Suitable for twelve to one hundred and twelve years of age.

This story is about some young boys growing up in the period of the late eighteenth century, in a place called Carradale, but which could have been anywhere, it starts as the boys are coming up to the age, when at that time, they would have been expected to have started to add to the family income.

But, Gilchrist who had always been the leader of the group, had decided to keep the boys together as a unit, and they would be much stronger than as individuals dispersed here and there, and so this is the story of their first fumblings, mistakes made and corrected, and learning, and as they learned and became more competent, and so more confident, they prospered, but not without a great deal of determination and effort, and a little bit of luck, but above all else, hard work in all weathers, and perseverence.