'Miss Ethel Turner has written a war-time story of very considerable merit and has chosen as was to be expected to develop the greater portion of the action in Australia, but the story is none the less a war-time story on that account. The tale is happily conceived and delightfully told, and there is not an uninteresting page in the book. It opens in Brussels, at the beginning of the war, when a young English girl, after some thrilling adventures, rescues a little Belgian girl—Josette—from a cruel fate. The Eng- lish girl, Brigid Lindsay, makes the ac- quaintance of the Calthrops, a wealthy Australian family, the younger son of which is the Cub of the title. The scene and the actors shift to Australia, and we are given a number of pictures of Australian patriotic activities in war time. Much againist his mother's wish, the elder of the Calthrop boys volunteers for active service, and falls in action, and the last chapter closes with the departure of the Cub to fill his fallen brother's place. The whole interest centres round the Cub, who is a youth of unusual mental equipment, and possesses ideas of his own on some pressing social and eco- nomnic problems, which are not of conven- tional type. He is in consequence regarded by his friends as "queer." Brigid is a fitting foil to the Cub and is in some respects quite as unconventional.'
Source:
'Literature: A War-time Story', The West Australian, 16 December 1915, p.5. (Via Trove Australia)
