Punchbowl Harvest

In this story we are again at Punchbowl Farm with the Thornton family, sharing their anxieties over a harvest which seems fated from the beginning. Capricious and sometimes violent weather conditions strike down into the little valley, undoing the sweated toil of weeks. And, when the energies of the whole family are being thrown into this one great emergency, Dion's own pet fox Toddy causes fresh anxiety and action in the effort to divert from him the suspicions of local poultry-owners. This might have been enough for any ordinary family (and the charm of the Thorntons lies in their very ordinariness), but into the struggle of their star-crossed harvest comes accident, mystery, cross-suspicion and a strange female tramp, with ginger whiskers and newspaper clothing, who unwittingly provides the answers to many questions.