Wouldn’t you like to meet the Murrays? Fun-loving Dad brought the organ grinder’s monkey home to live with them. To Mom, each child was her favorite. Billy, the oldest of the children, liked to tease sister Jane (as older brothers like to); Jane loved her Mom and Dad and her brothers; she went fishing with them and baited her own hook (she liked hair ribbons, too). James liked to mix things together in bottles and you never knew what might come out of them; Davey, the youngest, collected anything and everything for no reason at all.

The Murrays were constantly getting pets in the strangest way. Butch, the monkey, was part payment of Dad’s fee for a case he worked on. When the doctor visited James who had fallen off the roof, he presented the children with two rabbits—one white and the other coal black. Buick was the next door neighbor’s dog—he was at the Murrays so often, however, people didn’t know to whom he belonged. BUT—wait until you see what, the Murrays got from the cross old hermit who belonged to the haunted house and lived in a chicken coop!

Mystery, excitement, suspense, and action always accompany the Murrays—why not let boys and girls from nine to twelve years accompany them, too?

Transcriber’s Note

Punctuation and hyphenation have been standardised, including changing numerous semicolons when commas appeared to have been intended, and removing apostrophes from the plural form of proper nouns unless ownership was apparent.

Other changes have been made as follows: