MAINE MAN IN THE MAKING

The father of John Gould (The Farmer Takes A Wife) and yet another Maine newspaperman, Franklin Jr. (editor of Talk of the Towns), gives a tangy recall of his life in that state. Raised by his father, and knowing the worst and the best of his homeland, he tells of trapping, hunting -- and chores, brings out yarns and trading tales, remembers the farming seasons, his schooling and holidays and finally his departure to work on his own. A job at a milk farm, in a department store, on to Boston and work on the elevated and eventually into a job as railway postal clerk which led him to marriage and sent him home to settle down with his own property -- and family. There's glamorous Uncle Levi, a brother who shamed him. Dr. Charlie and the miracles he accomplished; there's a visit to look over the Goulds there, a stay in a houseful of sinful women, and the development of real down east independence. This doesn't have the gaiety of son John's writing but it does have a special New England appeal, in traditional homely pattern.