The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-09-07

story of boy who became totally blind
 is related in Eleanor H. Porter's new book
 Dawn" Keith Burton was only fourteen
 when he discovered acopy of Treas
 ure Island" given him by his father for a birthday present was printed in type
 so blurred and poor that he could scarcely ly read it'' Then he found out that ali the books and papers he looked at were
 printed in that same blurred type, and after a while bit of information came
 to him that filled him with terribla
 dread. How he passed from mere
 slight difficulty in reading to complete
 blindness the book relates But there was
 a chance of cure. though only very
 small one, and Dorothy Parkman, daugh-
 ter of a famous oculst, interested her father in Keith's case. But Keith With
 out reason had taken a violent dislika to Dorothy, and so it became necessary to deceive him regarding her identity An important thread of the plot is woven from this deception.
 But Dorothy is not the real heroine or
 the book, that role belongs to Susan Betts
 maid-of-all-work in the house of keith 5 father an impractical and responsibility shirking widower. It s Susan who helps
 Keith, and urges him to help himself; Su-
 san who reads of all the things the blino
 are able to do, and encourages Keith, and never lets hm know that her own cour- sometimes fails her. It is mainly owing to Susan's efforts that in the end every thing proves to have been for the best,
 Keith's blindness included. His mislor- tune turns his cowardly, whining rather into a man. and enables Keith himselr
 when the Great War renders the prop
 lem of the blinded soldier and urgent
 one to be of the greatest use to the de-
 spairing men who are in a position very
 like his. Of course there is love story
 with happy ending.
 THE WAR GARDEN vICTOR1OUs.' By Charles Lathrop Pack. Illustrated. J. B. Lippincott Co.,, publishers, Phil adelphia.
 In '4The War Garden vitorious." by Charles Lathrop Pack. another very important and progressive step has been reached by the author, which VIII be appreciated by the large number of people who have been interested In this subict.
 Quoting the words of MT. Ridsdale, secretary and treasurer of the Ma tiunal War Garden communication, it IS explained that this book is a record of inception and development of the home and community garden movement un- der the National War Garden com mission. which devoted itself to secur- ing the planting of war and victory gardens on vacant lots and stacker land for the purpose of raising vege- tables to overcome the food shortage during and immediately succeeding the war" It is large, well printed volume. describing the gardens that were brought into being all kinds of odd and | unexpected places-gardens which gen. orally yielded bumper crops of vege- tables and in soil which never had been cultivated before in present memory Potatoes and corn from former ash piles, cabbage, onions. radishes, spin l ach. and tomatoes from what had been hard-baked earth, and all these from factory grounds and similar unpromis- ing tracts of land. MT. Pack who is President of the National War Garden Commission. tells of all these in a bright. pleasing way. and 1t is quite