WHAT KATY DID

12-year-old Katy Carr lives with her widowed father and her two brothers and three sisters in Burnet, a small Midwestern American town. Her father is a very busy doctor who works long hours; the children are mostly in the care of his sister Aunt Izzie, who is very particular and something of a scold. Bright, headstrong Katy can hardly avoid getting into mischief almost daily under these circumstances, but she is unfailingly remorseful afterward. She behaves somewhat kindly to the children and dreams of some day doing something "grand" with her life: painting famous pictures, saving the lives of drowning people, or leading a crusade on a white horse. She also wants to be "beautiful, of course, and good if I can." When her mother died four years earlier, she hoped Katy would be a little mother to her siblings: in practice, she is the kind of big sister who is sometimes impatient and cross with them but leads them into all sorts of exciting adventures.