Back from camping!
May. 5th, 2023 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI am returned from my camping trip! We had a fire and I successfully cooked a grilled cheese sandwich on a skillet over the coals, very slightly burned on one side, but the cheese was melty and the bread was crispy and overall it was quite a creditable attempt for my first try. And once the weather cleared up, I had a lovely walk through the woods and the marsh, and then on the last morning along the beach by Lake Michigan.
However, the first couple of days were rainy and cold, so I did LOTS of reading, including Carol Ryrie Brink's The Bad Times of Irma Baumlein. I always enjoy Brink's books, but the more I read the more I see why Caddie Woodlawn is the one that is remembered; her books are all fun but Caddie Woodlawn is the only one that has that certain extra something that lifts it up and makes it more than that.
Also I read E. D. E. N. Southworth's Hidden Hand. Southworth was a prolific and popular author of sensation novels in the mid-nineteenth century (immortalized in Little Women as S. L. A. N. G. Northbury), and this is her most famous book, and I am aghast! exasperated! to tell you that it's only the first half of the story, the second half being contained in the sequel Capitola's Peril (Capitola is our heroine, who first appears on the scene eking out an existence as a slangy newsboy in New York City), so when I reached the end of Hidden Hand I was left on TENTERHOOKS regarding... well, everything, really!
But particularly the outlaw who intends to kidnap Capitola. He has been hired to kill her! Then meets and falls in love with her! (Are we doing a redemption arc?) So he's going to kidnap her, keep her for a week, and THEN fulfill his contract to kill her. (NO we are not.) Will spirited, liberty-loving Capitola foil this plot? And will Clara manage to escape the machinations of her newly-acquired evil guardian (who is Capitola's evil uncle although Capitola doesn't know it because he had her kidnapped and sent away as a baby)? And is Capitola's evil uncle holding Capitola's mother captive??
Fortunately now that I have returned to civilization, I have downloaded Capitola's Peril, so I may soon know the answers to these questions!
However, the first couple of days were rainy and cold, so I did LOTS of reading, including Carol Ryrie Brink's The Bad Times of Irma Baumlein. I always enjoy Brink's books, but the more I read the more I see why Caddie Woodlawn is the one that is remembered; her books are all fun but Caddie Woodlawn is the only one that has that certain extra something that lifts it up and makes it more than that.
Also I read E. D. E. N. Southworth's Hidden Hand. Southworth was a prolific and popular author of sensation novels in the mid-nineteenth century (immortalized in Little Women as S. L. A. N. G. Northbury), and this is her most famous book, and I am aghast! exasperated! to tell you that it's only the first half of the story, the second half being contained in the sequel Capitola's Peril (Capitola is our heroine, who first appears on the scene eking out an existence as a slangy newsboy in New York City), so when I reached the end of Hidden Hand I was left on TENTERHOOKS regarding... well, everything, really!
But particularly the outlaw who intends to kidnap Capitola. He has been hired to kill her! Then meets and falls in love with her! (Are we doing a redemption arc?) So he's going to kidnap her, keep her for a week, and THEN fulfill his contract to kill her. (NO we are not.) Will spirited, liberty-loving Capitola foil this plot? And will Clara manage to escape the machinations of her newly-acquired evil guardian (who is Capitola's evil uncle although Capitola doesn't know it because he had her kidnapped and sent away as a baby)? And is Capitola's evil uncle holding Capitola's mother captive??
Fortunately now that I have returned to civilization, I have downloaded Capitola's Peril, so I may soon know the answers to these questions!
