BORN A YANKEE

This story of pride in New England heritage and the price it exacted has the wit and toughness of the Yankee Breed. The bitter brew of family heritage was forced down the throat of the last bearer of the Fyfe name by a father who bristles with obstinacy and orneriness and who paid his daughter Kate for her imprudence in failing to be born a son by treating her as son and hired hand as well. Three times opportunity came to her, and twice it was crushed by the dull insistence of devotion to duty -- parents and name. First there was Christopher Shipley, who trained Kate to expertness in piano-playing, wanted her to study at the New England Conservatory of Music, and later to marry him when his first wife died. Years later a young professor convalescing in the Cottage which the Fyfes rented made love to her, but estrangement through her mother's illness and need for care turned him to the more obvious charms of her oldest friend. Seven long years later, Kurt Schurman found a despairing Kate who ran into his car. While recuperating, Kate began to take stock. Her father's death, as she told her intention to marry the nomadic Kurt and leave the Fyfe House in Barrowhead, bound her with guilt rather than freeing her until sympathetic Dr. Will made her face the realities of a will which leaves her with nothing unless she acted as custodian to the Fyfe House turned museum. An engrossing, tightly told story with a fine feeling for regional character.