[*] Long, John Luther. Seffy; a little comedy of country manners. [†]$1.50. Bobbs.
Old Baumgarten, a Pennsylvania-German and Maryland farmer, has set his heart upon marrying his great slow going son, Seffy, to a red-headed, tempestuous girl, named Sally, who owns the lands lying between his farm and the railroad. He almost brings this about, but Seffy’s reticence allows another lover to come between him and his sweetheart. Sally marries out of spite and comes to bitterly repent of it, while old Baumgarten curses his son, knocks him down and sends him out into the world where he learns to fight for things and to get them. In the end he comes back to claim all that he lost in his youth.
| * | + | Dial. 39: 447. D. 16, ‘05. 140w. |
Long, William Joseph. [Northern trails: stories of animal life in the far north.] [*]$1.50. Ginn.
“Mr. Long takes the reader with him ... to the barren shores of Labrador and Newfoundland. Wolves, we meet, that guide lost children home, and then disappear into the wilderness; a wild goose that caresses his mate goodbye at the approach of the hunter, before going out to fight for his home and young; and Pequam, of the weasel family, that tempts an Indian to abandon his trail, by killing a deer and leaving it across the track. These animals and many more—whales, polar bears and salmon—are all introduced to us in the midst of their wild, unfrequented haunts. All are endowed with almost human intelligence and reason, after the manner of interpreting their actions which Mr. Long has made so popular.”—Ind.
[*] “There is a charm about Mr. Long’s book that few writers for children attain.”
| + + | Acad. 68: 1287. D. 9, ‘05. 150w. |
[*] “His stories have a charm and an excellence of their own.” May Estelle Cook.
| + | Dial. 39: 373. D. 1, ‘05. 190w. |
“We are willing to let the disputed question of instinct or intelligence go, however, and on the strength of the splendid descriptions of nature and the always evident love of the wild, accord this volume a high place among ‘books of the trail.’”