Puppet on a String

by Harold William Thorpe

Overview

In the first two books of The O’Shaughnessy Chronicles, we got to know Will and his beloved wife, Mary, as they raised their family in the boom times of the 1920s and the struggles of the Great Depression. In this third book, we become better acquainted with the O’Shaughnessy children—Sharon, the practical-minded oldest daughter; Ruby, the strong-willed middle child who has a penchant for getting into trouble; and Catherine, the impressionable youngest daughter who goes along with Ruby’s schemes. Catherine is Ruby’s puppet, but she’s willing to let her sister pull her strings because it often leads to excitement and adventure. When the girls’ cousin Gusta moves in with the family, Catherine can’t help but see her as “Ruby in high gear.” It’s not until Catherine grows up and begins dating the dashing Jonathon Hays, over Ruby’s vehement objections, that the puppet’s strings begin to fray. Will Ruby’s attempts to keep Catherine and Jonathon apart sever the ties between the sisters forever?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781942586456
Publisher:	Little Creek Press
Publication date:	09/28/2019
Series:	The O'Shaughnessy Chronicles
Edition description:	None
Pages:	180
Product dimensions:	5.75(w) x 8.75(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Harold William Thorpe grew up in Southwest Wisconsin and lived on farms for brief periods when he was very young. He spent many happy hours at his relative’s farms, and during his teen years he detasseled corn, worked two summers as a live-in farm laborer, worked one summer as a Surge milking machine sales and service man, and worked part of another summer as a United States Department of Agriculture field man. After high school, he graduated from UW-Platteville with an education degree. He worked for eleven years in Janesville, Wisconsin — first as a general education and special education teacher, then the last four years as a school psychologist. During these years he started a business and earned a masters degree in educational psychology at UW-Madison. Afterward, he left Janesville for Utah State University where he earned a doctorate degree in education. Upon returning to Wisconsin he took a position at UW-Oshkosh where he initiated a program to prepare students to teach the learning disabled. For the next twenty-five years he taught classes, supervised student teachers and graduate students, and served in administrative positions as a graduate program coordinator, a department chairperson, and a college associate dean. But his first love was conducting research that produced more than twenty-five publications in education and psychology journals. After retirement, he decided to learn how to write fiction. Giddyap Tin Lizzie is his first book.

Table of Contents

Foreword 6

Ties that Bind 11

1 A Bad Man at the Circus 12

2 Ruby Battles the St. Mary's Boys 22

3 The Pilfered Sprouts 26

4 The Eleventh Commandment 32

5 All's Well that Ends Well 38

6 A Good Day Ends Badly 48

7 Danger on the Bluff 57

Unfettered and Free 68

8 Banished to Wisconsin 69

9 Whatever Were They Doing in the Back Room 75

10 Gusta Breaks Curfew 82

11 Gusta Bamboozles the Boys 89

12 A Bit Too Much This Time 98

13 Gusta Leaves Wisconsin 105

Fraying the Ties 106

14 Catherine's Life Changes Forever 107

15 A Tumultuous Day at the Picnic 116

16 Near Death at the Bluff 123

17 Carnival Adventures 134

18 Is Doing Good Bad? 149

19 Catherine Rebels 157

20 Catherine Stands her Ground 160

21 The Beginning of the End 169

22 Love Lost 174

There'll Be More 179