THE HILLS STAND WATCH

A novel of mid-19th century Wisconsin when it was still a territory follows not only the course of David Pengellen's marriage to Candace but also the fortunes of the immigrant Cornish miners around Mineral Point. Candace, raised in the East, is very much a stranger to her neighbors' foreign ways and, lonely and depressed by the imprisoning Mounds, finds in worldly Lt. Nathaniel Parr much to attract her while David, aware of Candace's failure to adjust, is solaced by the orphaned Tamson. Through Indian threats, raids, dangers at the lead mines, the coming of statehood and the prosperity that is perhaps to be doomed by the discovery of gold in California, Parr pursues Candace and finally persuades her to run off with him. David and Tamson follow them and are unable to save them when Candace drowns and Parr is killed in a prairie fire. A definitely regional book, this documents a place while leisurely, ornately telling its familiar story.