Mary Emma & Company - Book 36

This cover has absolutely not a thing to do with this book.  C'mon Bison Books, you can at least read the book before selecting the cover!

Mary Emma & Company by Ralph Moody is the next installment in the Little Britches series.  The Moody family has been forced to flee Colorado because Mrs. Moody (whose name is Mary Emma, though her husband had always called her Mame) does not want to have to testify against a former neighbor.  They arrive in Medford, MA to stay with her brother, his wife and children.  Medford is just outside Boston.  Ralph, on the train trip there has been calculating how he can still work with horses in his life.   He figures stores must need a delivery boy and since this is 1912, people are still using horses.  However, in the city no one is going to let a boy drive horses.  He does however land a job right away working for a local grocer.  He delivers groceries either by foot or on bicycle, something his Uncle Frank teaches him to ride. 

The main plot of the story is how the Moody family gets established there in Medford.  They are extremely poor and Mother has to figure out how to keep a roof over their heads.  She and Grace, the oldest daughter, struggle to set up a laundry business.  They also manage to move into an old house (that has a furnace that eats coal, it is so inefficient.)  It is telling that as in most childhood recollections, school plays a very minor part.  Most of the adventures going on are about his job, helping his family set up their household, problem solving all the way, and adventures such as sledding in an old clay pit or trying to get all the neighborhood boys to salvage old railroads for cheap firewood.

School is actually rather miserable.  The principal is convinced that Ralph with his Colorado ways is a delinquent.  Massachusetts ways of doing things are a lot more regulated than Colorado ways of doing things. 

I enjoyed this peep into how people did homey things in 1912 MA.  How laundry was done, how furnaces worked, how people coped with winter.  Children were far more capable and had far more freedom than now. 

Two thumbs up.  I'm moving on to the next book in the series.  For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.