They were independent.
I mean, they were
really independent — more so than most adults. Harriet Welsch, in Louise Fitzhugh’s
Harriet the Spy, had her friends Sport and Janie, and of course, she loved her nanny, Ole Golly, but she was happiest when she was snooping solo on her daily afternoon rounds. Solitude is, of course, what made her adventures possible: Harriet taught me that many worthwhile activities, like hiding in a dumbwaiter to spy on divorcées, or writing up those adventures afterwards, are best undertaken alone.
Lots of other childhood heroines were like this. Anastasia Krupnik was a solitary weirdo...