CAST A WISTFUL EYE

Skittering between memory and actuality, this is a quiet spell while Dorcas is waiting to have her first baby. She casts a wistful eye over her childhood in South Georgia--at home, in school, in the church choir; over the accident with her more enterprising friend Sadie and two boys. It put her in the hospital and a brace for two months but Tommy, quiet, steady Tommy waited until she was well enough to marry him. Affectionate, sentimental small change that can't hold a patch on Beverly Lowry's Come Back, Lolly Ray (p. 1277). It's mostly filled with a surprised sense of being, becoming, before it quite disappears.