As with the first two novels of The Moosepath League, Van Reid again proves himself an incomparable storyteller with a spellbinding tale that is both lighthearted comedy and touching drama. Daniel Plainway opens during preparations for Christmas 1896 in snowy Maine. Holiday cheer eludes country lawyer Daniel Plainway as he contemplates the demise and disappearance of a neighboring family with whom he had shared countless happy times. Not a man to forget dear friends, when Plainway learns that a missing portrait of his friend's daughter has been recovered, he sets out on an odyssey that changes his life and the lives of an orphaned child, a large-hearted ballplayer, and an extraordinary woman he meets along the way. Soon Daniel crosses paths with the irrepressible Tobias Walton, his trusty companion Sundry Moss, and the distinguished members of the Moosepath League, a band of true originals who approach events earnestly enough but always seem to leave a good deal of merriment in their wake.

Table of Contents:
Prologue, November 27-December 2, 1896 1.The Empty House, Thanksgiving 1896 2.A Voice Before Dawn, November 28,1896 3.How the News Was Read in Gilead, December 2, 1896 Book One, December 3, 1896 1.Not to Be Confused 2.Meeting the Caleb Brown 3.The Man Who Would Not Come Ashore 4.The Assembled League 5.The Hat and the Hack 6.The Covington Goal 7.The Members Were Disarming 8.The Portrait and Apple Pandowdy Book Two, December 4, 1896 9.Several People Recently Met 10.A Tale from Other Seasons 11.Incident on a Train 12.The Quiescent Incarceration of Tom Bull 13.Startling Circumstances at the Abode of Mr. Thole 14.Emulating the Chairman 15.The Reason Why 16.Calling Capital Gaines Book Three, December 5, 1896 17.Lovely, Dark and Deep 18.John 19:27 19.The Undisclosed Motives of Roger Noble 20.Frantic Whispers and Pointed Dispatch 21.Beyond the Forest of Fallen Trees 22.Stones in the Lake 23.Speech at Midnight 24.The Tor 25.Others Lost Their Hats as Well 26.The Banks of Lake George 27.The Span Between Trains 28.More Sense of a Letter 29.Number Two in a Series of Three 30.Advice Did Not Come Cheap 31.The Ox at Plow 32.The Third Crash Book Four, December 6, 1896 33.Gifts 34.Advanced Uses for a Hat 35.The Last of the Wawenocks 36.The Battle of the Smoking Pine 37.Curier and Therefore 38.–Athians and –Ashians in Flux 39.Several Parties Not Necessarily Looking for One Another 40.Two Hearts 41.Two More Book Five, December 7, 1896 42.Between Tales 43.Uncle Francis Neptune 44.The Rune and the Worm 45.Between Grandfathers 46.Unfinished Knitting Book Six, December 8-9, 1896 47.Several Attempts at Tying Up Loose Ends 48.But Some Were Double-Knotted 49.And We Were So Sure That Was the Answer 50.Mutual Concerns 51.Persistence Book Seven, December 21-22, 1896 52.Lullaby 53.Someone Coming Back 54.Parley’s Play 55.Expected Sentries Sleep 56.A Solstice Carol 57.What They Didn’t Know Inside 58.More on Several Related Points 59.One Final Scoundrel 60.One Possible Answer Book Eight, Christmas Eve-Christmas Day 1896 61.Through the Kitchen Door 62.Two Mysteries 63.Hat in the Ring 64.Confession in a Christmas Kitchen 65.Lightly I Toss My Hat Away 66.Spheres in Transit 67.Number Six in an Ongoing Series Epilogue: The Occupied Pocket, New Year’s Day 1897 Author’s Note