MARCHING BONNET

A novel about the Salvation Army, in which Signe first became interested as a little girl in Sweden, thinking it might be able to save her father- a well-meaning drunkard. But he dies before this can be accomplished, and Signe vows to devote the rest of her life to the Army so that she can help others like her father. She joins its ranks in America where she goes when she grows up. She soon marries, has two children (Anna Lisa, who tells the story, and Dagmar), and gives up her work but maintains her interest and wants her children to carry on her mission. But they have other ideas-Dagmar becomes a secretary and Anna Idsa wants to go to college to become a teacher- and Signe realizes that she herself must carry on the work in the Army... A fairly good picture of family life, of the hardships and altruisms of Army life, and a heterogeneous background of Swedish and American customs, but aside from that the book has nothing much to offer.