The Little Colonel's Hero

The Little Colonel turns twelve on a journey through Europe with her parents, and in Geneva her runaway carriage is stopped by Hero, a St Bernard trained for the Red Cross, who belongs to a one-armed old Major. Lloyd adopts dog and master on the spot, learns Hero's commands in French and hears the stories of the Alpine rescue dogs before the family moves on to Tours and home. Annie Fellows Johnston wrote a long series about Lloyd Sherman from the Kentucky country she knew; this volume ends with the children's play "The Rescue of the Princess Winsome". Thirty-nine plates reproduce American paintings from 1820 to 1908 by Eastman Johnson, Mary Cassatt, George Inness and others, their scenes of family, childhood and quiet domestic life echoing Lloyd's own journey abroad.