Years ago, I tried to read The Code of the Woosters, and made it as far as the antiques shop before giving up the thing owing to intense second-hand embarrassment. A few years and a strong recommendation later, I’ve now finished nearly six P. G. Wodehouse novels with immense enjoyment. This Wodehousian immersion primed me for stories containing amusing English butlers, and I was delighted to find the near-equal of Jeeves in Sid Fleischman’s rollicking tale By the Great Horn Spoon!
Praiseworthy (and he truly lives up to the name) is a marvel. Tasked with guarding and guiding his young ward, “Master Jack,” on the lengthy trip from Boston to San Francisco, the noble valet is never at a loss in any situation. You see, it’s 1849, the year of the California Gold Rush, and every man — so it seems — is racing to the West. Twelve-year-old Jack is no exception, but it’s not just adventure that he seeks. Back home in Boston, his Aunt Arabella and his two sisters have only a little time before the family home must be sold to pay off debts. So Jack, as the man of the family, determines to make his fortune in gold and save the ancestral dwelling. Praiseworthy, out of a sense of duty (and something deeper, a cherished secret he does not share even with Jack), joins him, and the two set off as stowaways on the Lady Wilma.
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