The Blythe sisters return in this fifth volume devoted to their adventures, this time embarking on a two-week holiday to the country. Their initial destination, Crag House, turns out to be a dismal, rundown boarding house, run by a surly man and his 'slatternly' wife. The Blythe girls' fellow guests, who appear "poorly dressed, and had swarthy, foreign-looking faces," seem vaguely threatening, and speak to the proprietors in a language that 'sounds' Italian. When Rose overhears two of them (now speaking English, apparently) plotting to rob the girls' trunk, the sisters realize they have fallen into a den of thieves. Extracting themselves proves difficult however, until the advent of their friend Joe Morris, who masquerades as a sheriff in order to rescue them. Soon installed at nearby Peach Farm, whose proprietress and guests are as different as can be (both in terms of hygiene and also, apparently, ethnicity), the Blythe girls soon realize that the local woods are being used by the very group of men whom they encountered abusing a child on their train journey north, and whose red car they saw at Crag House. When Joe, whose job involves acting as an armed guard for his moving company's shipments of valuable goods, is shot, the girls are instrumental in bringing those responsible to justice, helping to catch a ring of thieves, and rescue the aforementioned abused child. Mrs. Butterworth, the owner of Peach Farm, is in the meantime reunited with her missing niece, who has an unexpected connection to the Blythe girls...

Many of the themes and tropes seen in the previous four volumes of The Blythe Girls series can be seen also in Three on a Vacation, from the reassuring appearance of male friends and rescuers, just at the opportune time, to the interconnected nature of seemingly disparate challenges and puzzles that the girls encounter. There is nothing here to surprise - it went without saying that the girls would resolve the issue of Laura Small, and as soon as Mrs. Butterworth appeared in the tale, I knew just how it would be done! - but the story will still have appeal for readers of vintage girls' series. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this installment as much as the previous ones, as the latent xenophobia glimpsed in those earlier titles becomes more pronounced here. Clearly, for the author penning this 1925 tome, Italian-Americans were still considered 'foreigners,' and potentially dangerous foreigners at that. Quite by accident, I happened to be reading another vintage children's title from this period - a boys' sports novel from 1923 - that took a very different perspective, so the prejudice displayed here, although perhaps more common in the early decades of the twentieth century, was by no means ubiquitous, even then. However that may be, with the proviso that they be aware of the outdated views it contains, I would recommend this book to readers of vintage girls' fare. Having now exhausted the volumes of this series that I myself own, I plan to read the remaining seven titles at the NYPL. ( )