The sight of two boys playing stagecoach as they tore lickety-split in their pony cart was a familiar one in Rochester, Minnesota. The folks in that lively little pioneer town didn't think for a minute, though, that the boys really wanted to be stagecoach drivers later on.

  As much as they admired the drivers, the Mayo boys' hero was first and always their father. They could imagine nothing more worth-while and exciting than being a doctor just like him, and they were always ready to help him in any way they could.

  No one could miss the look of pride on Dr. Mayo's face as Will went with him on afternoon calls—sometimes applying bandages, sometimes looking after the horses so no time would be wasted hitching and unhitching.

  Charlie, four years younger than his brother, helped too with patients when he was old enough. In the meantime his nimble fingers established him as handyman of the family. He was even able to put the Mayos' precious microscope in working order—especially precious because they had had to mortgage their house to buy it. The children thought nothing of living simply—Dr. Mayo often didn't collect fees. But going without a good microscope and not being able to see germs—that was quite another matter!

  Will and Charlie often played and worked together, but the one time Charlie needed his brother, Will wasn't there. A big bully who made a habit of pouncing on younger boys roughed Charlie up, and the two Mayos decided teamwork the only solution. Through some neat sparring and a lucky accident, the boys made the bully "cry uncle" in short order. "We always seem to do better together than we do alone," Will declared.

  The boys learned much from their father about caring for the sick. They proved this after Charlie's dog came home much the worse for his battle with a wolf. But they also saw demonstrated the many other qualities that made their father a beloved figure for miles around. Medicine was to him a noble profession, and it mattered a great deal that quacks should not endanger health with their Miracle Oil, that patients' worries must not be allowed to keep them from getting well, that case histories must be kept confidential.

  Will and Charlie absorbed all these qualities and more, and later on their services after a devastating tornado showed the people of Rochester that they were just as capable as their father.

  An author new to the Childhood of Famous Americans Series has contributed its first volume dealing with the medical profession. Her insight, literary touch and sense of humor have given the series a work of freshness and originality in the story of the fine doctor's sons who later founded the world-famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

  Here's a book about a great surgeon's life in maturity and two great surgeons in the making—three doctors in one book! While they are enjoying every page of Will's and Charlie's adventurous initiation, boys and girls will be absorbing a new appreciation of the healing profession, of a physician's work.

From the dust jacket