The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-10-19


 who had to live there because they couldn't afford to move away
 Spence and his wife and kas came down from Beasely County Nlong with q lot of other families whose menfelk took jobs at the powder factory. When the factory closed It's doors, ears and radios soon went back to their original owners. Back rent piled up. There was barely enough to cat. The so.. clal worker told Spence he should have stayed home.
 Spence had e ready answer "stayed hoinel How could anybody stay ct home in those days with them roundup men rip.snofting through the country handing out big bottles of whiskey to the men and black lace drawers to the woms enfolkS? If It'd Just been me, l could've drunk their liquor and thought nothing of it, but you know yourself that there amt nothing else In the world that can get 0 woman stirred up like fancy draw CTS"
 Spence wanted to go back, and he wanted to keep his i3.year-old daughter of the streets, but the money for the trip home, provided by welfare authorities, somehow evaporated after c crap game ct Bill Tarrant's and oil he had to show for it was A few bottles Of his wife's favorite tonic (pr. Mundy's, apparently about 80 proof, an alligator handbag for her and some bourbon for himself.
 MT. Caldwell provides an abund. ance of riotous humor, but beneath it is a bitterness and 0 pity for all the Douthlts everywhere, and Of all time, for there are no indications that the day will come when there will be no Douthits living in c Poor Boy.
 DON'T WAIT UP FOR SPRING" by Charles Mcrgendahl (Little, Brown: $2.60), Is e novel Of promise. Lieutenant (j. g) Meregn- dahl, who somehow found time to write this love story between eTi- agreements In North Africa, Tarawa and elsewhere in the Marshalls, gets of to a rather unsure start with his tale of Q Greenwich Vil- lage playwright who falls in love, then goes to war. But once Harry Trexler's first play is produced and fiops, the author relaxes along with Harry and the book takes direction and meaning. The love of Trexler and Barbara Gray becomes real. Their last weeks together before he is called for naval duty are a mem- orable attempt to crowd a lot Of living into a short space of time.
 But 1t is when Trexler, as an ofti- cer in charge of a landing craft in the invasion of Africa, gets ashore that the author again in step with his hero, finds himself on solid ground. The scenes there, especially one in a church where Harry is held prisoner with other Tanks, are ren1- iniscent of those Ernest Heminway used to write. The book is ener- getic, close to brilliance in some passages, a little haywire in others, and altogether an interesting effort.
 An unconventional and fascinat- ing, ofY-trail travelogue dealing with South and Central America is Kurt Severin's ITO the south" (DuslI, Sloan & Pearce: $3). MT. Severin covered the side streets in his jour- neys, and leaves the more publicized avenue to his more staid contem- poraries. Love and narcotics, sports and art and dictators all come in for their share of shrewd examina. ton, and the result is Q volume of the curious and bizarre.
 Mfr. Severin, who spent enough time with natives down to the most primitive types to know what he is talking about, collected first-hand experience along with his notes. Not content with hearing what ef- feet this and that drug had. be it peyote, mescal, or cocoa, he tried them otlt--so many different pass ports to an artificial heaven that he wes in no danger of becoming addicted to any of them. Anecdote foIIoH1 eneed0le. with entetlalue