FARM IN THE FAMILY

This proved a disappointment. M. I. Ross always has a good story to tell and credible youngsters and enough humor to carry a good deal of sound factual background. I had liked Morgan's Fourth Son immensely and hoped this story of a city family undertaking a rundown farm would have some of that flavor. But it falls far short. The characters seem somewhat out of drawing, -- the youngest child -- enfant terrible of the four -- is overplayed; the next boy, a lazybones, is too quickly converted, the two older ones don't ring true. And the change in six months from an abandoned farm to a prospering one, tempting to the offshoots of the family, seems a dream world. Sorry-I have liked her books so uniformly that I don't want to be disappointed.