Plot Summary of The Original Novel
The original Boxcar Children tells the story of the four Alden children: Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny, who are orphans. One night, they take shelter in a bakery after buying some bread with the little cash they have. In exchange for allowing them to spend the night, they agree to help around the bakery. However, when they overhear the baker's plans to keep the older three siblings but to take Benny to an orphanage because he is too young, they flee.
Finding an abandoned boxcar, they start a new life of independence. Henry ends up working various odd jobs in a nearby city for a young doctor, Dr. Moore, in order to earn money for food. He also does gardening for the doctor's mother, Mrs. Moore. In one case, Mrs. Moore let him take home some parsnips and carrots he had picked because they were too small. The children's lives are pleasant and full of hard work until Violet becomes ill and they go to Dr. Moore for assistance.
Earlier in the novel, Dr. Moore read in the newspaper that a man named James Henry Alden was offering a $5,000 reward for anyone who located his four lost grandchildren. The children had run away because they thought their grandfather was cruel. After Dr. Moore takes the sick Violet and the other children to his house, he finally contacts James Alden. James arrives at Moore's house. Not wanting to frighten the children into running away again, their grandfather referred to himself as Mr. Henry. Not knowing that the man was their "cruel" grandfather, the children warm to his kindness and are surprised but delighted when Dr. Moore reveals to them that he is their grandfather. After moving in with their grandfather, James moves the boxcar to his backyard for their enjoyment.
Read more about this topic: The Boxcar Children
Famous quotes containing the words plot, summary and/or original:
“There saw I how the secret felon wrought,
And treason labouring in the traitor’s thought,
And midwife Time the ripened plot to murder brought.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“Product of a myriad various minds and contending tongues, compact of obscure and minute association, a language has its own abundant and often recondite laws, in the habitual and summary recognition of which scholarship consists.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“When we look back, the only things we cherish are those which in some way met our original want; the desire which formed in us in early youth, undirected, and of its own accord.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)