger’s Upstairs Pet by John Ryckman, 1971.

This is a cute picture book about a little girl named Ginger and the mysterious new “pet” she’s found.  At first, her mother doesn’t believe that Ginger has a pet, but Ginger keeps running downstairs from her room to ask for more food to feed her pet.  First, it’s cake.  Then, it’s apples.  Ginger keeps coming back down stairs with more requests for food.

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Ginger’s mother thinks that Ginger is eating the food herself until Ginger comes downstairs with an especially strange request.  Then, her mother decides to see Ginger’s mysterious pet herself.

What kind of pet does Ginger have?  More importantly, how did she get it?

My Reaction and Spoilers

If you don’t want to know what pet Ginger has, don’t look at the pictures below!  I don’t mind giving spoilers, though, because this isn’t a very common book these days.  It isn’t on Internet Archive, although it’s possible to buy it on Amazon.  I won my copy in a drawing back when I was in first grade, and the school library was raffling off books they were getting rid of.

It’s a fun, light-hearted story about a strange day in the life of this family and the unusual “pet” that little Ginger temporarily acquires without even leaving her upstairs bedroom.  It’s a calm but humorous story that has enough reality to it to be believable.  Ginger’s pet and the way she found it are unusual enough that it would be unlikely that anything like this would happen to any real child, but not so far out and crazy to be completely unbelievable or too cartoony, and the situation is resolved realistically, after which Ginger and her mom have some cake themselves.  There’s nothing serious or tense about the story at all, so it would make good bedtime reading.  It’s one of the books that I think would be nice to see in print again.

The drawings are cute, and they’re interesting because they only use four colors: black, white, red, and green.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Lisa and Lottie

LisaLottieLisa and Lottie by Erich Kastner, 1969.

First, a note about the copyright: the date I give is for the edition I own, which is an English translation of the original German book.  The original copyright date for the story is 1949.  This is the story that was the basis for Disney’s The Parent Trap, both the version with Hayley Mills (1961) and the later Lindsey Lohan version (1998).  Neither movie completely follows the original story (although some of the dialog in the Hayley Mills version is almost word-for-word from the English version of the original story) because the settings are shifted to new locations, but both of them capture the concept of twins who were separated as infants by their divorced parents only to meet again years later by accident.  As in the book, each of the twins has been living a different kind of life with one of their parents, but they decide to switch places so that each of them can meet the parent they’ve never known.

Lottie Horn is a very serious little girl.  She can’t help it because she lives with her single mother, who spends much of her time working, and she relies on Lottie to take care of a number of household chores.  But, her mother feels badly that Lottie has been growing up so quiet and serious, so to help her relax and make more friends her own age, she decides to send Lottie to summer camp at Bohrlaken on Lake Bohren.

Shy Lottie thinks that her summer is going to be horrible when she meets up with boisterous Lisa Palfy, a girl who strangely looks exactly like her.  Lisa is shocked at the sight of this girl who looks so much like her, and after some teasing, joking, and staring from all the other girls, she loses her temper and kicks Lottie in the shin.  The camp leaders decide to give the two girls beds next to each other, saying that they’ll just have to get used to each other.  Lottie thinks that it’s going to be awful, but when Lisa sees how unhappy Lottie is, she apologizes and starts being nicer to her.

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The two girls discuss their lives and their strange resemblance with each other, and some unsettling details are revealed.  First, they learn that they not only share a resemblance but the same birthday.  They also realize that they were both born in the same city, although Lottie now lives in Munich and Lisa lives in Vienna.  This strange coincidence is troubling enough, but then each girl reveals that she lives with only one parent: Lottie lives with her mother, and Lisa lives with her father.  Lottie has no memory of her father and no knowledge of what happened to him, where he might be, or even if he’s still alive.  Lisa also has no memory of her mother, but she did once see a picture of her, a picture which her father hid somewhere after he found her looking at it.  The girls start getting suspicious, so Lottie shows Lisa a picture of her mother, and Lisa confirms that it’s an identical copy of the picture of her mother she saw before.  Lisa and Lottie realize that they are long-lost sisters.

LisaLottiePic2Through the rest of the summer, the girls discuss their lives and parents in great detail and continue speculating about the reasons for their parents’ separation and why they were never told about each other’s existence.  They are somewhat angry at their parents for not telling them the truth, but they each also want to know more about the parent that they have never really known and perhaps to learn the truth behind their parents’ separation. They begin hatching a plot to switch places so that Lottie can go to Vienna to meet their father and Lisa can go to Munich to be with their mother.  They get little notebooks and fill them with as many details of their lives as they can think of so that each girl can seem to behave like the other, although they know it won’t be easy because they’ve lived very different lives.  They don’t like the same foods, and Lottie knows how to cook, but Lisa doesn’t.

Still, the girls proceed with their plan.  When it is time to leave camp, the girls dress as each other.  Lisa puts her hair in braids as Lottie always does.  Lottie lets her curls hang loose, like Lisa usually does.  Then, each of them boards the train for the other’s city at the station.

LisaLottiePic3Lisa is overjoyed to finally meet her mother in Munich.  But, her mother has to work very hard as a photographic editor for a newspaper, and they don’t have much money.  Lisa isn’t as good at cooking or taking care of household chores as Lottie is, so she finds it difficult to help, although she learns quickly.

In Vienna, Lottie meets her handsome but somewhat reclusive father.  Her father is an opera conductor, but he’s also a composer who needs to spend much of his time alone in order to compose his music, which was the primary reason for the divorce.  He always wanted to devote his life to the arts, and he felt that marriage and family life got in the way, although he dearly loves his remaining daughter and dotes on her.

But, life in Vienna isn’t that great for either Lottie/Lisa or her father.  Rosa, the housekeeper who often looks after “Lisa” and takes care of their apartment only pretends to like her when her father is around and steals from the household funds.  Also, in spite of finally having plenty of time along for composing music (which is successful), her father is lonely and unhappy.  Although he doesn’t want to admit it at first, he misses the comforts of family life and the company of his wife.

Each girl, because of her different personality, manages to make changes in the life of the other and in their parents which are for the better, but the charade cannot continue forever.  Lottie finds out that their father is considering marriage to a woman who doesn’t like her.  Then, Lottie falls seriously ill.  More than ever, she needs her mother . . . and her twin.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive (they have multiple copies).

My Reaction and Spoilers:

LisaLottiePic4The book is much less of a comedy than either of the two Disney movies, although there are some funny parts, like when Lottie (as Lisa) takes over the household accounts to stop Rosa’s stealing and ends up turning her into a much better housekeeper with her practicality.  Surprisingly, Rosa actually starts respecting her more and even liking her better because of it.

Much of the focus of the book is how divorce affects children as well as parents, although there is room for debate on how each side views the issue, and some modern families may disagree with some of the points characters in the story make.  The point of view of the story shifts between each of the girls and also between their parents and other characters to show different reactions to the situation.

The children are understandably upset at the entire issue and believe what their parents did was wrong.  The girls admit that they do not think of either of their parents as evil or cruel, but they view the separation and lies that were forced on them without their consent as cruel.  Lottie even has a nightmare which is a twisted version of Hansel and Gretel in which her father threatens to cut both her and her sister in half because it would only be fair for each parent to get half of each child.  At camp, the girls see one of their friends crying, having just found out that her parents are going to get a divorce.  Other girls at the camp call her parents mean for making the decision while she was away at camp and just springing it on her with no warning at all.  For the children in the story, the worst part about parents divorcing is when they give little or no thought to how the children will feel or be affected by the decision and don’t even talk about the situation with them.

Some of that sentiment is echoed by adults in the story, although the adults are a little more ambivalent on the issue, knowing that different people and different circumstances must be judged on an individual basis.  The adults try to do what they think is best for the children, but they make mistakes, partly because they are too absorbed in their own concerns to understand the entire situation, and they come to realize it.  The overall sentiment of the book seems to be that, while marriages are made up of only two people, families are made up of more, including the children.  When a couple divorces, it not only affects the marriage, but the whole family as well, and parents need to remember that.

Like the movies, the book also ends happily, and the father finds a way (with the help of Lottie) to balance his work life with his family life.

Posted on by TracyC

Susan’s Magic

SusansMagicSusan’s Magic by Nan Hayden Agle, 1973.

Susan Prescott believes in magic, although her mother tries to tell her that it’s all imagination.  Susan gets feelings about things and sometimes seems to have the ability to make things work the way she wants them to.  That’s part of the reason why she can believe that old Mrs. Gaffney is really a witch.  People say that Mrs. Gaffney used to be a fortune teller but had to stop when one of her predictions became frightening true and people got scared of her.  Now, Mrs. Gaffney runs an antique shop, living in a small apartment above it.  But, whether Mrs. Gaffney is really a witch or not, Susan’s life soon becomes entangled with hers through a series of unforeseen events.

Susan lives with her mother, who is a practical, down-to-earth woman, and her older brother Mike, who likes to play football.  Her parents are divorced, and her father lives in another state, only visiting occasionally, often at unpredictable times.  Susan’s father is known for not being very dependable, and he apparently left the family to be with another woman, although the story doesn’t provide many details.  Susan misses her father and is hurt by his absence, lack of dependability, and that he is more interested in being with someone else, somewhere else, instead of with her, her mother, and her brother.

The story begins when Susan sets out one day to buy a present for her mother’s birthday, and another girl she knows from school tells her to have a look at the flea market being held that day at a church.  Susan doesn’t have much money, and even most of the used items at the flea market are beyond her small savings.  Then, she foolishly spends what little money she has on cupcakes and lemonade.  Susan is angry with herself for her  foolishness, but her mistake leads her to greater adventures.

SusansMagicPic1One of the things at the sale which especially captures Susan’s attention is a small stuffed toy elephant.  The elephant is very worn, and Susan feels sorry for him, wanting to take him home and take care of him.  However, her money is gone, and she still has no present for her mother.  Then Mrs. Gaffney spots her looking sad and offers to lend her the 25 cents she would need to buy the elephant.  Although Susan has reservations about accepting such a loan, she does anyway, telling Mrs. Gaffney that she’ll pay her back.

Susan brings the elephant, which she names Trunko, home, and when her mother thinks that Susan meant to give it to her for her birthday, she doesn’t correct her although she has become very attached to him herself.  Her mother, sensing Susan’s attachment to the toy, says that they can share it and that Susan can sleep with it.  Susan thinks this is a good arrangement until someone calls the house to say that the toy elephant was donated by mistake and that the original owner is sad and wants it back.

At first, Susan can’t bear the thought of giving up Trunko. But when she learns that the real owner is Hugo, a member of her brother’s football team, that he has had the toy ever since he was small, and that he really misses it, she realizes that she has to let him have it back.  To thank Susan for giving him back Trunko (originally named Stanley), Hugo gives Susan a stray cat that had been living under his porch.  Susan loves the cat immediately and names her Sereena.

However, Susan’s mother says that they can’t keep the cat because the hill nearby is a bird sanctuary.  Susan tries to persuade her mother otherwise, but she says that they’ll just have to find another home for Sereena.  Susan tries to get an older girl from school to look after the cat for awhile while she tries to persuade her mother to let her keep her, but the other girl refuses.  Then, unexpectedly, the cat runs into Mrs. Gaffney’s shop as Susan is walking past it.

In Mrs. Gaffney’s shop, Susan accidentally breaks a teapot, increasing her debt to Mrs. Gaffney.  However, Mrs. Gaffney turns out to be a cat lover and agrees to look after Sereena for Susan.  This is the beginning of a new relationship between Susan and Mrs. Gaffney as Susan offers to work for her in order to pay off her debt.  Mrs. Gaffney could use some help in her shop because sales haven’t been good, and she’s worried about losing it.

Sereena herself turns out to be good for Mrs. Gaffney’s shop, attracting customers’ attention to the items for sale.  Susan feels jealous about how much Sereena likes Mrs. Gaffney and her shop, as if Sereena has abandoned her like her father and Trunko have.  But, when a beautiful dollhouse in Mrs. Gaffney’s shop catches her eye and it turns out to be even more valuable than Mrs. Gaffney believed it was at first, Susan has to decide whether she is willing to give it up to help Mrs. Gaffney earn enough money to fix up her shop or if she will hold Mrs. Gaffney to her earlier promise to sell it to her for much less.

SusansMagicPic2In spite of the talk about magic and witches, this is not a fantasy story at all.  Susan’s concept of magic has more to do with a way of living, dealing with change, and solving life’s problems.  For the first part of the book, Susan’s “magic” focuses on getting what she wants for herself and getting things to work out the way she wants them to.  But, as the book goes on, Susan matures in the way she deals with the complications in her life.

Toward the end of the book, Susan thinks about reality and fantasy: “The magic part of living was how you fit yourself around real things, she guessed.  A magician was extra good at fitting. That’s why being one was important.”  What Susan really wants and the kind of person she wants to be change.  She comes to realize that, while she can’t get and keep everything she wants in life in the sense that it’s always with her all the time, caring about people and things is also a kind of ownership.  Giving up the toy elephant and sharing the cat with Mrs. Gaffney do not mean losing them completely because she still cares about them and the people connected with them.

Susan also realizes that, even if she doesn’t get exactly what she wants in the beginning, as long as things work out for the people she cares about, she can still be happy.  Although she has to make sacrifices at times for the people she cares about, she earns the love and respect of the people who mean the most to her.  Susan says, “Anyway, magicians don’t lose. They win. Dad, Trunko, and Sereena are mine still in a way.”  She will always be close to her mother and brother, even without her father’s presence, and Hugo, Mrs. Gaffney, and Sereena are all her friends.  Susan is a winner not because she gets what she wants for herself but because she knows how to make things work out in the best possible way for everyone she cares about, and that’s a kind of magic.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

In some ways, this story reminds me a little of the Miyazki movie Whisper of the Heart, which also features a young girl who likes making up stories and who is led to an antique store by a friendly cat and meets an older person who helps her to learn about the person she wants to be and the kind of life she wants to live.  The two stories are not the same, though, and Whisper of the Heart was based on Japanese manga, not this book.  In some ways, however, both this book and Whisper of the Heart are the kind of stories that take on a new life when you read them as an adult because, at that point, you understand some of the feelings behind them better.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Mandie and the Forbidden Attic

MandieForbiddenAttic#4 Mandie and the Forbidden Attic by Lois Gladys Leppard, 1985.

Mandie is unhappy because her mother and Uncle John are sending her to a boarding school in Asheville. It is the same school her mother attended years ago, and her grandmother lives in the same town. Mandie is upset about leaving all of her friends and family behind, but Uncle Ned says that he will still visit her.

By the time that Mandie arrives at her new school, everyone else already knows each other, and none of them seem interested in making friends with her. One girl in particular, April Snow, takes a dislike to Mandie, which is difficult because they have been assigned to the same room.

Things change when Celia Hamilton comes to the school. She and Mandie become best friends, and Mandie is allowed to share a room with her. Then, strange things start happening. Mandie and Celia keep hearing strange noises during the night from the attic floor above them, and some of Mandie’s clothes disappear. At first, they suspect that April Snow may be playing a mean trick on them, but it turns out that she is not actually at fault. There is someone at the school who doesn’t belong, but finding this person may get Mandie and Celia into trouble.

This adventure requires Mandie to meet with her grandmother again.  Mandie is nervous about seeing her grandmother because her grandmother helped break up her parents’ marriage and sent her away with her father when she was a baby. Surprisingly, Mandie’s grandmother seems to like her and her friend Celia. She admires their spirit and even says that Mandie reminds her a little of herself when she was young.  This meeting helps the granddaughter and grandmother to make peace with each other and the past.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Mandie and the Ghost Bandits

MandieGhostBandits#3 Mandie and the Ghost Bandits by Lois Gladys Leppard, 1984.

Mandie and her family are going to proceed with the plan to create a hospital for the Cherokees with the gold that they found in the cave. To do that, they need to take the gold to a bank in Asheville.  They decide to take the gold secretly on a train. Uncle Ned stays in the baggage car to watch the gold as they set out on their journey.

When the kids decide to leave their car to go visit him, strange things begin to happen. They see riders dressed as ghosts out the window. Then, the car with Uncle Ned and the gold inside is disconnected from the rest of the train, crashing into a ravine. The train comes to a stop, and the kids jump off to see if they can help Uncle Ned.

Before they can find him, the train starts up again, leaving them behind, and they are taken prisoner by the mysterious ghost bandits. They are after the gold in the baggage car, but how did they know it was there when Mandie’s family tried so hard to keep it a secret? Mandie and her friends must escape and find the others before it is too late!

In some respects, I would call this more of an adventure story than a mystery, although there is still the question of how the bandits knew where the gold was in order to steal it.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.