CHARLIE DICK

Faced with the incessant nagging of his four sisters and the dreary isolation of the Hale ranch (vintage 1938), bratty practical joker Charlie Dick, who resents being treated ""as though he were only another daughter,"" probably deserves some sympathy. But when his ambition to help his father in the fields (and earn two dollars to buy a doll for his favorite sister Anna) brings him into conflict with the new hired man, his tricks turn progressively uglier. Charlie's meanness is somewhat dissipated when he faces up to his first test of manhood (sticking a bloated cow) and learns to respect the hired man Walt (who turns out to be an escaped convict with a heart of gold) and his grandfather conveniently dies and leaves him a penknife which he can trade for the promised doll. Despite the homey details of new baked bread, farm chores and grandfather's reminiscences, the family scene is monochromatically depressing and Charlie Dick is a hard kid to warm up to.