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Five Little Peppers #4
Phronsie Pepper: The Youngest Of The Five Little Peppers
""Phronsie The Youngest Of The Five Little Peppers"" is a classic children's novel written by Margaret Sidney. The book tells the story of Phronsie Pepper, the youngest of the five Pepper children, and her adventures with her family. Phronsie is a sweet and innocent child who loves her family and enjoys spending time with them. The book follows her as she grows up and learns more about the world around her. She faces challenges and obstacles along the way, but with the help of her family, she is able to overcome them. The story is filled with heartwarming moments and is a great read for children and adults alike. It is a timeless tale of family, love, and the joys of childhood.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.
444 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1897
About the author
Margaret Sidney
86 books45 followersMargaret Sidney was the pen name of American author and publisher Harriett Lothrop, best known for creating the enduring Five Little Peppers series, one of the most popular works of American children's literature of the late 19th century. Raised in a cultured and literary household in New Haven, she developed an early passion for storytelling and imaginative writing, though she did not publish until her mid-thirties. Her breakthrough came with short stories for the magazine Wide Awake, whose enthusiastic reception led to the publication of Five Little Peppers in 1881 and a long-running series that followed the Pepper family through numerous sequels. Writing under the name Margaret Sidney, she became widely read by generations of young audiences. After the death of her husband, publisher Daniel Lothrop, she successfully managed his publishing firm while raising their daughter, later returning to writing and continuing the Pepper books. Beyond literature, she played a significant role in American cultural life, helping to establish Concord, Massachusetts, as a literary center and working to preserve historic homes. She was also the founder of the Children of the American Revolution, reflecting her strong interest in history, education, and civic values.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 17, 2022
Chronologically in story time, this is the final book in this 12-book series
This book is best experienced after reading all the other books in the Pepper series. This is a list of the Pepper books, chronologically, in story time:
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew (1881) (“HTG”)
Five Little Peppers: The Adventures of Joel Pepper (1900)
Five Little Peppers: Our Davie Pepper (1916)
Five Little Peppers: The Stories Polly Pepper Told (1899)
Five Little Peppers in the Little Brown House (1907)
Five Little Peppers Midway (1890) (“Midway”) (4 years after HTG)
Five Little Peppers Abroad (1902) (“Abroad”)
Five Little Peppers At School (1903) (“School”)
Five Little Peppers and Their Friends (1904) (“Friends”)
Five Little Peppers: Ben Pepper (1905) (“BP”)
Five Little Peppers Grown Up (1892) (“Grown”) (9 years after HTG)
Five Little Peppers: Phronsie Pepper (1897) (“PP”) (16 years after HTG)
The events in this book occur 16 years after the events in HTG. Phronsie, who was 4 years old in HTG, is now 20. Polly and Jasper have been married seven years and are blissfully happy together. She is 27, and Jasper is 29. They have two children: five-year-old Elyot and four-year-old Barby. Ben is 28, Joel 25, and Davie 23. Their half-brother, King Fisher, born of their mother’s second marriage to Dr. Fisher, who was a baby in Grown, is eight years old. Mrs. Fargo, who is the mother of Phronsie’s deceased childhood friend, Helen, adopted an orphaned baby in Grown, whom she named Johnny Fargo. Because Helen has rented a house for three months in Badgertown, she and Johnny are frequently on stage during the course of this novel. Johnny is a holy terror of an eight year old, and a great deal of page space is dedicated to his hair-raising exploits including, at one point, setting fire to the Little Brown House. Charlotte Chatterton, who first appeared in Grown, and is a third-cousin to Mr. King, is 27. It is implied, at the end of this book, that she will eventually marry Ben. We are also led to believe, at the end of this book, that Joel will end up with Amy Loughead, who was Polly’s 15-year-old piano student in Grown and is currently 22. Joel is a pastor at a large church in NYC, which is the fulfillment of his dream in Grown of entering the ministry. It is not indicated who Davie might eventually settle down with, but we are told he is a literature instructor at a university in NYC.
Previous to this story, at some unspecified point in time, Polly and Jasper moved to Badgertown, very close to the location of the Little Brown House, where the Peppers lived in abject penury in HTG. For years after her husband died, Mrs. Pepper (“Mamsie”) worked night and day as a poorly paid seamstress to put food on the table. The only legacy her dead husband left her was ownership of her home. Her three oldest children, Ben, Polly and Joel, were engaging in grueling child labor, with no hope of obtaining an education, before Mr. King rescued the whole family—purely because he adored Phronsie. Mr. King offered Mrs. Pepper the job of housekeeper in his mansion in an unnamed city, and settled the whole family into the lap of luxury, paying for private schooling for all of the children, and obtaining an expensive, highly skilled piano teacher for Polly. This enormous improvement in their fortunes is presented in HTG as a kind of karmic reward for their existing as a prototype of a socially conservative ideal of righteous, “bootstraps” poor people, who are humble, hard working, unfailingly polite and kind, and who would never, ever ask for a handout. Given this obvious fact, it is quite strange that throughout the rest of this series, in every single book, MS fetishizes the Little Brown House as a kind of holy shrine, even though there is absolutely nothing sanctified about grueling poverty. And if the author truly believed there was, then why did she make sure that every Pepper in that family ends up, at the very least, within the upper-middle-class, and most of them quite wealthy? This bizarre inconsistency in the author’s philosophy of life is my least favorite aspect of this series.
When Polly and Jasper relocated to Badgertown, they purchased extensive acreage and built a mansion almost as big as Mr. King’s mansion in the city. They (rather pretentiously) named it, “The Oaks.” Though MS does not openly state it, the strong implication is that, very soon after they moved out of his city mansion, Mr. King sold that mansion, which is a central setting in HTG, Midway, Grown, School, Friends, and BP, and he and Phronsie moved in with Polly and Jasper. Since it is inconceivable that Mamsie would have surrendered her beloved Phronsie, I can only assume that Mamsie, “Papa Doctor” Fisher and baby King moved in with Polly and Jasper, as well. As the story begins, King is staying with Polly and Jasper, under the care of Polly and Phronsie, while Mamsie and Dr. Fisher are in Europe.
Mr. Higby is Polly and Jasper’s head gardener (which implies they have more than one gardener), and Mrs. Higby is their housekeeper. The Higbys are the farmer and his wife from Grown, who housed the Peppers, Mr. King and the Peppers’ friends, after a nearby train wreck that they were all in, and tenderly cared for the injured, including Polly. Similar to how Mr. King’s mansion was run, The Oaks also has maids, a butler, a cook, and a nanny—a very careless nanny. She allows Elyot and Barby to play unsupervised and wander off alone, which is a theme MS has used twice before when Phronsie was four years old in HTG and eight years old in Friends.
Alexia, who is Polly’s best friend in Midway, School, Friends, BP, and Grown, and who is as obnoxiously pushy and clingy as ever in this book, begins this story frequently engaged in riding the train from NYC to Badgertown to visit Polly. Alexia is married to Pickering Dodge, who has been Jasper’s best friend since childhood. He was devastated in Grown when Polly turned down his marriage proposal. Early on in this novel, Alexia, Pickering, and their eight-month-old baby move to Badgertown permanently, so Alexia can live very close to Polly.
Unlike in Midway and Grown, in which Polly puts huge emphasis on having a career as a piano teacher, since marrying Jasper and becoming a mother, she no longer gives piano lessons. However, she continues to practice regularly and, at one point in this novel, she is called upon to perform a complex piano solo in front of an orchestra at an important public event. She and Jasper also continue to play duets with each other at The Oaks, in Polly’s enormous music room, for their own personal pleasure. Jasper is still working at the publishing house he was involved with in Grown. He is now a partner and co-owner, and Mr. King is a silent partner who has invested a lot of money in the company as well. Though this business was described as being located in another city besides NYC in Grown, the implication in this book is that it is located in NYC. Jasper commutes to work from Badgertown on the train. Every evening, he brings home a carrier bag filled with books and papers from his business, and it is a treasured tradition for Polly and Jasper to work together on his publishing assignments every night for an hour after dinner.
This book was written in 1897 as a contemporary novel. As a result, the social attitudes (particularly toward African-Americans and women) reflect that era—some of which can be quite jarring to modern readers. There are no automobiles, only horse-drawn carriages, and when the characters travel outside their local township, they take a train.
Though the title of this book is Phronsie Pepper, MS does not entirely hone in on her. Instead, as always, she writes about an extensive ensemble cast, which includes all of the Peppers, the King family, Badgertown residents who first appeared in HTG, and many of their city friends who have appeared in other books in this series. Similar to the romance between Polly and Jasper in Grown, in which there is no courtship whatsoever—Jasper simply abruptly proposes to Polly at the very end of the book—MS devotes zero page space to the courtship of Phronsie and the man she loves. Roslyn May is close to Phronsie’s age, is as handsome as she is beautiful, is as compliant in his nature as Phronsie, and comes from a wealthy background, on a par with the millions Phronsie inherited in Midway. Though he is a brilliant sculptor and, in every way, a perfect match for Phronsie, Mr. King is so possessive of his beloved, honorary granddaughter, throughout most of this book, it seems as if he is going to expect Phronsie to stay single until the day he dies, loving and catering only to him. Phronsie and Roslyn are, unfortunately, extremely passive. Neither lifts a finger to fight for their love. In fact, they would never have married at all, and Roslyn would have literally died of grief, if Mr. King had persisted in selfishly opposing their match. They only get together at the end of the book because Mr. King finally realizes that their being married will not cause Phronsie to move away from Badgertown, because Roslyn is more than happy to live anywhere Phronsie chooses, as long as he can have her as his wife.
The most enjoyable part of this novel for me, personally, is the lovely, extended epilogue it provides for Polly and Jasper’s happy marriage. It clearly was never this author’s talent, or even her desire, to write a classic romance plot for either Polly or Phronsie, which involves placing a couple on stage together extensively, as they traverse the rocky road of courtship, before arriving at their HEA.
Overall, MS achieves what she set out to do in this novel, offering avid Pepper fans from 125 years ago an upbeat closure to this G-rated children’s series, in which every one of the Peppers is in a happy, hopeful place.
This book is best experienced after reading all the other books in the Pepper series. This is a list of the Pepper books, chronologically, in story time:
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew (1881) (“HTG”)
Five Little Peppers: The Adventures of Joel Pepper (1900)
Five Little Peppers: Our Davie Pepper (1916)
Five Little Peppers: The Stories Polly Pepper Told (1899)
Five Little Peppers in the Little Brown House (1907)
Five Little Peppers Midway (1890) (“Midway”) (4 years after HTG)
Five Little Peppers Abroad (1902) (“Abroad”)
Five Little Peppers At School (1903) (“School”)
Five Little Peppers and Their Friends (1904) (“Friends”)
Five Little Peppers: Ben Pepper (1905) (“BP”)
Five Little Peppers Grown Up (1892) (“Grown”) (9 years after HTG)
Five Little Peppers: Phronsie Pepper (1897) (“PP”) (16 years after HTG)
The events in this book occur 16 years after the events in HTG. Phronsie, who was 4 years old in HTG, is now 20. Polly and Jasper have been married seven years and are blissfully happy together. She is 27, and Jasper is 29. They have two children: five-year-old Elyot and four-year-old Barby. Ben is 28, Joel 25, and Davie 23. Their half-brother, King Fisher, born of their mother’s second marriage to Dr. Fisher, who was a baby in Grown, is eight years old. Mrs. Fargo, who is the mother of Phronsie’s deceased childhood friend, Helen, adopted an orphaned baby in Grown, whom she named Johnny Fargo. Because Helen has rented a house for three months in Badgertown, she and Johnny are frequently on stage during the course of this novel. Johnny is a holy terror of an eight year old, and a great deal of page space is dedicated to his hair-raising exploits including, at one point, setting fire to the Little Brown House. Charlotte Chatterton, who first appeared in Grown, and is a third-cousin to Mr. King, is 27. It is implied, at the end of this book, that she will eventually marry Ben. We are also led to believe, at the end of this book, that Joel will end up with Amy Loughead, who was Polly’s 15-year-old piano student in Grown and is currently 22. Joel is a pastor at a large church in NYC, which is the fulfillment of his dream in Grown of entering the ministry. It is not indicated who Davie might eventually settle down with, but we are told he is a literature instructor at a university in NYC.
Previous to this story, at some unspecified point in time, Polly and Jasper moved to Badgertown, very close to the location of the Little Brown House, where the Peppers lived in abject penury in HTG. For years after her husband died, Mrs. Pepper (“Mamsie”) worked night and day as a poorly paid seamstress to put food on the table. The only legacy her dead husband left her was ownership of her home. Her three oldest children, Ben, Polly and Joel, were engaging in grueling child labor, with no hope of obtaining an education, before Mr. King rescued the whole family—purely because he adored Phronsie. Mr. King offered Mrs. Pepper the job of housekeeper in his mansion in an unnamed city, and settled the whole family into the lap of luxury, paying for private schooling for all of the children, and obtaining an expensive, highly skilled piano teacher for Polly. This enormous improvement in their fortunes is presented in HTG as a kind of karmic reward for their existing as a prototype of a socially conservative ideal of righteous, “bootstraps” poor people, who are humble, hard working, unfailingly polite and kind, and who would never, ever ask for a handout. Given this obvious fact, it is quite strange that throughout the rest of this series, in every single book, MS fetishizes the Little Brown House as a kind of holy shrine, even though there is absolutely nothing sanctified about grueling poverty. And if the author truly believed there was, then why did she make sure that every Pepper in that family ends up, at the very least, within the upper-middle-class, and most of them quite wealthy? This bizarre inconsistency in the author’s philosophy of life is my least favorite aspect of this series.
When Polly and Jasper relocated to Badgertown, they purchased extensive acreage and built a mansion almost as big as Mr. King’s mansion in the city. They (rather pretentiously) named it, “The Oaks.” Though MS does not openly state it, the strong implication is that, very soon after they moved out of his city mansion, Mr. King sold that mansion, which is a central setting in HTG, Midway, Grown, School, Friends, and BP, and he and Phronsie moved in with Polly and Jasper. Since it is inconceivable that Mamsie would have surrendered her beloved Phronsie, I can only assume that Mamsie, “Papa Doctor” Fisher and baby King moved in with Polly and Jasper, as well. As the story begins, King is staying with Polly and Jasper, under the care of Polly and Phronsie, while Mamsie and Dr. Fisher are in Europe.
Mr. Higby is Polly and Jasper’s head gardener (which implies they have more than one gardener), and Mrs. Higby is their housekeeper. The Higbys are the farmer and his wife from Grown, who housed the Peppers, Mr. King and the Peppers’ friends, after a nearby train wreck that they were all in, and tenderly cared for the injured, including Polly. Similar to how Mr. King’s mansion was run, The Oaks also has maids, a butler, a cook, and a nanny—a very careless nanny. She allows Elyot and Barby to play unsupervised and wander off alone, which is a theme MS has used twice before when Phronsie was four years old in HTG and eight years old in Friends.
Alexia, who is Polly’s best friend in Midway, School, Friends, BP, and Grown, and who is as obnoxiously pushy and clingy as ever in this book, begins this story frequently engaged in riding the train from NYC to Badgertown to visit Polly. Alexia is married to Pickering Dodge, who has been Jasper’s best friend since childhood. He was devastated in Grown when Polly turned down his marriage proposal. Early on in this novel, Alexia, Pickering, and their eight-month-old baby move to Badgertown permanently, so Alexia can live very close to Polly.
Unlike in Midway and Grown, in which Polly puts huge emphasis on having a career as a piano teacher, since marrying Jasper and becoming a mother, she no longer gives piano lessons. However, she continues to practice regularly and, at one point in this novel, she is called upon to perform a complex piano solo in front of an orchestra at an important public event. She and Jasper also continue to play duets with each other at The Oaks, in Polly’s enormous music room, for their own personal pleasure. Jasper is still working at the publishing house he was involved with in Grown. He is now a partner and co-owner, and Mr. King is a silent partner who has invested a lot of money in the company as well. Though this business was described as being located in another city besides NYC in Grown, the implication in this book is that it is located in NYC. Jasper commutes to work from Badgertown on the train. Every evening, he brings home a carrier bag filled with books and papers from his business, and it is a treasured tradition for Polly and Jasper to work together on his publishing assignments every night for an hour after dinner.
This book was written in 1897 as a contemporary novel. As a result, the social attitudes (particularly toward African-Americans and women) reflect that era—some of which can be quite jarring to modern readers. There are no automobiles, only horse-drawn carriages, and when the characters travel outside their local township, they take a train.
Though the title of this book is Phronsie Pepper, MS does not entirely hone in on her. Instead, as always, she writes about an extensive ensemble cast, which includes all of the Peppers, the King family, Badgertown residents who first appeared in HTG, and many of their city friends who have appeared in other books in this series. Similar to the romance between Polly and Jasper in Grown, in which there is no courtship whatsoever—Jasper simply abruptly proposes to Polly at the very end of the book—MS devotes zero page space to the courtship of Phronsie and the man she loves. Roslyn May is close to Phronsie’s age, is as handsome as she is beautiful, is as compliant in his nature as Phronsie, and comes from a wealthy background, on a par with the millions Phronsie inherited in Midway. Though he is a brilliant sculptor and, in every way, a perfect match for Phronsie, Mr. King is so possessive of his beloved, honorary granddaughter, throughout most of this book, it seems as if he is going to expect Phronsie to stay single until the day he dies, loving and catering only to him. Phronsie and Roslyn are, unfortunately, extremely passive. Neither lifts a finger to fight for their love. In fact, they would never have married at all, and Roslyn would have literally died of grief, if Mr. King had persisted in selfishly opposing their match. They only get together at the end of the book because Mr. King finally realizes that their being married will not cause Phronsie to move away from Badgertown, because Roslyn is more than happy to live anywhere Phronsie chooses, as long as he can have her as his wife.
The most enjoyable part of this novel for me, personally, is the lovely, extended epilogue it provides for Polly and Jasper’s happy marriage. It clearly was never this author’s talent, or even her desire, to write a classic romance plot for either Polly or Phronsie, which involves placing a couple on stage together extensively, as they traverse the rocky road of courtship, before arriving at their HEA.
Overall, MS achieves what she set out to do in this novel, offering avid Pepper fans from 125 years ago an upbeat closure to this G-rated children’s series, in which every one of the Peppers is in a happy, hopeful place.
February 8, 2021
I was younger than Polly when I first read about this family. Reading them all for nostalgia. I notice Phronsie often acts the same as she did then.
May 3, 2015
Oh my, how I loved this books as a child. They were very dear to me and are firmly entrenched into my memory strong enough to have become parts of my character. There are is a veritable plethora of life examples and lessons to be learned through these works of literature that take us back to a simpler time and place, entirely different family values and senses or morality and ethics; there is much to be learned from these simple books. Most of all, family and love, loyalty and a moral compass much needed in today's society, camaraderie and ...well, the list is entirely too long. I think the books are relevant to the youth of today, if nothing else to provide an example that though some things change with time, a great many others do not.
Read
September 25, 2018Didn't review because the nostalgia factor wouldn't really make it fair. I did find it similar to the others-- full of sentiment and naivete.
If you ever want to see how male names change. Just read these books, Margaret Mitchell, and L.M. Montgomery. Roslyn, Kimbery, Ashley... We really swing back and forth.
If you ever want to see how male names change. Just read these books, Margaret Mitchell, and L.M. Montgomery. Roslyn, Kimbery, Ashley... We really swing back and forth.
June 8, 2021
It is interesting and exciting to read about the now adult Peppers' adventures and a new generation of Peppers!
June 27, 2022
Revisiting a series of books I knew from 60 years ago. Still love them, however some seem a bit outdated in this day and age.
July 13, 2023
I love all the tension between Rosyln and Phronsie and seeing how their thoughts about each other, and how others see them, shifts throughout the book.
July 26, 2017
This series is one I started as a child, but only recently discovered that it had books that continued the story. I'm glad I finally read this one! It had a happy ending to the series, which I always enjoy.
Only wish it had has more Polly and Jasper and less of the other characters. This series is one of my happy/comfort series, like Anne of Green Gables.
Only wish it had has more Polly and Jasper and less of the other characters. This series is one of my happy/comfort series, like Anne of Green Gables.
August 3, 2015
Oy! The screaming and crying over trivial events and the near-death experiences caused by turning an ankle which leaves a young woman bedridden and unable to be moved for weeks. It gives me the vapors! Was the first book much better or was I less critical in my childhood?
January 9, 2017
I enjoyed this wrapping up of the Pepper stories. I find it interesting that Sidney said in the introduction to this that it would be the last Pepper book, yet there are about 6 more. Hard for an author to stay away from a world/story when fans keep demanding more!
July 2, 2009
Every child, young or old, needs to read and enjoy the beauty of the 5 Little Peppers! Just absolutely magnificent!
February 2, 2015
Not as good as the first volumes of the series.
July 27, 2018
How wonderful to see Phronsie grow up into a lovely young lady. This had lots of worry in it, but Ms. Sydney would never allow bad things to happen to the Peppers, so all turned right in the end.
January 13, 2024
The overblown writing of this era drives me nuts and I think Phronsie is kind of a sappy girl but it's enjoyable to see what happened to the Five Little Peppers.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews