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Betty Gordon at Bramble Farm
Jun. 24th, 2009 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badgerbagBetty Gordon at Bramble Farm (1920) is about an orphan 13 year old girl whose kind uncle adopts her and then goes off to work in his oil fields somewhere Out West. He sends her by train to the farm of an old school friend of his so she can learn to ride and have fun for the summer. This school friend, Mrs. Peabody, turns out to have married an abusive, stingy man who has basically killed her spirit and soul so much that she keeps a slovenly house and cooks dull fried potatoes and ham every day. There are flies everywhere. Oh, misery! Betty befriends the orphaned "poorhouse rat" 14 year old boy Bob Henderson who is totally abused and starved and overworked. Mr. Peabody has cheated the two hired men of their wages, too! Betty's outraged!
Betty doesn't have much going for her other than a lot of entitlement and a bad temper, which she beats herself up over every time she tells off Mr. Peabody. She was pretty brave when she unharnessed and reharnessed the balky horse when it was stuck in the middle of the crossroads in the dark where motorcars might hit them and had to drag her injured uncle back home. And she was a bit brave, or lucky, when she overheard the chicken theives plotting to load up the truck full of Mrs. Peabody's chickens! Betty didn't think they were really bad and luckily didn't have to testify against them, because of extenuating circumstances like Mr. Peabody being a cheat and a miser!
There was an interesting bit where Betty thinks to herself that though he is a poorhouse rat, Bob is clearly a boy of good breeding, because his hands and feet are well-proportioned. Unlike the hired men! Bob also has a mysterious box with some papers that have his parents' marriage certificate and some other information and he's going to go to Washington someday to find the mysterious bookstore owner who seemed like he might know something about his mother's family. Do you think he'll turn out to be super rich? I DUNNO! Do you think he is pretty much already in love with Betty?! Or will he be her cousin? I vote for the love plot.
So, I'm going to keep reading for the explanations of social class, and the inevitable boarding school. In this town she befriended Dr. Guerin's family and his daughters who will surely end up as chums in her school, going to Pine Island or Cliff Richards or Blue Lake or perhaps Out West. We'll see!
It's odd for this book to be from 1920 and yet completely free of mention of the war that just happened!
Betty doesn't have much going for her other than a lot of entitlement and a bad temper, which she beats herself up over every time she tells off Mr. Peabody. She was pretty brave when she unharnessed and reharnessed the balky horse when it was stuck in the middle of the crossroads in the dark where motorcars might hit them and had to drag her injured uncle back home. And she was a bit brave, or lucky, when she overheard the chicken theives plotting to load up the truck full of Mrs. Peabody's chickens! Betty didn't think they were really bad and luckily didn't have to testify against them, because of extenuating circumstances like Mr. Peabody being a cheat and a miser!
There was an interesting bit where Betty thinks to herself that though he is a poorhouse rat, Bob is clearly a boy of good breeding, because his hands and feet are well-proportioned. Unlike the hired men! Bob also has a mysterious box with some papers that have his parents' marriage certificate and some other information and he's going to go to Washington someday to find the mysterious bookstore owner who seemed like he might know something about his mother's family. Do you think he'll turn out to be super rich? I DUNNO! Do you think he is pretty much already in love with Betty?! Or will he be her cousin? I vote for the love plot.
So, I'm going to keep reading for the explanations of social class, and the inevitable boarding school. In this town she befriended Dr. Guerin's family and his daughters who will surely end up as chums in her school, going to Pine Island or Cliff Richards or Blue Lake or perhaps Out West. We'll see!
It's odd for this book to be from 1920 and yet completely free of mention of the war that just happened!
