Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island

I finished Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall. Near the end of the book, Billie's friends have the boys send a telegram to Miss Walters, the head of the school, asking her to return. Later that day, Miss Walters does return. She states that she was going to stay longer, "but something told me that I might be needed, and that something was right." Nothing is mentioned about the boys' telegram. It sounds to me like Miss Walters never read it. Miss Walters acts like she knows nothing about the girls' problems, and the telegram gave a few details. Why did the author have the boys send a telegram if Miss Walters decides to conveniently return on her own?

Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island begins in a properly spooky fashion with Billie, Vi, and Laura lost in the woods near Three Towers Hall. As luck would have it, rain begins to fall, so the girls try to find shelter. They find a strange cabin with a low door. Not unexpectedly, the owner comes along while the girls are in the cabin. The man looks kind of crazy and acts strange, thus making for a frightening experience. Of course the girls are not assaulted and come out of the experience uninjured.

This book has one of those predictable mysteries that are the staple of many Stratemeyer series books. The publisher's brief summary of the book reads:

One of Billie's friends owned a summer bungalow on Lighthouse Island, near the coast. The school girls made up a party and visited the Island. There was a storm and a wreck, and three little children were washed ashore.

In the book, the strange man in the woods, Hugo Billings, seems lonely and unhappy. Meanwhile, a new teacher at Three Towers Hall, Miss Arbuckle, loses her photo album, and Billie finds it in the woods. When Billie returns the album to Miss Arbuckle, the woman grabs the album and finds a picture of three children, crying, "My darlings, my darlings...I couldn't lose your pictures after losing you. They were all I had left of you, and I couldn't lose them, I couldn't..."

This must be another one of those stories in which the parent(s) and children are reunited at the end of the story. See? I already know how it ends. All that I do not know for certain is whether Hugo Billings is the children's father or some other relative to Miss Arbuckle. Regardless, I know that he is connected to them.

The banter between Billie and her friends reminds me of Beverly Gray and her friends, with the result that I really like Billie and her friends. From pages 100-101:

"Are we going to form our Detective Club?" asked Connie suddenly out of the silence.

The girls stared at her a minute as if she had roused them out of sleep.

"For goodness sake, what made you think of that now?" asked Laura a little peevishly. "I'm so tired I don't want to form clubs or anything else. All I want is to get out somewhere where I can stretch my legs, get some supper, and go to bed. I'm dead."

"You're making lots of noise for a dead one," chuckled Billie, and Laura made a face at her.

"But no one's answered my question," broke in Connie plaintively. "I thought you girls loved mysteries and things."

"Well, who says we don't?" cried Laura. "Just show me a good live mystery and I'll forget I'm all tied up in knots and everything."

"Just listen to her!" exclaimed Connie indignantly. "Do you mean to say you've forgotten that we have a mystery already?"

"Oh—that," said Laura slowly, while a light began to dawn. "Yes, I did forget about it; we've been so busy getting ready and everything."

The banter is similar enough to that which occurs in the Beverly Gray series that I almost forget which series I am reading. It also does not help that one of the girls is named Connie, which is a name used for one of Beverly's friends. Additionally, Billie and Laura's names start with the same letters as Beverly and Lenora's names.

Last year, I speculated about which series were Clair Blank's inspirations for the Beverly Gray series. In one post, I concluded that Ruth Fielding was a likely candidate and gave further evidence in another post. At a later date, I mentioned that the Beverly Gray series was a lot like many of the earlier series books that have large casts of characters, such as the Outdoor Girls. I am only on my third Billie Bradley book, but I feel that Billie Bradley can also be added to the list of likely sources for Clair Blank's creativity.