The San Francisco call., 1904-09-18

tillers of the soil. does Read call at
tention in this book. He outlines the
life of hard. rasping toll Of harsh
physical and moral conditions. His
hero is one who has to push himself
by hard battling from the place of Il
bonded servant up to independent re-
spectability. 1t is the sermon of work
that is preached.
Because he was "runtish' and gem
erously befreckled, Turkey Egg and
finally Turk was the cognomen sad
died upon the little waif, orphaned
by bloody feud, whose fortunes make
material for the story. Turk becomes
bound out TO a small farmer and by
this new home most of the scene OF
his subsequent life is compassed. The
master is a strange man-half zealot
and half pessimist-a one-time col
lege professor, whose knowledge has
curdled within him and turned itself
to gall and bitter hatred. hard
taskmaster is this man and a stern
disciplinarian, but Turk soon learns
that under the outer rind of surliness
lies a nature of sterling worth. So
when the young servant makes him
sell VALUABLE AL Ills . CJ 60 ShACAO
is no dearth of opportunity for ad-
vancement in the varying fortunes
offered by the land and the times.
From setting out tobacco Turk grad
yates into a mule driver and later to
lieutenant of a herder, mate of river
boats, and, finally, soldier in the
Confederate forces. The while he has
been sufferer from the winged
glances of Nan, his masters daughter,
she taunting him beyond all endurance
with her seemingly spiteful enmity.
But, as the reader easily guesses, this
is only girls play and everything
smiles on Turk in the end when he
comes home from Imprisonment in
Federal keep to find opportunity lying
within reach of his hand in the new
South.
As a reflection of life and manners in
the Kentucky of the fifties Reads book
has its chief charm. The family cir
Gle Of the professor is admirably
drawn, sufficiently clear in outline to
be taken as typical. The philosophy
of Old Champ, the trapper as well as
some of the burning homilies of the
abolitionist preacher, reflect in large
measure Reads own views Of life as
freely expressed in all Of his previous
novels. These preachments are solid
with a homely expression Of truth and
love Of honest virtues.
Wherein Opie Reads novels fail of
being standard fiction is readily de-
monstrable, with a feature in Turk"
to bear on the case in point. Along
near the end of the story Read makes
his hero become the legatee Of a miser,
who conhdes in him the secret of his
wealth. In a graveyard, buried under
six feet of earth, will Turk find-not a
corpse, but a box full Of gold-gleam-
ing, glittering gold! Let him but dig
that up and he will be wealthy for life
Now this rank intrusion Of the cheap
ly sensational into story that has to
deal with sectional color is indicative
of Reads lack OF taste, If not clear evil
dence of his pandering to the tastes of
his clientele. They like that kind OF
incident, and because Of that, Reads
books. Even had Read the polished
literary grace of a Henry James the
intrusion OF an element Of the 1920
and -S0-cent melodrama such as this
negatives all claims to a place higher
than that he is content to hold.
(Laird & Lee, Chicago; illustrated;
price, 81 25.)