Chapter Summary Of 'The Phantom Brakeman'

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Every summer from 1929-1935, in A Long Way from Chicago, Joey Dowdel and his younger sister, Mary Alice, are sent to spend a week with their grandmother in her small Illinois town located halfway between Chicago and St. Louis. Not even the big city crimes of Chicago offer as much excitement as Grandma Dowdel when she outwits the banker, sets illegal fish traps, catches the town's poker playing business men in their underwear, and saves the town from the terror of the Cowgill boys. Now an old man, Joe Dowdel remembers these seven summers and the "larger than life" woman who out-smarted the law and used blackmail to help those in need.. Joey Dowdel and his sister Mary Alice spend a week in August with their Grandma every year. The two are…show more content…
Chapter 5: "The Phantom Brakeman—1933" It is 1933, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the nation's new president. Shirley Temple is the new entertainment sensation, and Mary Alice, like every other girl in America, is learning to tap dance in imitation of the child star. Joey is thirteen, a teenager at last. He likes to be called Joe now, not Joey. During their annual trip to Grandma's, Joe and Mary Alice go down to the Coffee Pot Cafe one day to enjoy some Nehi sodas. Mary Alice befriends Vandalia Eubanks, a skinny, pale seventeen-year-old who works there... Chapter 6: "Things With Wings—1934" Grandma is at the depot when Joe and Mary Alice arrive this year, but she has not come to meet them. Instead, she is seeing somebody off. Mrs. Effie Wilcox, her "sworn enemy," is moving away because the bank has foreclosed on her house. That day at noon dinner, the children regale their grandmother with the exciting news about the killing of the notorious John Dillinger back in Chicago. Grandma is uncharacteristically subdued, however, and Mary Alice acutely observes, "Grandma's missing Mrs.…show more content…
Chapter 7: "Centennial Summer—1935" On Joe and Mary Alice's last annual summer visit to Grandma Dowdel's, the town is in the midst of a gala celebration commemorating "A Century of Progress." Although Grandma feigns disinterest, she tells the children that there will be a talent show that they just might "look in on" and a parade that they can view from the porch. Grandma sends her grandchildren up into the attic again, this time to search for appropriate old-time attire for all of them to wear to the festivities. Mary Alice discovers a lovely white... 1. Grandma Dowdel lies to the reporter from the city about Shotgun Cheatham. Can her lie be justified? Why does she lie? Is it ever okay to lie? Explain your answer. 2. The last sentence of "Shotgun Cheatham's Last Night Above Ground" mentions different kinds of truth. Read the last paragraph and discuss what Peck means in the last sentence. Is this true today? 3. In "The Mouse in the Milk," Grandma lies again. Do you see a pattern here? What is she teaching her grandchildren with this kind of behavior? 4. Mr. Cowgill whips his boys after Grandma catches them

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