Evening star., 1935-03-24

farmers. AS a rural community grew
up, jealouSies and friction also grew
among neighbors, who learned slowly
that cooperation pays better than
antagonism. Anna, who had been
largely responsible for pulling John
I'D by the roots, had occasion more
than once to regret her action, which
in the end almost wrecked her mar
riage. Almost. but not quite, and at
the end of the story they are still
hoping that the next year will bring
better luck. Maybe next year 1t will
be different" Anna sobbed. 1T can't
hail every year. can it? Can it John?"
And John soberly replied, doubtful
about the possibilities Of the weather:
Maybe next year, Anna"
WHEELS AND BUTTERFLIES. BY
w. B. Yeats. New York: The
Macmillan Co.
SOME of William Butler Yeats most
recent plays are included in this
volume-"The Words Upon the Win
dow Pane" Fighting the Waves" Z"
The Resurrection, The Cat and
the Moon and the music to Fighting
the Waves" They show, without
diminution, the Yeats characteristics
familiar through his earlier work
symbolism. mysticism and interest in
the supernatural, philosophy of life
removed from the material and prac-
tical, and lyric beauty of expression.
All of the plays have been played at
the Abbey Theater. Dublin. The
Words Upon the Window Pane" brings
back through a seance in a house in
which Stella once lived that tragic
and mysterious couple Dean Swift and
Stella. the woman who was perhaps
his wife, perhaps his mistress, perhaps
his friend, but whom he treated with
the utmost unkindless. whether or not
he loved her. That other woman who
suffered from Swift'S egotiStic brutal
ity, Vanessa, also appears in the play
Fighting the Waves one-act play
accompanied by music, is an elusive
fragment about the traditional Celtic
hero Cuchulain, allied in subject and
manner to Yeats earlier blank verse
plays, "Deirdre." AT the Hawks
Well" The Green Helmet" "Cn
Bales Strand" and The Only Jeal-
ousy of Emer." The Resurrection"
presents a Hebrew, Greek and a
Syrian who have come from the tomb
of Christ and found him gone. The
Cat and the Moon" also accompanied
by music, is dialogue between a
blind beggar and a lame beggar at
St. Colman's well.
JAYHAWKER. A play n three acts
BY Sinclair Lewis and Lloyd Lewis
New York: Doubleday. Doran &
Co.
I Ultra realism, combined with a
bit of history places "Jayhawker"
among the plays to be filed, when
their stage life is over, on the shelves
of manners and customs and social
history. 1t was first presented in
Washington. in October, 1884, and
afterward opened m New York. The
time of the play is 1861 and the
place Kansas. During the warfare
between Kansas and Missouri, 1864,
over the slavery question, when Mis-
sourians wanted to make Kansas safe
for slavery and KanSans, most of
them. wanted to make it safe for
free SOIL" the term "jayhawker" was
as common in American newspapers
as brain trust" is now. The word
was never accurately defined, but in
the minds of most people it meant
militant free-Soiler and came to be
applied to all KanSanS, as the Mis-
sourians were labeled border ruff1ans"
by Horace Greeley. The "jayhawker"
of the play. Ace Burdette, is COM
posed partly of Lewis imagination,
partly of characteristics taken from
several Kansas free-soilers of the late
SOS and early SOS. Other prominent
characters are Rev. Joseph Peavie,
Kansas evangelist; Will Startling,
Kansas divinity student; Wesley Evans,
a Kansas farm boy: Victor Rousseau,
a young slave-holding Kentuckian;
Kansas farmers and their families. a
man. an artist, post off1ce
employe 1rish), Union and Confed-
crate soldiers. The plot moves with
rapidity and vigor. AS literature, en-
tirely apart from its stage value,
"Jayhawker" seems one of the most
robust and veracious of the imagina-
tive works inspired by the Civil War.
BRIGHT MEXICO. BY Larry Bar
retto. New York: Farrar & Rine-
hart.
WHEN energetic people go away for
a rest, not being enamored with
the kind of rest which means inactiV-
ity, they usually do something inter-
esting. Larry Barretto and his wife
went to Mexico for a rest, without any
idea of turning author and artit, but
here Is this book, written by him ana
illustrated by her with dellghttul
sketches. It is the book of two people
who took the country casually ana IN
holiday mood, with no intention OF
studying Mexico's history or economic
conditions. They tell their own ex-
periences of travel, from landing TO
departure, on trains, by automobile. in
restaurants, where they became very
tired of perennial chicken. which they
called Montezuma's gamecock, strolllng
about the streets of towns. visiting
public buildings and peeping into all
the patios and adobe homes OF poems
which challenged their notice. Mex
ican chauffeurs they found excellent,
though speedy, and given to accelerat-
ing on curves. Sanitary conditions
disturbed them somewhat, especially
when they saw a child sent by its
mother to dip an earthen jug of water
for drinking from a trickle running
down thsAktreet, Just below places