Ghost Gables - a Mystery Story for Girls

A gable, according to Wikipedia, "is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches."  Basically, it is the portion of a wall that is just below the point where the roof edges meet at the top.  Gothic and classical Greek styles of architecture used sharp gable roofs in their designs.  In America, houses with gables in the front were popular between the early 19th century into the early part of the 20th century.  Now, with that bit of information fresh on your mind, we can take a look at second of the last two books Mildred Wirt (Benson) wrote in her Mystery Stories for Girls series.  As with The Painted Shield, this book was published first by Cupples & Leon and later reprinted by The World Publishing Company in their line of World Junior Library books.

Ghost Gables utilizes a number of tropes common to children's series books - a ghost, a locked room, an abandoned house, a family separated, and a secret "treasure."  Wirt definitely goes all out with this story, and as with most of her Mystery Stories for Girls, there is more than one protagonist. Readers are first introduced to Lois McDonald, a senior in high school whose family lives in Big Bear River not far from Ardmore College.  Across the river is a house that has stood abandoned for as many years as Lois can remember - but someone is moving in to the old house, and Lois is thrilled at the idea.  Soon enough, Lois (and readers) meet Glenna Brockman, a young girl ready to begin her freshman year at Ardmore.  Glenna has rented the property with the hopes of turning it into a boarding house and earn money to pay her way through college.  Lois warns her this may not be easy, since the house comes with its very own ghost!

Thus begins the mystery, as Lois jumps in to help Glenna get the house cleaned up and ready for boarders, more out of curiosity to see the inside of the house than anything else.  Neither truly believe in ghosts, so they are soon able to get four boarders, all of whom are also freshman.  During the exploration of the house, however, Lois and Glenna come across a locked room on the second floor for which Glenna has no key.  The realtor tells them the owner of the house does not wish anyone in that room, and they are told to stay out.  Well, this only makes Lois more determined than ever to get into that room.  There's also the mysterious painting in the first floor library which goes missing not long after Glenna opens the house to boarders.  And there's the nosy neighbor who seems intent on causing problems for Glenna, complaining about the noise, her dog, and anything else that could potentially make Glenna want to leave.  Oh, and we can't forget that pesky ghost that is seen briefly from the windows now and again, walking through the gardens and heading off into the woods!

Wirt also gives the house a back story involving a family separated by a trail of misunderstandings.  It seems the owner of the house picked up and left just after the first World War started and never looked back.  Her heart broken by a son who picked up and joined the armed services and never returned, combined with her belief that the brother she trusted her encouraged her son to enlist, forced her to abandon her home to get as far away from the memories as she possibly could.  But Lois, who can't seem to let anything rest, believes there is more to the story, and despite the efforts of the nosy neighbor and a college professor who want to leave the past in the past, she persists in investing the history of the house and its owner.  Of course, as we can all easily expect, she ultimately unlocks the secrets to the past, discovers a shocking connection to events in the presents, and reunites a broken family.

Once again, Wirt integrates her love and knowledge of swimming into the story.  When two of the boarders capsize their canoe into the river (p. 42), Lois does not hesitate to jump in to save them.  "Lois dived feet first from the pier, because she was unfamiliar with the water depth, and with a smooth, unhurried crawl stroke, swam out toward the overturned canoe" (p. 44).  She even acknowledges that "[e]ven for a strong swimmer, it was not easy to carry another person seventy-five yards in the river, especially one who wore heavy clothing" (p. 44).  I suppose with her expert knowledge of swimming, it was easy for Wirt to write some kind of life-saving swimming scenario into each of her books.

Something else I found to be interesting in this story is the fact that Lois is described as being only fifteen years old, yet she is said to be a senior in high school (p. 4), and she tells Glenna that she will be attending Ardmore as a freshman the next year (p. 7).  From what I could find online, it seems back in the 1930s, it was common for high school students to graduate after completing their eleventh grade of schooling.  But even then, one would think Lois would have to be sixteen or even seventeen to complete her eleventh year.  Either Lois was exceptionally smart and jumped ahead a grade or two, or if perhaps she simply took extra classes to gain enough credits to graduate early (as I found some blogs online from people that talked about graduating at fifteen when they skipped some elementary grades and took extra credit classes to get ahead).  So, graduating at fifteen may not have been the norm, but apparently it wasn't unheard of either.

There are some "non-mystery" elements to the story, including Glenna's having to deal with the antics of one of her boarders who insists on consistently breaking the rules, and her having to ready house and manage the day-to-day activities of caring for boarders while trying to keep up with her school schedule.  But Wirt manages to balance those elements of the story nicely with the mystery elements, making it a fairly good read.  I also appreciate the fact that there is some character growth when it comes to Lois, who is first described very firmly as a tomboy, and acts as such throughout most of the book; however, when graduation time comes and she begins to prepare for life after high school, she suddenly becomes more aware of her appearance and manners!  Another way in which the freedom from Syndicate restrictions allowed Wirt to develop her characters, rather than continually writing cookie-cutter characters who maintain the same characteristics book after book after book.

Oh, and one last thing - one may notice a bit of a story resemblance with a book Wirt wrote five years later for the Syndicate, involving a musical score that is discovered and ends up being quite valuable!

RATING:  9 plump strawberries picked for shortcake out of 10 for an engaging story and rather unique revelation regarding the identity (or, perhaps I should say identities!) of the ghost!