I am trying to remember the name and author of a children’s novel I received as a present when I was in third grade, in 1976 or 1977.
I believe it was a Yearling book. I received it at the same time I received a Yearling book about Sitting Bull, and I remember the two books had similar insignia on them that must have represented the publisher.
I think the title may have had the word “Day” in it, as in “XXXXX Day,” but I could be wrong about this. I will explain more about this below.
The book was about a family that traveled around the Old West in a covered wagon with a cow tied to the back. They were a performing family, and in each town they reached, they made money by putting on a show that included different acts typical of entertainment at that time. The main performer was the father, a grandiose, kind, eccentric and wise man. I remember little about the mother other than that she was the more sensible parent. I think there were two children, an older daughter who was probably a teenager and a son who may have been a preteen or a bit younger. If there was a third sibling, I don’t remember her or him. The cow was somewhat considered an important part of the family as well.
The father and mother were somewhat strict, but being a funloving family they had a family tradition called something “… Day.” This is a key part of what I don’t remember. Each child could declare it was “XXXX Day,” and on this day they could get away with anything.
Early in the book, the family is traveling across the prairie from one town to another, when suddenly they realize the cow is missing. It turned out the boy had untied the cow, so they had to retrace their path for miles to find the missing cow. But the boy declared that it was “XXXXX Day,” so they couldn’t punish him.
One of the family’s acts in their show featured the son as a disembodied head looking through a box and giving oracular advice to the crowd. One of the main plots featured a mystery of some kind in the town where much of the action takes place, possibly solving a crime. The daughter and son figure out the answer, or believe they have figured it out, but they’d get in trouble if they told anyone. So the boy essentially tells townspeople the solution to the mystery when he is the disembodied head looking at the crowd through the box.
This is all I can remember. I would love to get this book for my children, or at least those still young enough to enjoy it.
Can you find this book?
That sounds like Mr. Mysterious and Company by Sid Fleischman.
“A magic show is in town!
See Jane float through the air. Watch the head in the box move its lips and talk (that’s Paul behind the whiskers). See tall, light-hearted Mr. Mysterious—Pa himself—make a cow lay an egg and a chicken give milk. Follow the adventures and high comedy of this family of magicians traveling in a show wagon through the Old West. The wonder workers are heading for California, where Pa intends to retire the show so that the kids can go to school. But the frontier has tricks of its own up its sleeve, and the magicians find themselves in hairbreadth escapes and nose-to-nose encounters with villains galore—including the notorious and short-tempered Badlands Kid. Mr. Mysterious & Company, otherwise known as the Hackett family, is a traveling magic show making its way across the country toward California. When this family passes through town in their brightly painted wagon, anything can happen—even the capture of a notorious bandit, the Badlands Kid!”
And from an online review: “The covered wagon of Mr. Mysterious & Company, pulled by the faithful white horses, Hocus and Pocus, is on it’s last tour in the wild west. The wife and three children of Andrew Perkins Hackett, alias the magical Mr. Mysterious, have differing ideas about what it will mean to finally reach California where they will no longer be mysterious, but will just be a normal family raising beef cattle. Mother and Anne seem to like the idea of settling down, once and for all, but Paul and Jane want to go on being mysterious.
As they travel, they encounter a few mysteries that aren’t of their own making. First, their cow disappears, so it seems, into thin air. Later, they arrive at a town that has been totally deserted, even though it’s obvious folks were there recently. As they entertain families who are hungry for a little fun and news from far away, each of these small mysteries is solved, but one rides with them from town to town. Where is the Badland Kid? Now that he’s taken the chiming gold watch that once belonged to Mr. Mysterious, will the it ever be recovered? When their long journey ends, will their family be able to settle down on a ranch when they have loved their life of making crowds happy by performing magic?”
That’s it! Thank you.
That’s it! Thank you.