This book was such an enjoyable book after the last few that
I have read. It had nothing to do with
the military and was about the frontier.
I do love me a good frontier book.
This book is the third in a trilogy; the other books are The Trees and
The Fields. Someday I'm going to read
all of them. I really liked this book.
It is a story about the Wheeler family and their role in
settling a new town. The town originally
was named Moonshine Church, but they wanted to be the county seat and so
decided a new name would be better and came up with Americus, Ohio. Mr. Wheeler was an attorney and later became
a judge. He came from a wealthy family
in the East and for some reason or another (we never really find out) he had to
leave his family and come West and that's where he met Sayward who became his
wife. They had 9 children: Resolve, Guerdon, Kinzie, Huldah, Libby,
Sooth, Dezia, Massey, and Chancey. There
are stories that go along with all of them.
One becomes the Governor of Ohio; another brother is accused of killing
his wife's lover and has to go on the run; one daughter runs away and is found
by a man across the river and lives with him for a couple of days before her
mother comes and gets her; but the one that is spoken of the most is
Chancey. Chancey was born rather sickly
and never really comes out of it.
Instead of running with the other children he usually is found sitting
in his father's office looking out the window.
He seems to have some heart troubles and so can't be really active.
My favorite story that they tell about Chancey is the time
his father was helping a newlywed couple with some legal trouble and they were
invited to sleep at the Wheeler's house.
Whenever someone was invited to sleep at their house (and this happened
often) they slept in the same bed as Chancey.
Before the couple come up to bed, Chancey's older brothers tell him he
needs to sleep in the middle or else the bed will flip over so Chancey plants
himself in the middle of the bed.
Chancey's mother also tells the couple that Chancey has heart problems
and can't be bothered while he's asleep or it could kill him. So the couple goes up on their first night
together with a little boy in the middle.
The husband keeps trying to reach over to his bride and she makes him
stop because she's afraid they're going to kill the little boy. The husband finally gets so frustrated he
sleeps outside on a bench and the bride stays in the bed. It becomes a joke that Chancey slept with the
new bride. There are other stories to do
with Indians coming and taking Chancey away to raise him that frightens the boy
out of his wits.
As Chancey grows up he meets a girl named Rosa. They become very good friends. Rosa is actually Judge Wheeler's daughter
from a time when he took advantage of the school teacher. Nobody talks about it and Rosa is banned from
the Wheeler house. Judge Wheeler doesn't
even take notice of her and he doesn't do anything to help care for her. The school teacher becomes a shut in. She was once very beautiful but now she
doesn't ever leave her house, all she does is stay inside and read. She is married and has other children, but
they live very poorly while the Wheelers live very well. Chancey knows the secret, but Rosa never
finds out. Chancey and Rosa become very
good friends and eventually fall in love with each other. Many things are done to try and keep them
separate and tragedy happens so they
cannot ever be together. Chancey grows
up to be a very bitter and hateful young man and does everything he can to ruin
his relationship with his family.
Chancey moves away to Cincinnati and writes for a paper that
goes against everything his family believes and even writes mean things about
his brother, the Governor. He has a secret
subscriber that keeps his paper going, but then the money stops at the same
time his mother starts to get very ill.
In the end of the book Chancey's paper runs out of money and he is
forced to move back home to help take care of his mother. It shares his insights into who he thinks his
mother is and it's all wrong. He then
finds out that his mother is the secret subscriber and that she alone has
helped run his paper for many years. He
then realizes that his views of the world are all wrong and tries to figure
them out, but it's too late for him to ask his mother anything because she
can't speak or hardly move.
Overall, even though there are sad parts I really enjoyed
this book. I love the writing style of
Conrad Richter, it's almost poetic. He doesn't
have to give all the little details, but through dialogues you find out
everything you need to know. This was a
relief after the last few books I've read.
I found this book to be an enjoyable read. It has humor and sadness and
at the end of the book I felt sad that I wasn't going to be a part of the
Wheeler family any more; to me that is a measure of a good book.
