Books: Homespun Tale

THE WEATHER TREE—Maristan Chapman—Viking($2.50).

“Folks talk a heap concerning progress, yet come to look at pictures of it and ’tis a mess.” Maristan Chapman’s Tennessee mountaineers think and speak throughout in such pithy proverbialisms. Their language is often outlandish—it takes a 62-word glossary to explain words like “bo-dacious,” “fere.” “hirpling,” “survigrous,”‘ “smooch.” These rough diamonds the author matrixes in a poetic style showing traces of T. F. Powys. J. M. Synge and the translators of the Holy Bible.

Thelma Lane lived peacefully on a hill farm near Glen Hazard, Tennessee mountain town. Her brother Chad lived with her; from dawn to dusk he swung a dirty hoe. Just as he had about got the farm paid for, in came City-Man Lynn Clayton who had inherited some deserted coal mines next door. The outlander, financed by his friend Lida Grant who came with him to watch his operations, planned to make coal-bricks out of the deserted coal-dust,sell it to the city’s poor. His meat was Glen Hazard’s poison. First he ordered the Lanes off the company’s property. Chad hung on. Then Clayton cut down the woods to make streets for the modernized town that was to follow his coal-dusting activities. Vesper, Chad’s young brother, assisted by the town-idiot Kurd Foster, saved the Weather Tree, an oak that served as sundial for the whole countryside. Thereafter Clayton concentrated his attention on coal-bricks and Thelma.

Thelma got to be fere (friendly) with the stranger, with his white hands and winning ways: almost consented to marry him. But she could not understand why he employed Lum Morgan. Chad, once deputy sheriff, had jailed Lum’s son. Lum had recently shot at Chad, mistaking him for a rabbit. Clayton found Lum useful around the mines, continued to employ him. Lum thought that this meant that Clayton wanted him to take another shot at Chad, mistake him for a barn door.

At the breaking point, when everybody’s suspicions were mutual, Lida Grant, worried lest murder materialize, set fire to Clayton’s coal-sheds. After the bonfire Glen Hazard’s native sons drove them both out of town. Thelma returned to the Tennessee mountain peace with a sorrow for the city-man in her heart, but only Chad and Vesper on her hands.

The Weather Tree is the January choice of The Book League of America.

The Author. Mary Ilsley, 36, was born in Chattanooga, Tenn., and raised in the midst of her material. During the War she worked in England, married Engineer John Stanton Chapman. After the Armistice the Chapmans went back to the Tennessee hills, solved the housing problem by roaming wild for two years in a house-car. When “Maristan Chapman’s” first book (The Happy Mountain} appeared, Mary got the credit. Last month their secret came out: “Maristan Chapman” is a combination of Mary and Stanton.