MUSTANG FLATS

When Alby's father returns home from the Civil War, nothing is as Alby expected. His relentless efforts to keep the family and farm going during his father's absence are deemed a failure, and Alby feels condemned and estranged. His father, who has lost a leg, is bitter and haunted. With the family on the verge of losing the farm to taxes, they come up with a scheme to capture wild horses and sell them to the army. For Alby it is one last attempt to bring him and his father back together again. Wisler (The Drummer Boy of Vicksburg, p. 1677, etc.) summons the times and hardships faced by ordinary people dealing with extraordinary situations in America's past. The characterizations are a little flat, but the action is not, and the sections dealing with capturing and breaking the horses are particularly compelling. (Fiction. 10-14)