I got conned into reading some Oliver Optic because Optic's works figured in a previous book I had read, Brewster's Millions. It seems that Oliver Optic was the pen name of a stalwart Massachusetts' Puritan from the Victorian era, William Taylor Adams. Adams wrote rather a number of works for youth, and said works involved high jinx and adventures, but salted with high moral content. Sounds like the kind of stuff that would fit in the comfort zone of a repressed, elderly Calvinist such as I.

So, we have Earnest Thornton. I think he's about 12, but perhaps 15. Anyway, he lives with his Uncle Amos and two servants. None of them talk to Earnest much, especially Uncle Amos. Somehow, Earnest grows up to be mostly honest and moral anyway. The one thing Uncle Amos does do for Earnest is not stint when it comes to money. So, Earnest had a nice sailboat, the Splash, which he sails all over the lake in front of their house.

Earnest also goes to a school known as the Parkville Liberal Institute, which is run by a petty tyrant, one Mr. Parasyte. Mr. Parasyte believes what he wants to believe and has no problem taking sides in an issue regardless of the actual facts of the matter.

So, it happens that Earnest gets into a bit of a tiff with one William Poodles. Mr. Parasyte takes Poodles narrative of the issue as being true, despite a number of differing accounts that would corroborate Earnest's account of the situation. Mr. Parasyte insists that Earnest apologize to Poodles, and probably do some other stuff. Earnest, being all straight and true, can't apologize because to do so would involve him in telling a lie, and he's way too moral to tell lies.

So, Earnest decides to "break away" in his boat. Many of the other students go with Earnest and they set up a Camp Fair Play on an island in the lake where they live (somewhere in upstate New York?). Well, things go back and forth and eventually some of the Parkville adults become involved and Mr. Parasyte is sent packing and Earnest is brought back into the fold so to speak.
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