The young immigrunts

The young immigrunts by Ring Lardner is a comic travel narrative (a humorous novella) written in the early 20th century. Framed as a four-year-old boy’s “novel” with a wry preface by his father, it likely centers on a family’s move from the Midwest to New England, using a child’s misspelled, literal voice to poke fun at early motoring, marriage, and American place names.

Told by “Bill,” the youngest son, the story tracks his parents’ plan to relocate to Connecticut while the nurse escorts his three brothers by train. Bill rides with his parents by car from Indiana through Michigan (a late-night stop in Detroit after a surprise detour to Ann Arbor), then by ferry from Detroit to Buffalo, where a bashful honeymoon couple provides comic contrast. In upstate New York, the father’s ill‑fated shortcut strands them at a freight train near Lyons before they limp onward through Rochester and Syracuse, then battle rain across Utica, Little Falls, Schenectady, and Albany, with a miserable night’s lodging in Hudson. The next morning brings a bleary push down the Hudson Valley—Rhinebeck, Poughkeepsie, Garrison, Peekskill, Ossining, Tarrytown, and Yonkers—into Manhattan, where mother waits at 125th Street while Bill and his father bungle the route to Connecticut, briefly badgering a New Rochelle policeman before finally reaching Greenwich. At the station the family reunites, the boys squabble about who suffered more, and Bill earns quiet praise for having been “a very very good boy,” neatly capping a small, affectionate satire of travel, family, and grown‑up pretensions.