Adventures of Mary Jane by Hope Jahren is a solid novel, one with heart, that features as its lead one of the secondary characters from Huckleberry Finn. It was interesting reading in the postscript of the work that Jahren put into getting characters and historical details right, creating a fictional work grounded in facts.
The book is an adventure tale, starting with fourteen-year-old Mary Jane in 1846 being sent 400 miles down the Mississippi River by her mother Ida to go help her aunt Evelyn, who is caring for her injured husband George and raising daughters Susan and Joanna. She took the steamboat Minnesota Belle down the Mississippi, and then went about the Galenian, helmed by Mrs. Captain, who would become Mary Jane's good friend. The Galenian was coal-powered, with the boiler known as Robert Fulton, and Mary Jane worked while aboard, helping Mrs. Captain run the ship. She was then met by the Schmidt family, Mormons who took Mary Jane to her aunt, uncle, and cousins, where she discovered that her extended family had little, but she could help. George had suffered a head injury and wasn't able to work, and Evelyn was caring for he and the two girls, and the Schmidts giving provisions every Sunday.
Mary Jane was a worker and tirelessly helped the family. Things were going well, with Uncle George improving, until he had a seizure, developing paralysis, then Evelyn got sick. Mary Jane had been exposed to the illness, but quickly recovered, and the Schmidt family took in Susan and Joanna so that they wouldn't catch it while Mary Jane tried to nurse Aunt Evelyn back to health. It turned out to be unsuccessful and Evelyn died, with George dying shortly after. Mary Jane decided to be responsible for her cousins and planned to take them back to her family, but a judge decided that they, including Mary Jane who said that she their sister, should go live with a relative of their father, Peter Wilks of Greenville, MS.
For the trip to Greenville, the girls wound up back on the Galenian, with Mrs. Captain. Also onboard the ship was a boy not yet ten-years-old, Rooster, who Mrs. Captain had befriended and was working in the ship. Mrs. Captain noted that he "didn't have a good start," but was doing a great job working and living on the ship as first mate. Mrs. Captain would speak of others by saying "it doesn't cost anything to be kind" and her plan was to give the Galenian to Rooster in a few years when she retires. Peter Wilks, Susan and Joanna's uncle, was not a good man. The three girls befriended a dog, that they named Cherry, who never left their side. Wilks fell ill and died and into the picture came two people who pretended to be his brothers, and with them was a young man who Mary Jane became taken with. Peter Wilks' actual brothers showed up, were good men, and Susan and Joanna decided to go back to London with them. Once more the girls spent time on the Galenian with Mrs. Captain and Rooster, and Mary Jane went and found the young man, who turned out to be Huck Finn.
