TALES OF A FOOLISH FARMER

A funny, often wry, account of the author's farming venture in Central Texas, is amply peopled not only by all the four-footed inhabitants but also by the two-footed, colored and white. For Mary and her husband Rush, and their children, Buddy, Cap Haynes, with their talents for ""spice spangled speech"" and help about the place are every bit as important as the blunders into breeding, cattle and horse raising, the mud, the implements, and the necessity of living by the pen to support the plow. Throughout the sequence of tribulations there is an ebullience in the experiences and an appreciation of the misadventures that makes for thoroughly enjoyable reading -- whether it be about Rush and his genius for truck wrecking, the expensiveness of the whole proceeding, the privileges of a party line telephone, the beliefs in signs and portents, or any other of the hundreds of the author's personal brands of agriculture. An accomplished accounting.