Tom Temple's Career

In the stern little town of Plympton, Nathan Middleton runs his household like an insurance ledger: tightly, thriftily, and without a trace of warmth. That careful order is shattered when he learns that his old school friend Stephen Temple has died and left him custody of Stephen's sixteen-year-old son, Tom. Middleton's horror at the expense vanishes the moment he hears Tom is worth forty thousand dollars and comes with an annual allowance, and even his wife, Corinthia, turns the boy into a matter of negotiation before he arrives. Tom Temple proves immediately that he will not be managed, starved, or bullied. Dryly observant and quick with his wits, he exposes the Middletons' stinginess, outplays local snobs, and stands up to the town's privileged boys with both courage and humor. A noisy battle over food and a miserable straw bed escalates the comic war between Tom's independence and the household's greedy hypocrisy. But Tom's real journey begins when he receives crucial information about a man he is hunting and heads for California, where his boldness, compassion, and unexpected friendships begin to reshape his future. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.