Reviews for Bert Breens' Barn
Review - Bert Breens' Barn
Walter D. Edmonds has written a dozen, or thereabouts, historical novels all set in upstate New York. Some center on great events — the Revolutionary War, the building of the Erie Canal — but others involve the regular lives of regular people. This book is one of those.
Tom Dolan decides that he's tired of his family's cycle of poverty. He is determined to develop a profitable farm, and the first step in the process is to get a sturdy barn. Specifically the Breen barn, weathered but solid, it sits abandoned on the sand flats. Tom quits school and gets a job at a grain mill. She gives half his money to his mom and puts the rest away. In three years, he's got enough for a down-payment. With the help of Birdy Morris, a farmer who helped build the barn, Tom begins taking it apart and moving it to his property.
There's a story in the neighborhood that Bert Breen hid his considerable fortune somewhere on his land. Three local toughs, the Flancher brothers, want the money and are willing to go to almost any length to get it. They keep a very close eye on Tom as he works.
When all the lumber except the barn floor is moved, Tom gathers a crowd from the surrounding area and has a barn-raising. At the same time, Tom and the Flanchers realize the only place left where nobody has looked for the money is under the old barn floor. That night Tom and his mom sneak over there and find two trunks. Just as they're leaving, the Flanchers show up. The Dolans sneak away and bring the trunks into town, leaving them with the lawyer.
Tom travels to town the next day to deposit the money in the bank. He gets to bits of good news — there's more than $9,000 in the trunks, and the Flanchers have been thrown in jail.
Tom uses the money to buy roofing and siding for his barn, buys a team of horses and a new wagon. He hitches the wagon to go make his final payment on the barn. His mom comes along, both of them dressed in fine clothes and showing the neighborhood that the Dolans are respectable folks at last.
The book is slow-moving, but that's part of it's charm. Along the way, I got a good sense of life in rural New York in the late 1800s — the advent of the telephone; buying a wagon from the Sear's catalog; working in a grain mill; putting up a barn. Edmond's characters are real, with qualities and faults, ambitions and fears. If you enjoy reading about rural life before the automobile age, you'd probably enjoy Edmonds.
Tom Dolan decides that he's tired of his family's cycle of poverty. He is determined to develop a profitable farm, and the first step in the process is to get a sturdy barn. Specifically the Breen barn, weathered but solid, it sits abandoned on the sand flats. Tom quits school and gets a job at a grain mill. She gives half his money to his mom and puts the rest away. In three years, he's got enough for a down-payment. With the help of Birdy Morris, a farmer who helped build the barn, Tom begins taking it apart and moving it to his property.
There's a story in the neighborhood that Bert Breen hid his considerable fortune somewhere on his land. Three local toughs, the Flancher brothers, want the money and are willing to go to almost any length to get it. They keep a very close eye on Tom as he works.
When all the lumber except the barn floor is moved, Tom gathers a crowd from the surrounding area and has a barn-raising. At the same time, Tom and the Flanchers realize the only place left where nobody has looked for the money is under the old barn floor. That night Tom and his mom sneak over there and find two trunks. Just as they're leaving, the Flanchers show up. The Dolans sneak away and bring the trunks into town, leaving them with the lawyer.
Tom travels to town the next day to deposit the money in the bank. He gets to bits of good news — there's more than $9,000 in the trunks, and the Flanchers have been thrown in jail.
Tom uses the money to buy roofing and siding for his barn, buys a team of horses and a new wagon. He hitches the wagon to go make his final payment on the barn. His mom comes along, both of them dressed in fine clothes and showing the neighborhood that the Dolans are respectable folks at last.
The book is slow-moving, but that's part of it's charm. Along the way, I got a good sense of life in rural New York in the late 1800s — the advent of the telephone; buying a wagon from the Sear's catalog; working in a grain mill; putting up a barn. Edmond's characters are real, with qualities and faults, ambitions and fears. If you enjoy reading about rural life before the automobile age, you'd probably enjoy Edmonds.
Reviewed by Roger on 2006-08-19 13:43:12