MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS

From The New Yorker these episodes of family life in St. Louis, from June, to May, 1904, which provide an ingratiating distillation of home life of the period. The Smiths, Tootis, Tootle, Agnes, Esther, Rose, Lon, their parents, Grandpa Prophater, and K the maid, and the goings on at Kensington Avenue combine to form a cabinet photograph of the clothes, furnishings, speech, ideas, family solidarity, of the time and the place. There are problems, Esther's growing up, Agnes' con with Tootie's pranks, Lon's departure for and return from Princeton, Grandpa Prophater's participating in all family customs, the possibility -- an unhappy one -- of a move to New York, parties, neighbors, the World's Fair, etc. Genial nostalgia.