PLAIN LANE CHRISTMAS

Crooked little one-block-long Plain Lane is too narrow for ""motor traffic,"" and its old-fashioned little shops, it seems, are too insignificant to halt the march of Progress--now approaching in the form of Big Dig Machines clearing sites for High Rise Blocks and plastic merchandise. But the Plain Lane families, who live over their shops, throw such a charming Christmas bazaar--and, soon afterward, such a corking Chinese New Year celebration--that ""oggry' Mr. Groffit (he mispronounces ""ogre"") drops his renewal plans and opens a Plain Lane antique shop instead. A clichÉd and implausible story to be sure, but Hodges tells it with such unabashed good cheer that he's likely to get away with it.