Ever since she was a little girl, Marguerite de Angeli loved her father's descriptions of the red leather-topped copper-toed boots he prized when he was a young boy in Lapeer, Michigan. She also treasured his tales of tradin' at the store and with his schoolmates, of a mischievous episode with a calf in the school house belfry, of carrying water for the elephants on circus day, of picnicking during blackberry time--the quaint happenings of a small...