WHEELS OVER THE BRIDGE

There is an elusive quality to this story of a farmer's boy whose love of the farm and all that belongs to it (and an odd collection of animals they have) blinds him to other values. An episodic treatment of the incidents gives the whole a somewhat loosely knit organization which lessens the interest of the reader. It is almost as if one were reading a collection of short stories about an improvident farmer, his earnest wife, an attractive, impulsive boy, a girl whose passion for the country drives her away from the city she hates, a landlord whose concern over his old farm has strange results, and the landlord's wife whose ignorance of the country turns her from the things her husband needs. There is a vagueness of locale (is it the Middle West?) and period (it might be now or twenty years ago) that is tantalizing. There's the substance of a very good book here, and the final result is a disappointment.