Worsley). Allen & Unsein, London ar History, whether of times long. since past oF of only @ decade ago, always more interesting to the general reader when it is presented in the narrative form of fiction. Immediately after Nona Herman: Hodge left school, during the Great War, when all the men in the prime of fife had left for the" front, she joined that little army of a few old men and young lads who remained behind to run the farms end dairies of Old England. 'This little book (it runs to no more than 150 pages) is an account of the life she led as a "land-girl" on farms" in. Oxfordshire, Worcestershire, and Cheshire, a life which despite' its hardships, its never-ending toil, and its back: breaking work, she learned to love, and to which' she returned for a pel! after the war. There plot, in the common sense of the word; it is a narrative, or series of sketches, dealing with the life of farmers and labourers, vividly portrayed in all-its lights and shadows, by an able pen. At times, t00, the prose style comes near {0 poetry in its feeling and insight: winter the HIlls could cloak themselves In "eerie, for" sometimes the white mists would come curdling from the. Valleys below, shroud: ing their feet, and shutting out the warm, kindly' sounds "of "the farms and. villages: and there would be Rothing but an infinite horizon, save. Sesolate heather and bilberry" scrub, with gaunt, sinister boulders, and Tite Yushes whose berries were vers Sscatlet, Tike the cloaks of old witches, But in these summer days the. mist shimmering about them. would often the stern outlines of the ills fo a Mimy tenderness: aod. vee. could lig "stretched "upon their" auks. and. ord the sounds of them would come drifting us, sweet With fan Although she ad to cope with almost everything to do with the farm, she dealt mostly with cows, and after only a short period of apprenticeship' found herself in charge of eighty head of caitle. And some of the most humorous pages, of which there are not a few, desceribe the conduct of a milk-renind in neighbouring country town. She Soon gained a name among the townsfolk for being. "good with unimals~an all-embracing. designee tion which frequently plunged without warning into the most cliff cult situations." She was consulted about magpies to puppies, but her strangest experience was: scvs.. Whien some new-comers in one tne Couneti-houses on Severn-side
4 oat they had recently bought, and Invited me to invest ca the casa which despite their persistent. efforts declined "any: mile. Twas conducted rough their" spick-and-apan house: fut "Into the backyard, where. they had zealously erected shed: for the animal. There T found. ho daughter of the house trying her hardest extract milk froma. billy-goat!
Light, racy, and extremely enter= taining, the book will appeal not only to those who share with Nona Mormon-Hodge her extreme love of the land but also to those who enjoy Joke and a glimpse of the other fellow's point of view—20.n,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.