WOODRUFF AND THE CLOCKS

Bram's characteristic happy-go-hippy approach pervades these three little stories of Woodruff and his cat Muffin. This being Brain, when Woodruff asks for a clock for his birthday, you can be sure that he'll eventually discard it; when you hear the whimsical reason for his request--""I want to see the clouds sailing by at six minutes after three. I want to pick a rose at exactly 2:30""--you realize that the cards have been stacked against mechanical precision, (Woodruff in fact gets several clocks for his birthday, but he puts them all away when Muffin, jealous of the attention they're getting, runs away.) In the second story Woodruff anonymously returns a lady's wind-blown hat and is so pleased with her pleasure that he spends the day doing secret favors for people. The last story has Woodruff building a tree: though his mother says it can't be done and his sister says it's not a ""real"" tree, both give in and admire it when real birds come to sing in its branches. Brain's free-floating benevolence, which is just goody-goody in the second story, gets a little help in the first from the absurdity of timing clouds and roses and in the third from the trusty old Carrot-Seed pattern she follows. But none of the three have much staying power.