Books: Canfield a la Mode

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SEASONED TIMBER—Dorothy Canfield —Harcourt, Brace ($2.50).

Dorothy Canfield lives in and writes about Vermont, a sensible State where a lady's hat, to be up to the moment, needs only to be a decent shelter for the head. One might expect Author Canfield, therefore, to be impervious to literary fashion as well. But so many tucks, ribbons and feathers have been incorporated into the novel since she last wrote one (Bonfire, 1933), that she has felt it necessary to come up to date. The result sits on her head at a rakish angle, tapers to a giddy point. The angle: fascism is dangerous. The point: it can't happen here. The effect: distinctly overdressed.

Some years ago, Dorothy Canfield, in her nonliterary self (Mrs. John Redwood Fisher), served on Vermont's State Board of Education, found that small village schools were so hard up for chalk, books, blackboards, maps, to say nothing of gymnasiums and decently paid teachers, that they would gladly pawn even their academic freedom for a little ready cash. This, at any rate, is the premise of Seasoned Timber.

Villain of the piece is a Wall-Streeter named George Wheaton, a graduate of tiny, semipublic, coeducational Clifford Academy. He wants to give Clifford one of his easy millions, on condition that the school become private, preferably for boys only, and that Jews be excluded.

The deal would go through were it not for the school's lovable principal, Timothy Hulme. Uncle Tim is a procrastinator from way back, but he can tell fascism from fooling. He has put off marrying so long that when he finally falls in love, it is with a girl who might be his daughter; he delays proposing to her so long that she is wooed and married by his nephew before he has even heaved a deep sigh. But the minute Mr. Wheaton's poisoned sugarplum comes along, Uncle Tim gets his back up. He succeeds in keeping it away from the hungry village, and if he isn't happy in the end—well, a slowpoke can't have everything.