56 Weeks with Nancy Drew - The Message in the Hollow Oak - Part 1/2

Week 12, Book 12

Welcome to the 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew series! If you are new here, welcome. You can find my introductory post to this series here. Please note I will be including plot spoilers in this review series. I explain my reasoning at the start of this post. I should add that my discussion of The Message in the Hollow Oak is a two-parter. Once Part Two goes live, you will be able to find a link to it here. 

Edition pictured: Original text (25 chapters, 218 pages)

Cover illustrated by: Rudy Nappi

Original text publication date: 1935

My edition printed: approx. 1965

Ghostwriter: Mildred A. Wirt Benson

Editors: Edna Stratemeyer Squier & Harriet Stratemeyer Adams

Setting: River Heights, Windham, & Wellington Lake in Canada

Originally published in 1935, and for the first time in the 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew series I will be reviewing the original text (OT) edition of The Message in the Hollow Oak, pictured above. Incidentally, I own copies of this book in both the OT and revised text (RT) formats. (I talk broadly about the OT verses the RT here. The easiest way to distinguish if you are reading the OT or the RT is to check the table of contents page. If your book has 25 chapters it is the OT, all RT books have 20 chapters. Only books 1-34 come in two formats. Books 35-56 were not revised.) I had planned to do one blog post discussing the two together. However, once I started reading the RT I realized this wouldn’t be possible. These are two completely different books that share a title and the scenario of someone hiding a message in an old hollowed out oak tree. As such, this post will be entirely devoted to The Message in the Hollow Oak in the OT, and I will do another post on the RT. We’ve got a lot to discuss, so let’s get started!

Nancy wins a tract of land in Canada in a radio contest and Nancy’s father, Carson, suggests she go take a look at her winnings (3). One of Carson’s clients, who holds extensive lumbering interests in Canada, is familiar with the area in which Nancy’s land is located and tells her it is in the vicinity of a town called Wellington Lake. Carson says Nancy needs to find a responsible adult to accompany her, and his client suggests a friend of his, Mrs. Donnelly, who plans to be travelling to Wellington Lake to open her boarding house for the summer (5). Nancy says it would be a lark if Bess and George could go too. Soon they are catching a train to Canada. But before that can happen, Nancy engages in a high speed chase through the streets of River Heights on the trail of a thief (14-16). She is repeatedly pestered to sell her land, and when that doesn’t work, she is threatened. What’s so special about a tract of undeveloped land in the middle of nowhere? Well, Mrs. Donnelly suggests Nancy’s land may be valuable, as it’s located in an area where gold has recently been found (21). Before you know it, Nancy has caught gold fever, and so have Bess and George. Although, Carson is quick to remind Nancy that it is much more likely that the land will be worthless, which brings her back down to earth.

Unfortunately, before they arrive in Wellington Lake, they are involved in a catastrophic train wreck, sending Mrs. Donnelly to the hospital as well as a woman Nancy has befriended on the train.

In this one, Nancy stops the Yellow Dawn Mining Company, which buys worthless land, issues stock on it, and sells the valueless shares to innocent buyers. She also brings a couple together after twenty years apart, finds a message in a hollow oak, reunites a father with his daughter, and helps to mend the rift between two feuding families. 

She still has time to win a radio contest (2), help an elderly woman (7), show off her daring driving maneuvers (14-16), bake a chocolate cake (24), accept a dinner invitation (25-26), meet a lady novelist on a train and suspect she has a secret sorrow (33-35), survive a train wreck, save Bess from plunging to her death while sleepwalking (45-46), put an ad in the paper (50), hire a car (57), get lost along the way (58), get charged by a bull (59), distinguish a city dweller from a single footprint left in sand (89), stumble over two cats in one dark cellar (113, 115), round up a possé (157), show off her horseback riding skills, dictate a conversation in French and translate it later (169), use deception by omission to get around her father (204), do a little pickpocketing for a good cause (205), steal a bag of gold that is rightfully hers (208-209), destroy a dam with dynamite and flood a valley (211), take three trips by plane, another three by train, eat 11 meals, a cup of cocoa, and a healthy number of flapjacks.

Time of year & timeline

The trend of summery settings in this series continues. When the question of Nancy finding an older person to accompany her to Wellington Lake comes up, a client of Nancy’s father suggests a friend of his, Mrs. Donnelly.

    “She’ll be returning to Canada shortly to open up her boarding house for the summer.” (5)

When Mrs. Donnelly arrives in Wellington Lake there is no pause before she opens her boarding house, so we can safely assume this book takes place during about two weeks at the start of the summer. Mrs. Donnelly could be opening her boarding house on the first day of summer according to the calendar, but the book gives no clear indication, so it may be some other date around this time.

The original Nancy Drew

I mentioned at the outset that this is the first time in these Nancy Drew posts that I would be discussing the OT. RT Nancy, for lack of a better term, is the version of Nancy that I was familiar with growing up. I loved my Nancy Drew! If you had tried to tell me then that she wasn’t the real thing, I probably would have kicked you in the shins! As much as it pains me to say it, if given the option I would choose to read the OT every time. It isn’t just that these books are a bit longer, providing the opportunity for more elaborate plots and more subtle storytelling, but the difference is in Nancy herself. 

Most of us don’t come to these books for the plots. The plots are ultimately forgettable. Unless I’ve just finished reading one of these books, I have a hard time remembering even the broad strokes of the plot. I’m sure I’ve said it before, and I will very likely say it again, it’s Nancy herself that makes these books memorable. Her desire to help others knows no bounds. Even when she is up against it, she stubbornly believes that justice will prevail. She is tirelessly brave. Not to mention, that she is just plain tireless. I’m a bit of a fan. 

But my one issue with Nancy has always been that she is “perfect”. She always follows the rules. She always asks permission. She is always in constant contact with the authorities. All of these are admirable traits for children, but as qualities in an eighteen-year-old girl, they don’t leave a lot of room for relatability. How happy was I to discover that OT Nancy isn’t perfect! This sixteen-year-old manages to behave more like the average teenager, while at the same time she comes across as more streetwise and less naïve than in the RT. (Nancy is 16 in the OT and 18 in the RT.)

In one scene, Nancy is chasing after a man who has stolen an elderly woman’s suitcase. Nancy feels she is at least partially to blame for being deceived by the man’s story about being the woman’s grandson. Having left the man alone with the case, while she runs into the bank to let the elderly woman know her grandson is waiting outside for her, the man seizes the opportunity to speed off with the case.

    As she reached the less congested part of the city, Nancy put on more speed, driving a little faster than the law allowed.

    “If I’m arrested, I’ll have a good reason for it, at least,” she told herself. (14)

Just as she is bemoaning having lost the thief, she spots him crossing an intersection up ahead.

    The Drew girl accelerated the motor, and began the pursuit. Taking the driver of the other car by surprise, she succeeded in drawing abreast of his machine. 

[…]

    As she tooted her horn, the culprit gave her a panic-stricken look, and speeded up. A less courageous driver might have abandoned the chase, but Nancy did not intend to be outdistanced. Again she overtook the car.

[…]

    Suddenly with a sharp twist of the wheel she crossed directly in front of the red car, blocking its path. Either the thief would have to stop, or else cause a crash.

    For one terrifying moment Nancy thought the fellow intended to keep on. Suddenly the brakes screeched on the pavement, and his machine came to a quivering halt. (15-16)

Nancy speeds and overtakes the other driver. She doesn’t “intend to be outdistanced”. She also pulls in front of the other vehicle, and puts herself in harm’s way in the process. Nancy starts the chase with the possibility of getting arrested for speeding and things escalate to the point where she is risking her life to return a woman’s suitcase and see the thief brought to justice.  If RT Nancy were put in this situation, she would have lost vehicle and had to rely on a helpful police officer coming along at the necessary moment, that or she would catch up with the thief while he was making a pit stop. 

Perhaps more surprising than a Nancy who isn’t afraid to break the Law, is a Nancy who questions her father’s authority. When she comes to her father with evidence that a man has been lured away, or possibly taken, from his home with the purpose of stealing his property, her father commends her, but then points out that what she has overheard may be nothing more than idle gossip. 

    “I realize that, but even if the evidence should not bear weight in court, it serves as something upon which to work. I’ve asked Norman Ranny to do a little scouting before we openly accuse Sawtice.”

    “You’ve handled the matter very well,” Mr. Drew praised. “If nothing should develop within the next few hours I shall organize searching parties and comb the woods for Mr. Chap.”

    In spite of her father’s words, Nancy did not feel that she was doing much to help bring about the return of Pierre Chap. The longer she thought about it the more worried did she become. She feared that the delay of a few hours might mean the difference between life and death. (172-173)

She then proceeds to leave camp with Norman Ranny to go do some sleuthing, without first checking with her father, I might add.

Later, she agrees to sign over her land to the unscrupulous man who has been pestering Nancy to sell to him. This man even tried to claim that the land was already owned by him. Nancy agrees to give him the land, but makes the stipulation that Pierre Chap be returned unharmed. Afterwards, Nancy’s father gives her an earful.

    “It was nothing less than stealing,” Mr. Drew declared angrily. “Nancy, I’d never have permitted you to go through with it, had I know what you proposed to do before we went into that tent.”

    “That’s why I didn’t tell you,” the girl smiled. “I lay awake last night thinking and thinking. It seemed to me the only way to save poor old Mr. Chap.” (202-203)

Gold has been found on the land and they are all bemoaning the likely loss of it.

    “I wish I could save the gold, though I don’t see how I can,” Nancy said regretfully. “After all, Pierre Chap’s life is the most important consideration. You aren’t really provoked at me, are you, Father?”

The attorney squeezed her hand.

    “No, I’m very proud of you, Nancy. You have been wonderfully generous. But it infuriates me to think that Sawtice is going to win out in this affair. He should be behind prison bars.” (203)

Despite the fact that Nancy takes the decision making out of her father’s hands with the assumption that it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission, the two maintain just as close a relationship as the pair does in the RT books.

Now, the funny thing is that after Nancy’s father has told her how proud of her he is, she turns around and again does something she knows he wouldn’t permit if she asked him about it. When she is alone with Bess and George, she tells them her plan to get the gold.

    “Now is our chance to get the gold,” Nancy whispered to Bess and George. “I didn’t dare mention all my plans when Father was here, for he wouldn’t have permitted me to attempt it.” (204)

That made me laugh. Nancy is just an average teenager, taking praise from her father one minute, and turning around and doing something he wouldn’t have allowed the next!

And after she takes the gold that is rightfully hers, Nancy gets revenge. 

    "Get Mr. Chap out of here as quickly as you can. And everyone meet me in ten minutes at the place where our horses are tied!"

    "What are you going to do?" Carson Drew called after her.

    Intent only upon her purpose, Nancy did not hear him. She ran up the path which led to the dynamite shack. It was her plan to change the course of the stream by blasting the power dam.

    "It's a risky thing to attempt," she told herself grimly, "but if I succeed, Sawtice will never be able to use my property!" (209)

That’s right, Nancy takes justice into her own hands in this one. She helps herself to a stick of dynamite, blows up a dam, and floods her land, so the big baddie, Buck Sawtice, can’t profit off of it. 

I have to say that I think Nancy is a bit of a badass in this book. She solves the mystery, gets the gold, takes revenge — I mean, justice — all while behaving like an imperfect, reckless teenager. I absolutely loved every minute of it!

Favourite quotation

I have so many favourite lines and scenes from this book. But I wanted to share the line that made me realize early on that I was in for a completely different Nancy from the version I was familiar with in the RT books. Nancy has just offered to watch an elderly woman’s suitcase while the woman runs an errand at the bank across the street.

    “It would be a good joke on me if she shouldn’t come back,” the girl thought uneasily. “I’m always getting into trouble doing impulsive things.” (8)

“Impulsive” is one of the last words I would use to describe Nancy in the RT books. She is many things, safe, thoughtful, dependable, methodical, among them, but definitely not impulsive! As commendable as the RT Nancy is, I would take impulsive, lively, and unpredictable Nancy from the OT over her, any day!