GIT ALONG, OLD SCUDDER

The stronger the material Gammell has to take off from—or take off on—the more successful he is: Once Upon MacDonald's Farm was better than The Story of Mr. and Mrs. Vinegar, and both were better than the one book totally of Gammell's devising, Wake Up, Bear. . . It's Christmas. Here, the material is a loose, drawn-out gag, delivered in Old Scudder's mountain-man dialect—"How-do, childrun. Once Old Scudder stayed out in the wilderness so long, I got a mite confused"—but without the tall-tale extravagance or sly, laconic humor of a Glen Rounds. In the wind-up, Old Scudder has made a map—but doesn't know where he's at. The lackadaisical full-color watercolors of Western landscapes—naturalistic as against the vapors of Where the Buffaloes Begin—might, however, be pleasing enough, along with the crusty figure of Old Scudder, to keep the pages turning.