\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s summer, and the four Melendy children have some big plans! They\u2019ve already started building a dam to make the swimming area on the property of their new house bigger. Their father, who travels frequently, giving lectures, tells them that he\u2019s going to be away for most of the summer. He has to work hard to provide for his big family, and he has also taken a government job that will help the war effort. Mr. Melendy isn\u2019t going to be a soldier because he\u2019s a little old for that and the father of four children. He says that he can\u2019t tell the children about his job, but it will keep him away in Washington for long periods of time. While he\u2019s away, the children will be in the care of the housekeeper, Cuffy, and the handyman, Willy. They will also largely be left to entertain themselves, which is something they definitely know how to do.<\/p>\n
Aside from swimming and enjoying themselves this summer, the kids decide that they should also do something useful, to help the war effort. Because of the war, patriotism is running high, and the children feel like they should take on some serious responsibilities. They\u2019ve held events to help the war effort and bought bonds before. This summer, Rush and Randy decide that they\u2019re going to go door to door, collecting scrap metal. Their collecting efforts help them to further get to know their neighbors, and they make friends with the Addison children and a nice, older man named Mr. Titus, who likes to spend his time fishing and baking things and invites the kids to join him sometimes.<\/p>\n
However, there is a nasty man called Orin who yells at the children and scares them away when they come to ask him for scrap metal. Soon after this unpleasant incident, Rush and Randy meet Mark, the nice boy who lives with Orin. Mark is an orphan, and he lives with Orin because he\u2019s a distant cousin. Orin\u2019s wife was a nice lady, and Mark liked her, but she died a couple of years before. Orin is mean to everybody, and he mainly sees Mark as a source of unpaid labor on his farm. The Addison children, who know Mark from school, confirm that all of this is true. Orin doesn\u2019t even let Mark go to school very often because he wants to keep him working most of the time. Their teacher and the school superintendent both tried to go see Orin and insist that Mark go to school regularly, but Orin is a violent and frightening man. He chased them both away and sent his mean dogs after them. Nobody really knows what to do about Orin, and most people are afraid to try. He also locks Mark in his room to keep him from running away, although Mark has found a way out and sneaks out sometimes.<\/p>\n
The Melendy children feel sorry for Mark, although they try not to be too pitying so they won\u2019t make Mark feel too self-conscious. Rush and Randy start meeting with him secretly to go swimming and fishing and hunt for arrowheads left by the Iroquois who used to live in the area. Rush and Mark also play at being soldiers on a secret mission and go stargazing. Mark knows about the constellations, and the boys watch the Perseid meteor shower in August.<\/p>\n
Then, Mark reveals to Rush that Orin and his few friends are making illegal alcohol in a still. They do it because it costs less than buying alcohol. Orin\u2019s friends include a couple of brothers who live in the woods and hardly ever come to town and a man who\u2019s been suspected of bank robbery and murder although nobody was ever able to prove it. The boys spy on Orin and his friends at their still one night, and they hear Orin talking about selling his farm and maybe getting one of the new defense jobs. His friends ask him what he\u2019ll do with Mark if he moves out, and Orin says that he\u2019ll probably just turn him over to the county. One of his friends say that giving Mark to the county might not be so easy because they\u2019ll ask questions, but Orin says he\u2019s thinking of changing his name. The suspected criminal says that he might take Mark because he has trouble keeping workers around his place. Mark tells Rush that he\u2019d rather run away that go live with that criminal, and Rush says that Mark can come stay with his family. The men almost catch the boys listening because the boys are wearing citronella to keep the mosquitos away, but the boys manage to get away before the men catch them.<\/p>\n
Rush tells Mark that he\u2019ll talk to his father to see if Mark can stay with the Melendy family or if he knows what else Mark can do. Then, a series of events happen that change everything. First, Cuffy has to go away for awhile to take care of an injured relative, leaving the children even more to their own devices, with Willy and the older children in charge. Then, the in the middle of the night, Rush wakes up to realize that something is on fire. It turns out that Orin\u2019s farm is burning! Rush wakes Randy, and the two of them hurry down to Orin\u2019s farm to see if Mark is safe. They find Mark hurrying to get the animals out of the barn, and neighbors and firefighters are already working on the blaze, but it\u2019s a loosing battle. They manage to save the animals, but both the house and barn are destroyed. Willy, who was also there to help fight the fire, take the Melendy children and Mark back to the Melendy house. Later, Willy informs them that they have discovered that Orin was still in the house and was killed in the fire. (A short flashback informer readers, although the characters in the story don\u2019t know it, that Orin accidentally started the fire when he returned home from his still, drunk, and passed out in the kitchen with a lamp too close to a wall calendar.)<\/p>\n
Mark was never fond of Orin because Orin treated him badly, but without Orin, Mark\u2019s custody is in doubt. Mark doesn\u2019t have any other relatives. He\u2019s still only 13 and not old enough to live alone. Rush decides to call his father to ask if Mark can live with them. Mr. Melendy tells Rush to keep Mark at their house for now, and when he returns home from Washington, he\u2019ll straighten things out.<\/p>\n
The Melendy children make Mark welcome at their fascinating house, the Four-Story Mistake, and Mark begins to enjoy all the new experiences they give him. He gets to try their books, enjoying classics like Tom Sawyer<\/strong>, Robin Hood<\/strong>, Eight Cousins<\/strong>, and various fairy tales. Mark also likes listening to Rush playing music on his piano. Above all, Mark gets the new experience of living with a family that really cares for him. Mark becomes part of the Melendy family\u2019s idyllic summer, but the children worry about whether or not their father will allow them to stay with them permanently.<\/p>\n This is the third book in The Melendy Family series<\/a><\/strong>. The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive<\/a>, as part of a collection.<\/p>\n This book is different from the earlier two books in the series because, while the other adventures were all just treated as fun adventures without anything truly tragic happening when things go wrong, this book actually contains some serious issues. Mark is an orphan living with a violent and abusive guardian who frightens all of the local adults who have tried to intervene on Mark\u2019s behalf. Mark\u2019s guardian is also involved with some seriously shady people and illegal activities. The sudden death of Mark\u2019s guardian frees him from the abuse but also leaves his future in doubt. This is the darkest book in the Melendy series<\/strong>. The book doesn\u2019t shy away from Mark\u2019s feelings and the sadness of Orin\u2019s death, even though he was an awful person. Fortunately, because the tone of this series is optimistic, things work out for the best.<\/p>\n Of course, Mr. Melendy agrees that Mark can stay with the family, but in a realistic touch, adopting him isn\u2019t as simple for the family as taking in a stray dog. Some of the local farmers offer Mark a place working on their farms, including the disreputable man and possible criminal who was one of Orin\u2019s friends. Social service agencies want to know about the home and family Mr. Melendy has to offer Mark before they decide whether or not to allow Mark to remain with them, and a social worker comes to interview him. The social worker sees a taste of the family\u2019s boisterous children and eccentric hobbies (at one point, Mona enters the room, practicing the part of Ophelia from Hamlet<\/strong>), but she is charmed by them and sees that Mark loves being with them, and she decides that the Melendy family will be good for him. There is extra legal work for Mr. Melendy to officially adopt Mark after Mark is allowed to stay with them as a ward or foster child, and the local bank is also interested in Mark\u2019s custody because Orin had a mortgage on his farm, and there are financial issues to be arranged.<\/p>\n In the end, the bank claims Orin\u2019s property because of the mortgage, but Mark inherits the animals because he\u2019s Orin\u2019s only relative. Mark keeps a few animals that can live on the Melendy property, and the Melendys help him sell the others in an auction held on their property. They turn the livestock auction into a fair to raise money for the war effort. Some of them make baked goods to sell, Mona dresses up as a fortune teller, and they hold a talent show with other children from school.<\/p>\n The element of raising money for the war effort continues a theme from earlier books in the series and emphasizes the point that this book was set contemporary to the time when it was written, during WWII. I find books that were written during major events and that take those events into account interesting because it shows how people felt about those events and what they wanted children to understand about them. The kids sometimes make references to the war in casual conversation in a way that seems realistic for a child\u2019s observations, such as when they describe someone as having \u201cteeth like a Japanese general\u201d, although I know that what they\u2019re probably referencing is anti-Japanese propaganda cartoons<\/a> at the time rather than actual pictures of them. That isn\u2019t mentioned in the story, but I\u2019ve seen those cartoons before, so I can envision what kind of teeth the kids in the story are probably picturing.<\/p>\nMy Reaction and Some Spoilers<\/h3>\n
The Darkest Book in the Series<\/h4>\n
The Lighter Side<\/h4>\n