Evening star., 1934-11-28
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
Margaret Cermond.


PATTERNS OF WOLFPEN. BY Har-
Ian Hatcher. Indianapolis: The
Bobbs-Merrill Co.
In 17s5 Saul Pattern made a peri
lous journey over the Cumberland
Mountains from Tazewen County. Va,
into the Big Sandy Valley, exploring
the county and following the Indian
trail through the Breaks of Sandy to
the mouth Of what Is now known as
Cannon Fork. Fresh signs of scalp
ing raids compelled him to retreat.
Directing his return southwark by way
Of Cannon Fork, he discovered, 80
miles above its mouth, great bare
pinnacle Of yellow sandstone protrud-
ing from the trees above the creek.
Upward he toiled through the tangle
| of underground to a jutting ledge OF
the pinnacle, from which he viewed
stretch of virgin territory so over
whelming in its beauty and richness
that, Unconditional a man as he was,
he found himself crying aloud to the
deer, the birds and the wild fowl:
God Almighty, what a place for
man to live in!"
Five years later Saul Pattern re-
| turned to Wolfpen Hollow with his
son and built a rude cabin, but was
soon forced by the Indians to retreat.
and it was not until the Spring Of 1896
d, that he finally went back to the old
cabin with his wife and children and
a Virginia patent for 1000 acres of
land on the Kentucky side OF the
mountains, as surveyed by himself in
1890.
The region is one which Mr.. Hatcher
knows intimately and which he loves.
And into this scene he has written the
! romance Of the descendants OF Saul
| Pattern through the century OF rich
farming, contentment and happiness
that it has been the good fortune OF
five generations to enjoy. 1t is story
of the soil and of the steadfast men
and women whose endless hard work
it rewards generously.
Men of strong character have been
the Patterns Of Wolfpen, and equally
as fine have been the wives who have
presided over the homestead. Spared
and Julia Pattern, the owners at the
time Of this narrative, are splendid
successors of their worthy ancestors,
and with their family are carrying
on the tradition of loving their land,
being kindly to all men, and living in
harmony and affection In their own
home. Three single sons help their
father run the place. Cynthia, the
youngest, possessed of wisdom which
many professional philosophers might
envy, shares the household burdens
with her mother.
But into the serenity and loveliness
of the way of life in Wolfpen there
comes a clashing discord. The coun-
try is growing rapidly, its frontiers
are disappearing and the demand for
timber is increasing On the day
that her father sets up a grotesque
contraption which he calls a steam
mill and nobody believed would
work but himself and his family :. .
Cynthia senses the coming of a
change that will bring unhappiness
and woe to the Hollow. Her fears
soon take realistic shape when a
stranger comes to persuade Spared to
sell him a large acreage of timber
land The sale results in an influx
of workmen alien to the culture and
the manners of Wolfpen. Axmen,
loggers, surveyors, raftsmen and me-
chanics join the arrogant prospector
in his work Of deforesting the tract.
The noise Of shouting men and
screeching sawmills skaters a quie-
tude that has never before been
broken Fatal illness, dissension
among the laborers, death by violence
and by accident punctuate the prog
ress Of the work.
Wolfpen is no longer a paradise Of
contentment and happiness. but
above and beyond the turmoil and
tragedy the bigness of Spared Pat
tern. the patience and kindliness of
his lovely wife and the squareness of
his sons and Of the young surveyor
the tradition of Saul Pattern still
lives. and the glory of love and Of
beauty remains supreme.
There is a profound and an endur-
ing philosophy upon the ways of life
and upon romance in the musings of
Cynthia, who knows that love will
come to her as suddenly as it had
come to her mother, except that in
stead of having her man discover her
gathering a pile of wood chips, he will
ride by while she is standing under a
Towering pear tree and wearing her
loveliest blue dress. He discovers her
in the kitchen on a hot Summer day
in batter-splashed dress, her face
smudged with meal, and tears in her
eyes from the pain of badly burned
hand.
LOST PARADISE. BY Robert P. iris
tram Coffin. New York: The Mac
milan Co.
A saltwater farm on the coast Of
Maine Is the paradise pictured in this
delightful story, and Peter is lad
who lived on that farm and loved it,
who knew that no other place in the
world could ever be his real home and
that there was no man on earth so
noble as his own father.
Several years ago Mr.. Coffin pro-
duced biographical sketch which
Immediately won warm reception.
Portrait Of an American" was re-
garded, indeed, as one of the outstand-
ing American books of the year Of its
publication. The present volume
pushes backward into the boyhood of
the man described in the earlier book.
And what boyhood young Peter had
the privilege of living
The first consciousness of the per-
lection Of his home came to Peter,
as it usually does to all sensitive
natures, when he was moved into the
village to go to school. 1t was then
that all of the hard work that he
had sometimes found to be burden
some began to take the form of
pleasure, and what the farm might
have lacked Of romance, beauty and
opportunity for extraordinary adven-
ture was supplied in abundance in
the imagination of the boy who feared
that it might not be the same when
he was permitted to go back to it.
In the tortures of homesickness
during these early months at school