THE HOUSE UNDER THE HILL

A good story, irrespective of the implications of problem adjustments of minorities with which many of Florence Means' stories are associated. That aspect of the story of 16-year old Elena, Spanish-American girl living in a hill town of New Mexico, is played down, while her growing pains, her longing to be free of the restraints of school, the sameness of the village round, the sharp eyes of her grandmother, are motive power to the story. She had wanted to get away to a big city, to get a job near her older brother, and his friend who treated her like a child. But her grandmother's accident kept her home, and she began to look around and see what she could do in El Mirador. She organized the first clinic. She learned about other people's troubles. Sometimes she failed; often she succeeded. Her story is as gay, as moody, as eager by turns as Elena herself. The author writes out of first hand knowledge of the idiom and viewpoint of the people.