The Girls of Hillcrest Farm by Amy Bell Marlowe

In The Girls of Hillcrest Farm, Lydia and Phemie Bray live in a miserable city apartment along with their sickly father.  Mr. Bray gets worse and is hospitalized.  Even worse, a fire upstairs causes the Brays' apartment to be damaged by water.  Aunt Jane suggests that the family move out to her vacant farm, which she does not like or use.

Lydia and Phemie get settled on the property and struggle to make ends meet.  They suffer from the taunts of the town girls, who do not like the newcomers.  The girls ignore the taunts as best they can and hope that they will be able to stay on the farm.

On page 12, a fire is on the upstairs floor of their tenement.  Lydia believes that they are not in danger, since the fire is above them.  She thinks that the fire will stay above them and will not harm them.  This is odd reasoning.  If not put out, the fire will burn through the ceiling.

Lots of dialect is used, and this slowed down my reading.

The book is quite slow-paced.  There is the slightest hint of a mystery, but it stays in the background for most of the book.

I overall enjoyed the book, but it is a bit too slow for my taste.