Nine-year-old Myles Standish was not at all happy. Bootles had come to his room at daybreak, and insisted that he put on his tight velvet suit and wear the new ruff. Myles hated the ruff. The wires scratched his neck. He couldn't have meat at breakfast for fear of spilling gravy on the thing. And all because his brother Charles was coming that day from London with some stylish schoolmates!

For 300 years Standish boys had grown up in the big mansion in northern England, chased one another on the footpath by the moat surrounding it. Now, in 1593, Brother Charlie had many up-do-date ideas and suggestions for changes. None of the great houses in London had rushes on the floor, or allowed dogs in the dining hall during meals. Moats and drawbridges had been old-fashioned for a long time, since there no longer were enemies to be kept out and firearms had come in. Most people, Charlie said, had had these wide ditches filled in and planted flowers on top.

Times were changing all over England. All the landowners were turning grain fields into pastures for sheep, because there was more money in wool. One shepherd boy could take the place of twenty farm workers, and soon the countryside was full of vagabonds and robbers. It wasn't safe for a person to travel without men-at-arms.

Young Myles was a boy with a mind of his own. He didn't like fancy clothes. He wasn't the least bit anxious to study Latin. When he heard that Brother Charlie had dispatched a tutor from London, Myles sneaked to the tower the night before Mr. Twitty was due to arrive, and in the light of the full moon recited a magic charm to put a "hex" on Latin. And Mr. Twitty, after ignoring warnings that he should not journey alone, was robbed of all his Latin books and had to go back to London.

Few facts are know about Myles's early life, though everyone knows the later brave, taciturn Captain Standish of Plymouth. His valuable military experience, his responsibility for the protection and survival of the colony made him one of the outstanding Pilgrims. But never again will he be just another name in a history book! Miss Stevenson, author of thirteen popular volumes in the Childhood of Famous Americans Series, introduces the young Myles in a believable as well as highly entertaining fashion.

She has chosen exciting incidents that "might have happened" to a boy of his adventurous character in Elizabethan England. He might well have encountered the Queen on one of her famous progresses through the country, might have shared her interest in the popular sport of hawking. Surely he met some of the Puritans who hid from arrest till they finally escaped to Holland and came to the wilderness in America.

This stirring period gave Miss Stevenson splendid material for storytelling. Those were dangerous days, when highwaymen and gypsies roamed the country, when folk seeking freedom of conscience struggled for liberty. As always in her stories, she gives special emphasis to the development of character in the young hero. He is a strong-willed, human boy who will appeal immediately to boys and girls today.

From the dust jacket