"The Windy Hill", by Cornelia Meigs, has all the elements of a fascinating story for boys and girls of fifteen or thereabouts.
It begins with a boy who is running away—and there never was a boy who did not at some time desire to do that.
The climax at the end has to do with the bursting of a dike. All the pages between glow with stirring adventures and unusual situations. One day the boy hero, Oliver Peyton, met a man who told him to look over the back wall of his Cousin Jasper's garden and he would learn one of his cousin's meanest secrets. And of course Oliver looked — what boy would not?
After that the plot thickens very rapidly, for this is a thorough-going mystery tale. In fact, the young reader will be very reluctant about laying this book down until it is finished; and then, ten to one, he will be sorry it ended so soon.
