Four Afoot: Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the Highway
1906
Four Afoot: Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the Highway
1906
Summer, 1906. Four friends set out from Locust Park with nothing but good shoes, better humor, and ambitious plans to reach Jericho on foot. What follows is the kind of adventure that exists only in the space between childhood's end and the modern world's arrival - before highways swallowed the back roads, before every journey happened at sixty miles an hour. Dan leads with restless energy. Bob keeps the group practical and on track. Nelson's athleticism carries them through long afternoons. And Tommy, dear Tommy, finds himself in increasingly elaborate trouble, whether overindulging in farm pie or getting the whole lot of them spectacularly lost. This is the final chapter of the Big Four's exploits, and Barbour gives it the warmth of a fond farewell. The walking trip becomes a meditation on friendship itself - four distinct personalities learning to accommodate each other, to laugh at mishaps, to keep going when the road is longer than expected. For readers who grew up on Twain and Alcott, or anyone who believes the best journeys are the ones taken slowly, on foot, with friends.
