Elizabeth Enright

Four New York City siblings decide to pool their resources so that each can do a special thing on the Saturday that is his turn to receive the combined allowances.

The Melendy family moves to a house in the country where a secret room, a cupola, a stable, and a brook provide Mona, Rush, Randy, and Oliver with adventures far different from the city life to which they are accustomed.

Eleven-year-old Portia and her family return with cousin Julian to the site they visited the previous summer, this time to take possession of a large Victorian house, unoccupied for fifty years and full of treasures and secrets.

Come meet the four Melendy kids—Mona, Rush, Randy and Oliver! Randy and Oliver Melendy awake one morning full of gloom. Their brothers and sisters are away, the house seems forlorn and empty, and even Cuffy, their adored housekeeper, can’t pick up their spirits. Will they have to face a long and lonely winter? But a surprise message in the mailbox starts a trail of excitement and adventure that takes them through the cold season. When summer...

Left alone when Rush, Mark, and Mona go away to boarding school, Randy and Oliver are lonely and bored until a mysterious letter brings the first of many clues to a mystery that takes all winter to solve.