Evening star., 1925-08-30
IDA GILBERT MYERS.
DRUMS. BY James Boyd. Ne'
York: Charles Scribner's Son:
WaSbiDptnn Prantann'S

pioneer pattern, merely to
i clear the ground for Drums" :"
Nothing less for the author to
do than lift and roll away from the
face of the whole North Carolina
country $50 years of growth and
change. Cities and towns and vii
lagos. now so close-ranked, to be set
aside for the rare settlement, a rude
fort in it's intent. The rush and roar
of the modern day to be hushed to
a silence through which the flow of
rivers breaks. and the creak of clumsy
vain, and the call of a native bird.
Wide fields of tillage TO give way to
the scant husbandry of narrow clear
ings The pine forests themselves to
be restored to their old unchallenged
holding of the upland reaches OF the
wide back country. And even more
arduous than all this must have been
the task of changing the spirit of a
great free commonwealth back to that
of an English colony under George III.
Yet this preliminary clearance has
been made with so much of deliberate
and painstalling intelligence that one,
reading here, slips into that colonial
period and that particular place with
the easy assurance of walking the IA
miliar ways Of his own immediate day
And this clearance provides the set
O :
of plain homespun, running vividly
near to the story itself, as 1t walks
close beside the reader as well, a
close-knit web of all the essentials of
colonial life.
Since individual men and women
even the average of these-nlake a
quicker and stronger bid upon atten-
ton and interest than do the most
momentous OF questions and causes,
James Boyd has centered this ro-
nance of the. Revolution upon young
John Fraser. North Carolina colonial
and Kings man, too, like his sturdy
father beside him. The story opens
when the great discomfort Is getting
under full swing. North Carolina,
like the rest Of the colonies, is divid-
ing, some going to this side, some to
that. These, still loyal to England
and the King; the others, ripe for
freedom and government. No
great stir about it-not yet. Things
move. along about as uSual-some
work, a good deal of play among the
Young blades. Young Englishmen,
tlese. as a matter of fact, tremen-
dously interested in horse racing and
kindred sports, with a growing tend
ency toward getting together in
groups for endless talk on the great
subject that is interfering with the
usual calm run of things. 1t is the
deliberate approach to the great event,
the gathering up of the daily life in
its significant details that so vitalize
the story as a whole. that so enlist
the reader as an actual partaker in
the revolutionary movement.
And In the midst is young John
Fraser, a quiet lad bent upon a gen
tleman's education, studying with the
rector and with oxford before him.
And time moves on, and matters
thicken and pile up, but it means lit
tie to Johnnie Fraser and the rest Of
the Kings men. Just a misunder-
standing that the King Will make
right and so on. Today Johnnie
would have had white feather hand
ed to him. Today Johnnie would
have been rechistened under the name
of Stacker" Young Fraser. indi-
vidual and human as he is here. is
but a composite of a large part of the
colonial mind at that time. Fraser
goes to England in some sort of paci-
fist clerical capacity. Then, by the
grace of the god of good luck he falls
in with John Paul Jones. Thereafter
there is no question about John
Fraser. Thereafter the romance takes
on a military tempo through the
struggle that achieved the goal and
began the greater struggle Of Gre
ating a union out of 13 disunited COL
onies. A great story of great period
in American history. A story that
vitalizes the facts of history with the
daily life and outlook of those who
made that history. A story for Amer
leans to read. for the deepening and
widening of their sympathetic under
standing of the early days OF their
own country. AS an incidence of this
reading they will. too, be proud of a
countryman who can create SO superb
a picture of one of the big moments
in their common history.
POWER. BY Arthur Stringer, author
of The Door of Dread etc. In
dianapolis: The Bobbs Merrill
Company.
THE American legend has come to
be the story of the poor boy ris-
ing to power through his own seizure
of opportunity and his indefatigable
pursuit of this. There is truth, some
truth. at the bottom Of this legend as,
no doubt, there is at the foundation of
all legends could one only follow them
TO their various sources. Because of
this grain of truth in an altogether
engaging development the legend of
the poor American boy has supplied
the theme of thousands of stories and
will continue to do service for count
less tales yet to come. Power is a
good romance on this popular theme.
The railroad provides the ladder by
which the boy climbs from some me-
NAL job around the yards to the COM
mander-in-chief Of a great system of
roads and its army of workers. A
plain story-that is the kind which
this author tells. A straightforward,
plugging story through which one
hears the clink of hammer, the driv-
ing of wheels, the rush of steam, the
shrek of whistle. and in which men
Bwarm like ants around their particu-
lar antpiles of endeavor. Not a new
story in any sense, except in its care
full notation of what this hand-over-
hand climb to power is doing, has
done. to the fellow who, beginning at
the bottom, now stands at the top
on feet a bit uncertain because an
oVer-drained heart is not quite up to
its job. A lonely figure. this man of
power And that is the point, the
very good and strong point of the
story-the effect on the boy and man
inside and out--that comes through
this climb to the top of things that
mean money and influence.
THE MOMENT OF BEAUTY. BY
Samuel Merwin, author of silk"
Boston: Houghton Miff1in Company.
A STORY Of the stage that projects
as the motive power of the story
Itself an absorbing and vital question.
The question is. Does love matter,
ran love matter. to those sincerely de-
voting their lives TO the art of the
theater?" There is. to be sure, no
answer to a question which holds
within itself as many answers and
makeshifts Of answers as there are
kinds of temperament and degrees of