THE MAGICAL CUPBOARD

This begins with a letter from the Rosemary of Curry's Parsley Sage, Rosemary and Time (1975) and ends with her, Aunt Sibby and Uncle Bill finding, in an antique clock shop, the magic Cakebread cupboard that all three had encountered in childhood visits to the 17th century. Here, though, only the reader is taken back in time and the bulk of the story deals with a wicked, bogus churchman on the lam and a mistreated orphan girl who takes (or is taken) to the road with the fugitive, various others, and the wonderful cupboard. With the Reverend's duplicity, the contrasting knavery and virtue of a pair of brothers in the company, a whole houseful of pale, undernourished younger orphans, and an honest, settled homestead for all at the end, it's a cozy, faded piece in a tradition others have revived with more gusto.