The boxcar was faded from the hardback cover, but these kids find this old box car out in the bush and they set up shop...I think they're living with an aunt or maybe a grandmother...don't recall if there was problems at 'home' or what the deal was, but that's how I remember it...problems. As the song goes. Made me want to build shacks out in the bush and I did do that...there was a pile of wood by this old house in town and we used that...built some tree forts, too. This was required reading, 2nd grade, and Mrs. Burge was a gunslinger, had two fingers missing from her hand, right, left, I forget which one...lost them to a sewing machine on the east coast--this was during a time when clothing was actually made in the states. She moved on w/us to 3rd grade and taught us then, too.
This was the second...Charlie, lighting out for the Territory...I've always enjoyed stories like this. What's the word for them? Quest stories? Travel stories?
This is another...nobody mentions the nod King gives to H.A. Rey...It/Georgie...in this one George makes paper boats out of the newspapers he's s'posed to deliver...or, that's how I remember it. Made me want to get a bike. We had this old bone-shaker that musta been Ma's...big balloon tires, blue paint, springy seat.
2nd grade, Mrs. Burge would take us up to the library on the second floor...we had k-12 in one building, we were Bluebolts...yar...and we'd walk in a line behind her, the hardwood floor beginning to creak as she stepped into the study hall where the big kids were hunkered down behind algebra and history texts, my eyes on the feet of the person in front of me as the big kids all turned to look at us, the floor continuing to creak until we stepped into the carpeted quiet of the library. Rick K found this one the week before and when we returned the following week for our library pilgrimage I put my name on the card and this old librarian wearing battleship hose and black brogans and smelling minty stamped it with a date due...I gulped and nodded, taking the book in both hands, the cover with one of those hard-plastic coverings to protect the dust jacket. Great story...another quest, travel story, hey?