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The Little Maid's Historical Series #6
A Little Maid of Old Connecticut
Here is the heroic story of Ellen Elizabeth Barlow, a little maid of Connecticut in 1776, when enemy war vessels and Tory bands were ravishing the coastal settlements.
188 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1917
86 people want to read
About the author
Alice Turner Curtis
72 books23 followersChildren's and young adult historical fiction author Alice Turner Curtis was born in Sullivan, Hancock County, Maine, USA. Her maiden name is Alice L. Turner. She is listed in the Daughters of the American Revolution Lineage Books. Her father was a sailmaker. She was married (in Boston on 20 May 1895) to Irving Curtis (18 Jan 1835 – 18 Nov 1910). Her parents (both born in Maine) were John Vinal Turner and Susan Ann Spear. Alice lived her life in Maine and Massachusetts (notably, in Boston). She had been in the literary profession since at least 1895 (with Marjorie's Way being her first known book, published in 1904).
Alice Turner Curtis is the author of "The Little Maid's Historical Series", originally published, during the period from 1910 to 1937. Reprinted by Knopf in the 1940's and 1950's with illustrations by Sandra James. Some books were reprinted by Applewood in the 1990's with the original illustrations. One book containing two original stories was printed by Derrydale Books in 1991. She is also known for the Grandpa's Little Girls series, The Yankee Girl Civil War Stories, the Frontier Girl series, The Little Heroine series, the Marjorie series, the Little Runnaways series, and other books.
Alice Turner Curtis is the author of "The Little Maid's Historical Series", originally published, during the period from 1910 to 1937. Reprinted by Knopf in the 1940's and 1950's with illustrations by Sandra James. Some books were reprinted by Applewood in the 1990's with the original illustrations. One book containing two original stories was printed by Derrydale Books in 1991. She is also known for the Grandpa's Little Girls series, The Yankee Girl Civil War Stories, the Frontier Girl series, The Little Heroine series, the Marjorie series, the Little Runnaways series, and other books.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 23, 2019
Edition reviewed: https://archive.org/details/littlemai...
Summary:
The story begins in the year 1777 during the American Revolution. Ellie (Miss Ellen Elizabeth Barlow), a little girl, is our main character. Her brother captures a young British man (whom the family members call Barlay). Barlay becomes friends with the Barlow family (and his surname is also Barlow).
Ellie is to visit her grandmother, and tells Barlay about it (at his request, while she is guarding him, at her brother's request). He gives her a secret package to open immediately when she gets to her destination (at which time she is to follow the instructions she finds inside), which she naively promises to do, only to later suspect that he might be a British spy seeking to hurt the American cause.
Ellie commences her journey and finds herself in a coach with the grandmother of her own grandmother’s neighbors. They make friends, but Ellie is worried about the package in her bandbox throughout the whole trip (since it was at the beginning of her trip that she realized Barlay might be a spy). She worries what people might do to her if they find the package and think she’s assisting the British.
Anyway, she gets to her grandmother’s house, meets her grandmother, Hannah Jane (a Scottish woman who seems to be a notable servant of sorts), and the neighbor girls. She’s still worried about the package, but when she finally looks in her bandbox (which is not immediately) she discovers that it’s missing. However, a number of days later, Hannah Jane lets her know that she found it and tells her where it was. Ellie opens it in private and discovers that it is addressed to Governor Johnathan Trumbull (which convinces her that he is not a British spy).
Ellie makes fast friends with her neighbors. They form a pact to help each other and basically do good things (they decide to have some secrets and to call each other Rose, due to a story one of the grandmother’s told them, involving five girls, each named Rose; the neighbor girls and Rose also comprise five girls). They have a fort of sorts that they resort to at important times (which is a little dangerous to get to and leave). Ellie falls in the river and the other girls save her (and everyone is pleased that they’re fulfilling their promises so far, as Ellie points out that they were doing, even though they didn’t think of the promise when they helped).
Hannah Jane tells Ellie at one point that she would do well to think about those little girls who don’t have hats and shoes (when Ellie’s are impaired, I think due to falling in the river).
At one point, Ellie meets a girl in her grandmother’s strawberry patch. She nicknames her Brownie (but her real name is May). The girl is stealing strawberries from her grandmother, but Ellie assumes that it’s the right thing to do to help May collect strawberries, since she and her brother are starving, and she supposes that her grandmother would want May to have the berries. May does not have hats and shoes, nor does she have a mother.
However, when May flees, Ellie finds that Hannah Jane is there, and that she believes that she ate a quart of strawberries all by herself (and that she’ll soon be sick). Ellie does not tell Hannah Jane about Brownie, but suffers in silence (and this pleases the neighbor girls when they find out about it, as they believe it’s fulfilling their promises). Ellie believes now that she’ll get into trouble (since Hannah explains how her grandmother feels strictly about her strawberries). As it turns out, though, Hannah Jane doesn’t at first tell Ellie’s grandmother anything other than that some of the strawberries were missing (not who picked them). Ellie is surprised, but Hannah Jane doesn’t trust Ellie anymore, especially when she catches her saving food from dinner and putting it in her pockets (she’s doing this to save the food for Brownie).
Ellie confers with the neighbor girls and they all decide to help Brownie, by supplying what food and clothing they are able to muster. Brownie is pleased. The girls get Ellie to ask Hannah Jane for a cake (even though Hannah Jane already probably thinks her greedy), and she promises Hannah Jane that she won’t eat any of it herself (but Hannah Jane is aware that she takes it up to her room—which she does for the night, but the cake is for Brownie). Brownie is one of the secrets of the girls (none of the adults know about her).
Ellie gets into a lot of trouble for her attempts to help Brownie, for when she finally opened the package from Barlay, she found that it contains a golden sovereign as a gift for her (and a package to deliver to Governor Johnathan Turnbull). However, she lost the golden sovereign, and when she realizes that it’s lost, she’s right in the middle of meeting up with her grandmother and the neighbor girl’s grandmother. She neglects to curtsy and exlaims out loud that she lost it—at which her grandmother is quite displeased and sends her to her room to punish her (for speaking out like that and for not curtsying to the kind neighbor woman). She doesn’t give her dinner, either. When Hannah Jane finds out about what Ellie did, she tells Ellie’s grandmother about the strawberries, the food she pocketed, and the cake that she asked for. So, now they all believe bad things about Ellie.
However, it turns out that Ellie didn’t actually go to her room. She went to the guest room instead, on accident, and cried herself to sleep. In the morning, everyone realizes that she’s not in her room, and they call the authorities and everyone searches high and low for her, to no avail. Ellie’s grandmother and Hannah Jane become sorry for how they treated Ellie in some regards. Eventually, Hannah Jane discovers Ellie in the guestroom and tells Ellie’s grandmother. They take off her shoes and change her clothes, and fit her for sleep (while she’s asleep). Then Ellie's grandmother lays beside her. Ellie wakes up, and sees herself in a strange room, and her grandmother (who appears to be asleep) beside her. He wonders out loud if the strawberry incident with Brownie and other things that she did were a dream. It turns out that her grandmother was not asleep, and heard every word. So, Ellie is vindicated of everything.
Things start to look promising.
Ellie is given two Maltese kittens to give to her mother. They are descended from cats that her mother had when she was a girl.
Brownie helps Ellie deliver the package to Governor Johnathan Trumbull, and both she and Brownie quickly run away. The governor seeks to find her, and eventually does (by finding and questioning Brownie and her family first). He visits Ellie to thank you and helps Brownie’s father to get a job.
When the neighbor girls find out about Ellie unwittingly spewing some of their secrets out loud in front of their grandmother, they are upset (particularly Mildred), and they stop being friends. Ellie is pretty upset, but a proverb that Hannah Jane tells her helps her to realize that there’s nothing she can really do about it; so, she shouldn’t worry.
It turns out that the neighbor girls, except for Mildred, actually want to be friends with Elllie again. Mildred doesn’t, and is angry. In her anger, she pushes one of her sisters (Nancy) off from the fort area, and she falls and gets hurt; her arm is broken, and her ankle sprained. No one sees this, except Nancy and Mildred herself. Mildred is extremely sorrowful, accidentally confesses to an adult, and eventually apologizes to everyone (including Ellie) and seeks to help Nancy a lot. Ellie readily forgives Mildred (as did Nancy herself). Bertha takes a little more time (and the other girls respect Bertha’s opinion highly).
Brownie was friends with both Ellie and the neighbor girls the whole time, but sad when Ellie was sad. It should be noted that Brownie is rather selfless and uses pretty much everything she gains to help her little brother.
Brownie found a golden sovereign at one point (which Ellie silently believes is the one that she lost), and she buys stuff for her family with it (like clothes for her younger brother, and food).
Anyway, then everyone is happy, and the only bad thing going on is that Nancy is hurt.
The family helps to fix up Brownie’s family’s house (which was desparately in need of repairs).
Then Ellie has to go home. She wants to go home, but she does miss her friends.
Barlay is to move in with them (but he’s absent when Ellie gets home, as is her father who is helping with the war). She finds a surprise that Barlay had promised her. He built her something just like something her grandmother had, which she had been wishing for (not realizing that she might actually get it, nor thinking that Barlay might be the one to supply it).
For more information about Barlay, he was on the British side, but he defected. The message to the governor was about a threat to his life, which Barlay knew about. They find that Barlay is related to a near ancestor in England.
You can look up governor Johnathan Turnbull on Wikipedia (he was governor of Connecticut during the time period of the book, which is to say, 1777).
End of summary
Anyway, I thought this was a cool book. It was significantly different from the others. The focus was more on family and friends than it was on the war, this time (but there was some of that, even if it was kind of in the middle of the book instead of near the end). I like how many of these books are illustrated (especially if you read the scanned copies of the now-public-domain printings); this book is no exception.
Summary:
The story begins in the year 1777 during the American Revolution. Ellie (Miss Ellen Elizabeth Barlow), a little girl, is our main character. Her brother captures a young British man (whom the family members call Barlay). Barlay becomes friends with the Barlow family (and his surname is also Barlow).
Ellie is to visit her grandmother, and tells Barlay about it (at his request, while she is guarding him, at her brother's request). He gives her a secret package to open immediately when she gets to her destination (at which time she is to follow the instructions she finds inside), which she naively promises to do, only to later suspect that he might be a British spy seeking to hurt the American cause.
Ellie commences her journey and finds herself in a coach with the grandmother of her own grandmother’s neighbors. They make friends, but Ellie is worried about the package in her bandbox throughout the whole trip (since it was at the beginning of her trip that she realized Barlay might be a spy). She worries what people might do to her if they find the package and think she’s assisting the British.
Anyway, she gets to her grandmother’s house, meets her grandmother, Hannah Jane (a Scottish woman who seems to be a notable servant of sorts), and the neighbor girls. She’s still worried about the package, but when she finally looks in her bandbox (which is not immediately) she discovers that it’s missing. However, a number of days later, Hannah Jane lets her know that she found it and tells her where it was. Ellie opens it in private and discovers that it is addressed to Governor Johnathan Trumbull (which convinces her that he is not a British spy).
Ellie makes fast friends with her neighbors. They form a pact to help each other and basically do good things (they decide to have some secrets and to call each other Rose, due to a story one of the grandmother’s told them, involving five girls, each named Rose; the neighbor girls and Rose also comprise five girls). They have a fort of sorts that they resort to at important times (which is a little dangerous to get to and leave). Ellie falls in the river and the other girls save her (and everyone is pleased that they’re fulfilling their promises so far, as Ellie points out that they were doing, even though they didn’t think of the promise when they helped).
Hannah Jane tells Ellie at one point that she would do well to think about those little girls who don’t have hats and shoes (when Ellie’s are impaired, I think due to falling in the river).
At one point, Ellie meets a girl in her grandmother’s strawberry patch. She nicknames her Brownie (but her real name is May). The girl is stealing strawberries from her grandmother, but Ellie assumes that it’s the right thing to do to help May collect strawberries, since she and her brother are starving, and she supposes that her grandmother would want May to have the berries. May does not have hats and shoes, nor does she have a mother.
However, when May flees, Ellie finds that Hannah Jane is there, and that she believes that she ate a quart of strawberries all by herself (and that she’ll soon be sick). Ellie does not tell Hannah Jane about Brownie, but suffers in silence (and this pleases the neighbor girls when they find out about it, as they believe it’s fulfilling their promises). Ellie believes now that she’ll get into trouble (since Hannah explains how her grandmother feels strictly about her strawberries). As it turns out, though, Hannah Jane doesn’t at first tell Ellie’s grandmother anything other than that some of the strawberries were missing (not who picked them). Ellie is surprised, but Hannah Jane doesn’t trust Ellie anymore, especially when she catches her saving food from dinner and putting it in her pockets (she’s doing this to save the food for Brownie).
Ellie confers with the neighbor girls and they all decide to help Brownie, by supplying what food and clothing they are able to muster. Brownie is pleased. The girls get Ellie to ask Hannah Jane for a cake (even though Hannah Jane already probably thinks her greedy), and she promises Hannah Jane that she won’t eat any of it herself (but Hannah Jane is aware that she takes it up to her room—which she does for the night, but the cake is for Brownie). Brownie is one of the secrets of the girls (none of the adults know about her).
Ellie gets into a lot of trouble for her attempts to help Brownie, for when she finally opened the package from Barlay, she found that it contains a golden sovereign as a gift for her (and a package to deliver to Governor Johnathan Turnbull). However, she lost the golden sovereign, and when she realizes that it’s lost, she’s right in the middle of meeting up with her grandmother and the neighbor girl’s grandmother. She neglects to curtsy and exlaims out loud that she lost it—at which her grandmother is quite displeased and sends her to her room to punish her (for speaking out like that and for not curtsying to the kind neighbor woman). She doesn’t give her dinner, either. When Hannah Jane finds out about what Ellie did, she tells Ellie’s grandmother about the strawberries, the food she pocketed, and the cake that she asked for. So, now they all believe bad things about Ellie.
However, it turns out that Ellie didn’t actually go to her room. She went to the guest room instead, on accident, and cried herself to sleep. In the morning, everyone realizes that she’s not in her room, and they call the authorities and everyone searches high and low for her, to no avail. Ellie’s grandmother and Hannah Jane become sorry for how they treated Ellie in some regards. Eventually, Hannah Jane discovers Ellie in the guestroom and tells Ellie’s grandmother. They take off her shoes and change her clothes, and fit her for sleep (while she’s asleep). Then Ellie's grandmother lays beside her. Ellie wakes up, and sees herself in a strange room, and her grandmother (who appears to be asleep) beside her. He wonders out loud if the strawberry incident with Brownie and other things that she did were a dream. It turns out that her grandmother was not asleep, and heard every word. So, Ellie is vindicated of everything.
Things start to look promising.
Ellie is given two Maltese kittens to give to her mother. They are descended from cats that her mother had when she was a girl.
Brownie helps Ellie deliver the package to Governor Johnathan Trumbull, and both she and Brownie quickly run away. The governor seeks to find her, and eventually does (by finding and questioning Brownie and her family first). He visits Ellie to thank you and helps Brownie’s father to get a job.
When the neighbor girls find out about Ellie unwittingly spewing some of their secrets out loud in front of their grandmother, they are upset (particularly Mildred), and they stop being friends. Ellie is pretty upset, but a proverb that Hannah Jane tells her helps her to realize that there’s nothing she can really do about it; so, she shouldn’t worry.
It turns out that the neighbor girls, except for Mildred, actually want to be friends with Elllie again. Mildred doesn’t, and is angry. In her anger, she pushes one of her sisters (Nancy) off from the fort area, and she falls and gets hurt; her arm is broken, and her ankle sprained. No one sees this, except Nancy and Mildred herself. Mildred is extremely sorrowful, accidentally confesses to an adult, and eventually apologizes to everyone (including Ellie) and seeks to help Nancy a lot. Ellie readily forgives Mildred (as did Nancy herself). Bertha takes a little more time (and the other girls respect Bertha’s opinion highly).
Brownie was friends with both Ellie and the neighbor girls the whole time, but sad when Ellie was sad. It should be noted that Brownie is rather selfless and uses pretty much everything she gains to help her little brother.
Brownie found a golden sovereign at one point (which Ellie silently believes is the one that she lost), and she buys stuff for her family with it (like clothes for her younger brother, and food).
Anyway, then everyone is happy, and the only bad thing going on is that Nancy is hurt.
The family helps to fix up Brownie’s family’s house (which was desparately in need of repairs).
Then Ellie has to go home. She wants to go home, but she does miss her friends.
Barlay is to move in with them (but he’s absent when Ellie gets home, as is her father who is helping with the war). She finds a surprise that Barlay had promised her. He built her something just like something her grandmother had, which she had been wishing for (not realizing that she might actually get it, nor thinking that Barlay might be the one to supply it).
For more information about Barlay, he was on the British side, but he defected. The message to the governor was about a threat to his life, which Barlay knew about. They find that Barlay is related to a near ancestor in England.
You can look up governor Johnathan Turnbull on Wikipedia (he was governor of Connecticut during the time period of the book, which is to say, 1777).
End of summary
Anyway, I thought this was a cool book. It was significantly different from the others. The focus was more on family and friends than it was on the war, this time (but there was some of that, even if it was kind of in the middle of the book instead of near the end). I like how many of these books are illustrated (especially if you read the scanned copies of the now-public-domain printings); this book is no exception.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 6, 2025
This is probably the 4 or 5 time I’ve read this and it’s still amazing!
April 26, 2016
I read this out loud to the girls, they must of liked it because I think I caught each one of them reading ahead. The history is fun and the kids in the book have good values. I wouldnt mind reading some more in the series.
May 16, 2011
Defiantly more on the younger side of things. Even though the girl's life was a little to perfect, I would still re-read this book.
December 29, 2012
MCL. Ellen really likes her visit to Mrs. Godfrey.
October 28, 2013
Read in 2005-6.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews