BERTIE AND MAY

Bertie (as in Bertha Stemm Norton) and May are the enormously companionable sisters that figure in this period story of life in the Ohio countryside and then in the Ohio town of Loudenville before the turn of the century. That they were real people is the something-special in an otherwise only mildly entertaining chromo of their move from a mill-house (Pa ran the mill) to the overwhelmingly urbane town. Which entailed registering for the fifth grade instead of being in the "Fourth Reader," a four-classroom school instead of the one they were used to where Bertie and May had shared a seat. And it meant borrowing from warm Uncle Harris (but Pa didn't like to be beholden to no man), singing in the Church play on Christmas, making friends with girls who had new ginghams every day, and finally setting up a store to earn money for a silk handkerchief to send to Uncle Harris as evidence of their appreciation. There's a cat named Freddie and browned flour for a treat at recess. . . and at the start of the New Year (at the end of the book) the promise from Pa that they'll move no more. Moving, in a nice, nostalgic way.