St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-11-08
MAIN TRAVELLED ROADS,

HAlIIN GARLAND, hitherto unknown
as writer. has published a remarkable
book which he calls Main Travelled
Roads" He dedicates it to his father
and mother in these words:
ITO my father and mother, whose half
century pilgrimage on the main travelled
road of life has brought them only toll and
deprivation. this book of stories Is dedicated
by a son to whom every day brings deep
ening sense of his parents silent heroism."
As such beginning might imply, the
work is somber in tone. though relieved
by vigorous and high-spirited style.
1t includes six sketches, the scene of all
of which is laid in the Mississippi val
ley, and it aims TO do for the Western
farmers life what Mr.. HOUSE attempted
for the Western yillager in his ''Story of
a Country Town." Mr.. HoUsE's book
will be remembered as the story of a
man who committed a crime. not be-
cause he was wicked at heart, but be-
cause the monOtony of existence in a
prairie hamlet became uncomfortable and
drove him to the only available resource
for relief. He plunged into sin not that
he cared for it, but because its excite
ment promised change from days of
dreary labor and nights of sodden dull
ness. Mr.. GARLAND'S effort is better
literature than was his predecessor ;
but in the same spirit it presents pict-
ure of the lonesome, toilful and futile
life of that much-tallled-of member of
modern sOcIetv-the Western farmer.
There may be some question as to the
truth of the portrait and as to the wis
dom of producing it, even if it is ac-
curate. But there is no doubt at all
about its power and its claims on the at
tention Of any one who enjoys realistic
fiction.
The sketches are unequal in value,
and the first one is the poorest. 1t tells
of young man who, in a foolish fit of
passion, abandonS the woman he loves,
and. going off to distant country, there
wins competence ana position for HIM
self. After some years he returns, and
finds the woman the wife of friend of
his youth, who has ill-treated and
neglected her. She is broken in heart
and spirit through Overwork and I'M
happy surroundings. The old love is
born anew as they meet, and together
they escape to start life once more, and
to repair by their future the mistake of
the past. This, Of course, is false in
morals and impossible OF realization.
There is no refuge conceivable from the
position in which the characters are
placed except the refuge of death. The
one attempted means only the Begin
ming of other sorrows and still more
serious suffering. But the author, per-
haps, was not willing to begin his vol
ume with tragedy.
OF the stories, Among the Corn
Rows" is the most cheerful. 1t is about
young Dakota farmer who needs a
wife, and who makes a journey to his
old home in Wisconsin to find one. Da-
kOta farm and village life are portrayed
here as they have never been before,
and the manners AMI customs of the first
and second generation OF our Scandlna-
Wan rural population. THE Return of
a Private" is pathetic account of the
struggles OF sick and disheartened SOL
der to retrieve his fortunes, ruined by
his absence during his best years at the
front. Under the Lions Paw intro
duces the Western usurer into high class
literature for the first time, and unfolds
the sins of the mortgage loan agent and
the slavery of his debtors. Mrs. Rip
ley'S Trip" is a narrowing picture of
hopeless poverty, work, and dreary rout-
inc, but along with them heroic endur-
ance, love ill-eXpressed but deep-abid-
ing, self-restraint and persistence. An
old man and his wife live in shack Oh
the bleak prairieS. She, in secret,
boards money enough TO realize the
dream of her life, and goes on visit to
the scenes Of her childhood in the East.
After bit she comes back and takes
up her burden again. Like all the rest
OF the book, there is here no plot, no in
cident, little comment. 1t is simply a
minute kodak photograph of phase of
social history which the author claims
to have seen and been part of.