The Captain's Secret

the long version

"Cape Cod in the days of the China Trade backgrounds a fairly good mystery with all the elements from crinolines and long lost cousins to moonlight and gruff voiced seamen. Fourteen year old Content Prouty is living a sheltered life in Greatham with her grandfather, a proud old captain, and her vigilant Aunt Tabby. She is bored and frustrated when Joshua Du Bois from North Carolina, a grandson of Content's mysterious great uncle Jedidy, comes to visit. Joshua is a wonder to the Greathamites for as Content discovers, Jedidy's reputation is that of a renegade pirate who fled south during the Revolutionary war. Going to work to clear their minds of doubt brings Content and Joshua into contact with an Indian, a crazy woman and a crooked peddler but they finally prove that Jedidy was not a pirate but a patriot. Involved, but a definite improvement over the author's *Cannons Over Niagara* (1954) a slow moving story of 1812." -- from *Kirkus Reviews*