When gold was discovered in California in 1849, John Crabtree was one of the thousands who rushed from the East to seek his fortune. His wife and little daughter Lotta followed him in 1853.

Lotta was only five when she first saw San Francisco, which had grown almost overnight from a village to a busy, colorful city, teeming with men who hoped to strike it rich. Lotta was sure her father would be waiting at the dock to greet her with barrels of gold; they would be millionaires and live in a grand mansion.

But something else was in store for the perky little redhead with long bobbing curls and dancing feet. John Crabtree had not found "pay dirt." Of course he was sure he would find it—soon. He had gone on to Grass Valley, up north.

He wrote that he had a surprise for them. Lotta and her mother hurried by stagecoach to join him. The surprise: They were to run a boardinghouse for miners!

Lotta invented dances to match the rhythm of her chores–a broom dance, a cooky-making dance, a bouncy gold-nugget dance. She dreamed of green dancing slippers.

Lola Montez, the most famous dancer of the day, came home to Grass Valley. Then Lotta had a superb teacher. She learned to do international dances, the Tarantella, the Spanish Fandango, Irish reels and jigs.

When she was almost eight, she went to a dancing school at Rabbit Creek, and the master suggested that she take part in a special program for the miners.

This was Lotta's big chance. In no time she became the little darling of the mining camps. She brought to the rough, red-shirted prospectors the entertainment for which they were starved, the vision of a child's joy and fun, for which, so far from home, they were so home sick. She danced their cares away. She gave a tender note to their harsh lives.

No wonder they showered nuggets and gold dust on her!

The fame of her talent spread quickly, and Lotta went on to become the favorite of the San Francisco stage, a great success in New York, the most popular dancer, mimic and minstrel performer in all the United States.

Though this is Marian T. Place's first book in the Childhood of Famous Americans Series, she is an experienced author of biography and fiction for children. A Westerner, she is adept in combining the growing years of a young girl and of a young state in a fresh, amusing and charming narration.

If you enjoy Lotta Crabtree, you will enjoy the books in the series about other girls and boys who grew up to be great figures in the Old West: Narcissa Whitman, Jessie Frémont, Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill, Jim Bridger, Kit Carson and Sitting Bull.

From the dust jacket