DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Ruby Roland, the Girl Spy; or, Simon Kenton's Protege" by Frederick Whittaker. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

“Rapturous . . . The joyful sense of community within this love story offers a charming and refreshing escape from the modern world.” —Kirkus Reviews Growing up in early twentieth-century Illinois, Ruby Drake is a happy child. But one winter’s night, her beloved parents perish in an accident—and suddenly Ruby finds herself destitute and nearly alone in the world. Her new path eventually takes her to Harvester, Minnesota, where she’s lucky enough to find work on the welcoming Schoonover farm. Kind Emma, forward-thinking Henry, and their hired men—ambitious Dennis and reserved Jake—soon become a second family to the orphaned teenager. Young women are expected to be focused on courtship and marriage, but the industrious, bright Ruby searches for opportunities to expand her horizons at every step. Mastering her responsibilities on the farm. Learning to smoke cigarettes. Borrowing books from the local lending library, reading devotedly and expansively: mythology, romance, poetry. And falling in love with her married neighbor, Roland. But when Ruby is asked to care for Roland’s wife in the wake of tragedy, she is torn between duty and passion, between what has been her lot and what could be, in this story of friendship, romance, and the families we are born with and create—and of one woman’s journey of selfhood on the prairie. “Her novels are a reliably inviting world, full of friendly faces and intimate dramas. However you first make your way to Harvester, you’ll want to return.” —The Wall Street Journal

"However you first make your way to Harvester, you'll want to return." --WALL STREET JOURNAL

A diverse group of New Yorkers are brought together by the search for a missing woman—in this electric novel of secrets, connection, and community. “Riveting . . . mines the delicate and treacherous terrain in which human relationships and social divisions are rooted.”—Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake Brooklyn, 2020. Theo Harper and his pregnant wife, Darla, head upstate to their summer cottage to wait out the lockdown. Not everyone in their upscale Park Slope building has this privilege: not Xavier, the teenager in the Cardi B T-shirt, nor Darla’s best friend, Ruby, and her partner, Katsumi, who stay behind to save their Michelin-starred restaurant. During an upstate hike on the aptly named Devil’s Path, Theo divulges a long-held secret—and when Darla disappears after the ensuing argument, he finds himself the prime suspect. As Darla’s and Theo’s families and friends come together to search for her, with Ruby and Katsumi stepping in to broker peace, past and present collide with startling consequences. Set against the pulse of an ever-changing city, The Rich People Have Gone Away connects the lives of ordinary New Yorkers to tell a powerful story of hope, love, and inequity in our times—while reminding us that no one leaves the past behind completely.

Appalachian women have been the subject of song, story, and report for nearly two centuries. Now for the first time a fully annotated bibliography makes accessible this large body of literature. Works covered include novels, short stories, magazine articles, manuscripts, dissertations, surveys, and oral history tapes—altogether over 1,200 items. The annotated listings are grouped under broad subject headings, including biography, coal mining, education, fiction, health care, industry, migrants, music, poetry, and religion. An author/title/subject index provides easy access to the listings.