Book cover: "The Tried and True Class and the Haunted House"

• Title: The Tried and True Class and the Haunted House
• Author: I.M. Purkis (There is a threadbare lead indicating that I.M. Purkis could be a pen name used by Coe Hayne (1875-1961).)
• Cover illustrator: Unknown
• Publisher: David C. Cook Publishing Co. (Elgin, Illinois)
• About the publisher: According to Wikipedia, David C. Cook was founded in 1875 and is still in business as an American nonprofit Christian publisher. When David Caleb Cook founded the company, "he was motivated to provide affordable educational materials for children who had been left homeless in the Great Chicago fire." It moved its headquarters from Chicago to Elgin, Illnois, around the turn of the 20th century and then, after almost a century in Elgin, moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1995. The company's current website is davidccook.org.
• Original price: Unknown
• Year: 1920
• Pages: 40
• Format: Staplebound
• Provenance: "For Gladys with love from Cousin Maude"
• Characters: Leslie Strachaan (president of the Tried and True Class), Josephine "Jo" Lane, Helen Baird, Muriel, Betty Bolton, Colista, Jane Landon, Catherine Somers, Mr. Primm, Bertha, Betty Boltby, Tom Clay, Lainie, Hazel, Mable, a monkey, Mr. Stagg, Mrs. Strachaan, Miss Humphrey.
• First sentence: "Oh, girls, I have an idea!"
• Last sentence: The girls of the Tried and True Class will never forget that prayer, nor the lesson they learned through their terrible experience in the "haunted house."
• Random sentence from the middle #1: The wind had been rising, and dark clouds were gathering.
• Random sentence from the middle #2: She was the president of the Tried and True Class, and if the president did not keep collected and brave, who would?
• Random sentence from the middle #3: The ghost of the haunted house — the ghost that had terrified them so — was only a monkey — a little monkey that had rushed away as terrified of them as they had been of it.
• Wait. Did I just spoil the book? Yes.
• And also: There's a separate story, just a few pages, "How the Class Motto Solved the Problem," tacked onto the end of this slim volume. I'll leave that for some future blogger.

With that decided, she summoned Mr. Barr into the room.