Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation

SPOILER ALERT!!! The girls and Uncle John, Louise and Arthur head back to Millville for a holiday. They aren’t there long when Patsy comes up with an idea to keep them occupied. The rest get excited and all begin to plan how they can run a Daily Newspaper for the Millville area. Uncle John likes to see his girls learn through practically working out their ideas. He goes above and beyond to finance the majority of the endeavour, most of these unknown to the girls. This included obtaining all the crew needed to run all the up to date equipment, arranging for electricity and even supplying a telegraph line and operator in order to receiving current news straight from New York. It isn’t long before the paper is running. Everyone has their own job to do, editing, subscriptions, special interest stories and so on. The people of Millville are quite proud of it. As with the other books, the girls necessarily need to have someone to champion or help to improve their life. This time it is a sketch artist who has a great reputation for her work, but has been heading on a downhill slide when it comes to her private life spent among the acquaintance of hard editors and press men. Being with the girls and in the secluded country area begins to have a positive effect. However all things don’t go so brilliantly as one would hope. Labourers from a new paper mill in the region come to Millville for recreation, generally very drunk before they get to town. This causes problems. Furthermore, they find they have an enemy in a former senator that they have refused when he expects to buy out the paper to back him to run for the position again. When he starts directing the rough men from the mill, it is hard to know where it might lead. The entourage also have a bit of a mystery from the start. This is a wanderer by the name of Thursday Smith. At first not so closely involved with them, but before long very valuable to them. It is obvious he has not always been a hobo, for he can turn his hand to almost anything put in front of him. But is he actually Thursday Smith? And if not, who is he? I really enjoyed the book. Although the idea of the power of Uncle John’s money does really become a stretch in credibility when you think of all the personnel and accoutrements shipped from New York in order to satisfy the whims of 3 young ladies! I think what I like about all these books is the desire of the main characters to use their privilege to help others, as much about befriending those in need as about using their possessions to improve the lives of those they meet. The readers were fine. Some needed a different recording set up because the sound quality is affected, perhaps because they are too far from the microphone.