[*] Collyer, Robert. Augustus Conant, Illinois pioneer and preacher. [*]60c. Am. Unitar.
This second volume in “True American types” series contains the charmingly simple record of the plucky career of a typical New Englander who was born in Vermont in 1811, went west in the early days as an Illinois pioneer and later became a minister with the staunch support of his young wife. After triumphing over circumstances he met his death in the Civil war as chaplain in the Union army. The author’s account is supplemented by quotations from the quaintly brief entries in his various journals, and the whole forms a significant story of the life of man who wrested happiness and success from a barren environment.
Colton, Arthur Willis. [Belted seas.] (†)$1.50. Holt.
Captain Buckingham enlivens a winter afternoon by recounting his adventures in South America and elsewhere. Leaving the town of Greenough and the girl he had “agreed” to marry, he traversed the belted seas for thirty years, drifting back at last to his old harbor to gaze on the tombstone of his sweetheart, and assist in her daughter’s elopement. His story includes humorous yarns of hotel keeping in a ship carried inland by a tidal wave, of a hidden treasure over which a squatter had calmly built his cabin, and of a whale which put forth to sea with a hen roosting on a harpoon embedded in its side.
“His work is never commonplace, but never before has he been so light-hearted, so effervescent of spirit as here.”
| + | Critic. 47: 382. O. ‘05. 160w. |
“Some of his turns of thought are provocative of the heartiest laughter, and he never permits his auditors an instant of boredom.”
| + | Dial. 38: 394. Je. 1, ‘05. 150w. |
“The dry, whimsical old captain spins a yarn worth hearing.”
| + | Ind. 58: 1250. Je. 1, ‘05. 230w. |