By the Great Horn Spoon!, a work of juvenile fiction by Newbery Award-winning author Sid Fleischman, follows the adventures of a 12-year-old boy from Boston and his English butler on a yearlong quest for gold during the California Gold Rush of 1849. Set half at sea, half at the goldfields of pre-statehood California, Fleischman’s episodic novel combines elements of historical fiction and pulp Western. First published in 1963, it was adapted into Disney film, The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin, in 1967.

This guide is based on the 2013 Little, Brown and Company edition.

Plot Summary

In January of 1849, a sidewheeler ship leaves Boston Harbor on a five-month trip to San Francisco. Two stowaways are on board, hiding in potato barrels: 12-year-old Jack and his aunt’s English butler, Praiseworthy. The Gold Rush of 1848-1855 is at its peak, and the pair are on their way to California to try their luck panning for gold.

Praiseworthy, though somewhat formal in his relations with Jack, is the closest thing the boy has to a father: Orphaned at a young age, Jack and his two sisters went to live with their Aunt Arabella at her mansion in Boston, where Praiseworthy helped raise them. Having overheard that his aunt has fallen on hard times and may lose her house, Jack has resolved to save her by running away to California and joining the Gold Rush. He finds a willing partner in Praiseworthy, whose devotion to Arabella is absolute: One of the few things the butler brings on the trip is a portrait of her, which he keeps in his coat, close to his heart.

Jack and Praiseworthy’s meager savings are stolen by a pickpocket before they can book passage on the ship, hence their stowaway status. However, Praiseworthy soon exposes the thief, a passenger on the ship called “Cut-Eye Higgins,” with a clever stratagem, recovering their money. Jack and Praiseworthy befriend the ship’s Captain Swain, who is engrossed in a high-stakes race to San Francisco with another ship. With Praiseworthy’s help, he wins the race by a whisker. Cut-Eye escapes in a lifeboat, taking with him a valuable map of a gold mine stolen from another passenger. 

Jack and Praiseworthy enter a ramshackle San Francisco teeming with “forty-niners” (miners seeking gold) from all over the world. Basic necessities like food and shelter, let alone mining supplies, are at a premium. The pair chance upon a miner fresh from the goldfields who needs a haircut; gifting them his shorn locks as payment, he also gives them their first lesson in gold-panning, teaching them how to winnow gold dust from his cut hair. This allows Jack and Praiseworthy to buy supplies, as well as transportation to the mines.

On the stagecoach to Hangtown, Jack and Praiseworthy recognize one of their fellow passengers as the thief Cut-Eye Higgins, now posing as a dentist. Before they can think of a way to get the stolen map back from him, highwaymen hold up the stagecoach, demanding the passengers’ money, valuables, and coats. Defending his portrait of Arabella, Praiseworthy strikes one of the bandits in the face; his glove, heavy with concealed gold dust, delivers a spectacular punch, astounding onlookers. The highwaymen abscond with everyone’s loot, including the gold map, which Cut-Eye claims is sewn into the lining of his stolen coat.

In the hills near Hangtown, Jack and Praiseworthy learn to extract grains of gold from rocks and streams using wash pans, horn spoons, and even Praiseworthy’s umbrella, which proves effective for panning gold. News of Praiseworthy’s punch spreads through the mining communities, making him a local legend and earning him the nickname “Bullwhip.” Embarrassed by his secret use of a weighted glove in his altercation with the highwaymen, Praiseworthy accepts a challenge from the Mountain Ox, a large brawler from the nearby town of Grizzly Flats.

One evening, while Praiseworthy practices shadowboxing in preparation for the match, Jack goes hunting for jackrabbits, and falls down a deep “coyote hole.” Coincidentally, he is rescued by the same highwayman who stole Cut-Eye Higgins’s coat, and who has since reformed. The former bandit gives Jack the coat as an act of penance for his life of crime; however, the gold map is not in the lining. Reasoning that Cut-Eye must still have the map on his person, Jack and Praiseworthy track him down to Shirt-Tail Camp, where he’s been working as a dentist. Cut-Eye is about to be hanged for his numerous acts of thievery. Praiseworthy quickly makes a deal with Cut-Eye, offering to save him from the noose, if only temporarily, in exchange for the map. The former convinces the mob that the loss of a skilled tooth-puller would damage public health, and is amazed by his own persuasion. However, Cut-Eye’s map is useless, since its mine apparently ran out of gold months ago.

Asked to dig a grave for Cut-Eye Higgins’s eventual burial, Jack and Praiseworthy find a suitable site about a half-mile from camp, and begin to dig. They quickly strike gold. In their joy, Praiseworthy hugs Jack for the first time, calling him “Jack,” not “Master Jack.” Over the next two weeks, they extract a fortune in gold dust. Despite their new wealth, Praiseworthy is careful to keep his appointment to fight the Mountain Ox in Hangtown. Due to his weeks of shadowboxing, and tips from a book in Arabella’s library, he handily defeats his enormous but clumsy opponent, saving the “honor” of Hangtown.

Jack and Praiseworthy board a steamboat for San Francisco, but it explodes less than a mile from its destination, forcing them to cut the bags of gold dust from their belts to save themselves from drowning. Drenched and destitute, they manage to raise about 400 dollars selling stray cats to San Franciscans as rat-catchers, but it’s not nearly enough to save Arabella’s house. They meet Arabella on San Francisco’s Long Wharf, along with Jack’s two sisters; she tells them that, once she read Jack’s letter about going to California, she quickly sold her house (which she saw as a “curse”) and came to join them. Arabella makes it clear that, unlike many of her peers in Boston, she regards Praiseworthy as more than a servant. Praiseworthy proposes to her on the spot, and she accepts. The new family decides to stay in California. Praiseworthy considers studying the law, a growth industry in this rough-hewn place.