You Come to Yokum Book

In the winter of 1920, everything changed. Frank and his family got a Model T and drove to the Berkshires to try to make a success of a vacation/hunting lodge at Yokum Pond. There are fun adventures and incidents with invited guests and uninvited animal visitors, including the mysterious “horrible huge.” The rural setting and less-than-receptive neighbors fail to deter Frank’s mother from pursuing her fight for suffrage, much to the consternation of her husband and a number of the lodge’s guests, but in the end, she sees Tennessee ratify the amendment and earns a place of reverence in the movement.

Children's Literature

Small vignettes string together a picture of life in New England in the early 1920s from two brothers' point of view. It is the era of women's suffrage and Mother is busy campaigning for the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, the need for which is fleshed out in the narrative. Meanwhile, Frank and his younger brother are fascinated with the new Model-T his father has purchased but can't drive. When the family moves temporarily from their home in Montgomery, Massachusetts, to a rustic lodge in the Berkshires, the two boys are in heaven. They will manage the lodge's season from spring to fall, go to school three miles away, and get to explore and meet people during the vacation and hunting season. Their adventures include putting a pretentious hunter-type in his place, pranks on the toothless old caretaker (who has a few pranks left himself), and getting used to school and the teacher, Miss Drysdale. A group of soldiers recovering from being gassed in World War I are mentioned but nothing is made of this in the story. A tragedy on a berry-picking incident will bring the young teacher even closer to the boys. Life from a previous era is reflected in the leisure storytelling, the language (people say "You see..." and put the kibosh on activities), the setting, and the content of the boys' days. While the book reads like a memoir, it is fiction undergirded by research, as no note indicates that the author had other intentions. Kay Life's pencil sketches pleasantly reflect the story's action and the era's costumes. Both boys and girls can enjoy the read while learning something about life nearly a century ago.