THE STORY: As told by Walter Kerr, “all happens very logically. A little girl has slipped past the gatekeeper and over the garden wall to play with a lonely and put-upon lad. She is quickly shooed out by his mother as 'trash.' It just so happens that the little girl’s mother is a witch, and an experienced one. She takes her revenge by supplying Mrs. Howard V. Larue III with the very little paragon she has always longed for, meanwhile spiriting the real and unruly boy off to a life of crime in the Shantyland Pool Hall Lunchroom. Mother is at first delighted with the impostor’s perfection, then suspicious, then dismayed. When she learns the truth and sets out to reclaim her own nine-year-old mobster, she unwittingly and very foolishly crosses the same little girl, who promptly puts the finger on her and assigns her the role of washing dishes for the gang…by the time mama has been knocked about a bit and come to appreciate the sterling qualities of an ordinary roughneck, she is happy enough to take the boy back on his own terms, and to adopt the little witch-girl into the bargain."
“Mrs. Chase has written the freshest play of the year.” —The New York Times.
“…another big load of cheer…a whimsical, lovely and lovable work for young children and old children…There is an aura of great affection all around it.” —New York Daily News.
“What the author has done in this delectable imaginative fable…is to capture that most difficult of all things: the world of fantasy as a child sees it, half romantic and half hard-boiled.” —New York Herald-Tribune.
