How Joe Succeeded

How Joe Succeeded by Mary Morrison
Published in 1905 by David C. Cook publishing Company
64 pages
Warning: mild language and a cross dressing lumber jack
Genre: Time period novel, Friends and Society

This is the story of a young boy named Joe and his adventure to make his family proud as a lumber jack. Joe has a special secret. He wears his grandma's gold beaded necklace around his neck; the necklace is his prized possession. While the novel is very well written and I enjoyed the various dynamics, the generational gap which exists for a person reading this novel having been born in 1990 makes this novel hilarious. Joe is very successful when he attempts to pull a number of logs out of the forest using a team of horses. No other lumber jack has been successful, but Joe is convinced he can do it. He does. Upon completing the task, the other lumberjacks ask him how he did it:

"It wasn't any trick," Joe persisted. "I just used [the horses] as I'd like to be used myself if I was a horse, that's all," he added empatheticaly (41).

The novel is also entertaining when it discusses gambling, and tells an experience Joe had while gambling.

"His eyes were fastened on the monster which was steadily devouring his hard earnings, which he still fed to it desperately, coin by coin, with a gambler's fierce persistence" (46).

Over one hundred years later, gambling still persists as a trap to many. I love this novel. It is strange, entertaining and short with a good lesson to tell. If you have a sense of humor willing to work, you will love this little novel.