COME SPRING

Ben Ames Williams and Son Turn Out Two Books Concurrently: "Come Spring" and "Mr. Secretary"

by Ben Ames Williams 'lO.Houghton Mifflin Cos. p. 866. 12.75.

MEET MlMA—"she was nineteen, lean and fine drawn with the look about her as if she faced a strong and steady wind." Captain Watson, commander of the Sally sloop thought she was like the figure head some vessels carried, with her fine brow, and her clean molded cheeks and chin and her round breasts firm under her light gown which she had a little outgrown.

And Joel Adams. Eben chuckled, "Joel Adams knows a lot of songs—army songs, I guess, and he had the girl who works there on his knee. The one named Fanny. He'd tickle her in the short ribs and she'd squeal and slap him; but I guess she'd like it."

Mima had no illusions about Joel. She saw him as a whole; saw clearly the weaknesses in him. They did not repel her. She might be wounded, but wounds heal, give them time. There was no wild passion, no hopeless yearning in her. She was not impatient. She could be patient, being sure.

Moose are plentiful in the Maine wilderness in this last quarter of the eighteenth century, and moose meat is necessary for existence. Hunt for them with Jess—you must set traps, when powder runs low.

Watch Jason Ware knock down the giant pines of the wilderness "twenty t' once" by notching a whole line of them. Go to the barn raising—there's rum as an inducement. And "there's enough ready to come anywhere they'll get that," Sam Boggs assured Philip.

Hundreds of books have to be read before a book like this is written. The study of technique probably runs into months and years, rather than days and hours. Pigeon trapping, tree "falling," barn raising. Such close interweaving of a plot with its background is not just chance. Take "Come Spring" at thirty-five, and enjoy the "scenery" which is worth it. Don't speed through it at fifty or sixty. K. C. K.