Cricket

In Short

Set over a lively series of months at a family’s countryside estate, Cricket chronicles the adventures and missteps of Jean "Cricket" Ward, a bright, impulsive child situated right in the middle of a large brood. Through summer escapades—building dams, rescuing animals, getting lost, and surviving runaway carts—Cricket's buoyant energy constantly lands her and her playmates in trouble. Yet beneath her mischievous impulse lies a deep capacity for devotion. Grounded in the warm domestic realities of late nineteenth-century life, the book endures as a portrait of childhood grace, showing how love and gentle guidance shape a headstrong girl into a considerate sister.

The Story

The story opens at Kayuna, the beloved summer residence of the Ward family, where Jean—affectionately nicknamed Cricket for her sunny, chirpy disposition—spends her days alongside her six siblings. The property, with its cool running brook and sprawling garret, serves as the stage for endless childhood invention. Life at Kayuna is sweet, but Cricket’s total absence of forethought frequently plunges her into trouble. Early in the season, a day spent damming the brook requires the intervention of farmhands to clear heavy stones, and a Fourth of July celebration features an ice-cream experiment wildly over-flavored with bitter almonds and wintergreen.

Alongside her sister Eunice and their neighborhood friends, Cricket moves from one dramatic incident to the next. When they catch local toddlers carelessly dropping newborn kittens into the creek under the guise of "drowning" them as instructed, Cricket and Eunice step in to rescue the animals. Later, seeking a bit of harmless fun, the two girls smudge their faces with chimney soot, dress in battered rags, and impersonate helpless tramps, thoroughly frightening the family cook. Yet Cricket's thoughtlessness carries real consequences. On a trip to the local store, she forgets her father's urgent instructions, leaving a critical note behind, and gets sidetracked searching for eggs. During a cider-mill outing, a runaway ox-cart hurls the children into the dusty road, leaving them bruised and shaken. On a berry-picking trip, bad navigation leaves the group hopelessly lost in the woods, missing meal hours and terrifying their elders.

As the family returns to town for the autumn, Cricket's bad habits follow her. She leaves a rare, expensive book belonging to her father on the floor to be ruined, forgets her umbrella on a streetcar, and leaves the little twin sisters waiting on a park bench for an hour while she runs off for hot chocolate. The turning point arrives through her volatile relationship with Mamie Hecker, a spoiled local girl. When Mamie maliciously withholds a warning about an aggressive new cow, Eunice is knocked unconscious in the barnyard, catching the full force of Cricket's fall. Hanging suspended by her dress from a nail while the cow charges, Mamie screams for help. Though furious that Mamie's trick has hurt Eunice, Cricket suppresses her rage and helps rescue her enemy. Through her mother's quiet, tearful counsel, Cricket comes to understand that true strength requires double caution. By the close of the book, after surviving a bout of sunstroke during a strawberry hunt and taking a quiet early-morning wagon ride back to town, Cricket has begun to temper her impulsive nature with genuine empathy.

How It Unfolds

The summer begins The Ward family settles into their spacious country estate, Kayuna, where Jean "Cricket" Ward and her siblings immediately plunge into summer amusements along the local brook.

Trouble by the water Cricket and her playmates construct an ambitious dam across the creek, using stones so massive that the farmhands must spend a agonizing half-day hauling them out to prevent disaster.

A fiery Fourth of July The children celebrate the holiday by taking complete control of the back-kitchen, freezing a custom batch of ice-cream that they accidentally ruin by pouring in excessive amounts of wintergreen and bitter almond extracts.

Rescuing the kittens While spying on the younger children by the creek, Eunice and Cricket are horrified to find them poking week-old kittens under the water, prompting an immediate intervention to save the pets.

The disguise gone wrong Bored on a quiet afternoon, Cricket and Eunice streak their faces with chimney soot, put on ragged clothes, and pretend to be destitute tramps, terrifying the cook on the back porch.

The cider-mill runaway During a trip to the mill, a pair of frightened oxen bolt with the heavy cart, pitching the girls into the dirt road while the younger children scream and pray inside the swaying wagon.

Lost in the woods A simple berry-picking excursion turns into an ordeal when the children take a wrong turn by an old oak tree, wandering lost for hours past their meal times.

A dangerous barnyard trick Mamie Hecker purposely suppresses a warning about an aggressive cow, resulting in Eunice getting knocked unconscious and Mamie hanging by her skirt from a barn wall while Cricket struggles to respond.

Lessons at home Back in the city, Cricket ruins her father's rare book through sheer forgetfulness and leaves her twin sisters stranded on a park bench, forcing her parents to address her heedless habits.

The final ride After recovering from a sudden spell of sunstroke during a strawberry harvest, a subdued Cricket enjoys a peaceful, early-morning wagon ride into town with the farmhand, ready to begin growing up.

The People

• Jean "Cricket" Ward is the spirited middle child of the Ward family. Chirpy, energetic, and endlessly curious, she wants nothing more than to participate in every adventure. However, her extreme heedlessness and short memory constantly lead to ruined property, lost children, and dangerous scrapes. Through gentle parental reprimands and the sobering experience of seeing her sister hurt, she learns to exercise self-control.
• Eunice Ward is Cricket's twelve-year-old older sister and constant companion. Sensible, protective, and cautious, Eunice tries to maintain order during their adventures, though she frequently gets pulled into Cricket's wild schemes. Her devotion to her sister is proved when she takes the brunt of a severe fall in the barnyard.
• Hilda Mason is a pampered neighborhood girl who initially feels superior to Cricket due to her own tidy manners. When forced to confront her hidden selfishness—such as ignoring her sick mother's needs to go play—she experiences a deep emotional awakening and strives to become a truer friend.
• Mamie Hecker is a spoiled, spiteful local child who delights in provoking the Ward girls. Driven by malice and poor upbringing, she nearly causes a tragedy by concealing the danger of a farm animal, but her own terrifying predicament forces her toward repentance.
• Dr. and Mrs. Ward provide a patient, loving foundation for the home, balancing firm discipline for Cricket's thoughtless errors with deep affection.

In Its Own Voice

“Please, ma’am, I’m a poor widdy, and I have seven small children, and my wife is dead, and I’m blind and deaf and dumb, and I can’t talk on account of my bad rheumatics, and will you give me some ice-cream and a cup of coffee?”

— Cricket, soot-faced and disguised in oversized rags, attempts to trick the family cook on the back porch.

“I don’t care!” she screamed, passionately, in answer to Mamie’s shrieks. “I don’t care if you’re all hooked up! You’ve killed my Eunice, and I hope you are satisfied.”

— Cricket explodes with anger upon finding her sister unconscious after Mamie's deliberate trick.

“Whenever you feel that you are most successful in overcoming a fault, then is just the time when you need double caution. ‘It’s always dangerous to be safe,’ you know.”

— Mrs. Ward offers quiet wisdom to a weeping Cricket after a serious lapse in memory.

What It's Really About

At its core, Cricket explores the delicate boundary between innocent childhood exuberance and moral responsibility. The narrative argues that good intentions and a sunny disposition are insufficient guides for life if they are not paired with active consideration for others. Through Cricket's repeated failures of memory, the text examines how minor carelessness—forgetting a message, leaving a book on the floor, walking away from younger siblings—can cause real harm. The novel also addresses the process of childhood self-correction; it contrasts superficial manners, represented early on by Hilda, with authentic moral growth, which requires acknowledging one's flaws and actively choosing kindness over retaliation.

Why Read It Today

Cricket remains a charming window into nineteenth-century American domestic life, offering modern readers a wholesome, unhurried portrait of rural childhood. Readers who enjoy classic domestic stories like Louisa May Alcott's Little Women or Susan Coolidge's What Katy Did will feel right at home among the orchards, garrets, and brooks of Kayuna. Timlow captures the authentic texture of youth—the absolute gravity of an ice-cream recipe, the terrifying thrill of a runaway wagon, and the fierce loyalty between sisters.

Modern readers should be prepared for the story's gentle, nineteenth-century pacing and periodic moralizing, as well as light phonetic dialect used for rural farmhands and household servants. The book does not rely on modern high-stakes drama; its conflicts are built entirely out of the everyday choices, squabbles, and growing pains of ordinary children. What stays with the reader is the affectionate warmth of the Ward household, the humorous realism of childhood dialogue, and the comforting assurance that character is built slowly through patience, forgiveness, and second chances.