By the Great Horn Spoon!

Twelve-year-old Jack is headed for the California Gold Rush but not in the traditional way. He is a stowaway on a paddle wheeler that is bound down the East Coast of North and South America, around the tip of Cape Horn and then up the West Coast of South and North America to San Francisco. In the barrel next to him is his butler, Praiseworthy, who was sometimes called “the finest English butler in Boston.” Jack felt compelled to seek his fortune as a 49er because Aunt Arabella has almost run out of her inheritance with means she will lose her stately house in Boston, and Praiseworthy couldn't let him go so far alone.

            After five months at sea, and many adventures, they finally dock in San Francisco and then the real adventure begins! They have to get to Sacramento. And then out to the diggings. But they've been swindled out of their map by Cut-Eye Higgins! And they are out of money!

            How they make some money, and finally strike pay-dirt is a rollicking romp of humor and ingenuity. And how Aunt Arabella is finally “saved” is an ending as satisfying as they come.

            If you, like me, are predisposed to find the idea of a “proper English butler” on the wild American frontier particularly entertaining, you will enjoy this short novel. The excitement of the search building up to the discovery of gold while in the process of digging a grave is irony at its finest. The story is so enjoyable that I believe minor objectionable content (see below) is worth editing “on the fly.”

Content considerations

Jack's parents have died of cholera.

One use of “mon dieu” by a Frenchman. The phrases “wild Indians” and “savages” are each used twice to refer to Native Americans. These references are spoken in passing, for Native Americans never actually come into the story. Two times, Chinese immigrants are stereotypically referred to as having “pigtails” and one description includes a Chinese laundry and broken English. A new phrase to me, “that's mighty white of you,”  is used by a miner.

The devil is referred to as “ol' Scratch.”

Two fistfights are described, a stagecoach is help up by road agents, the hanging of a horse thief/con man is interrupted (which is part of a particularly hilarious episode,) and spanking is referred to twice.