Umbrella, Anyone?

Shortly before President Eisenhower took off for his flying inspection tour of the drought-parched Southwest in January, Stanley Walker, onetime Manhattan newsman, now a Texas rancher, turned out a dismal preview of the scene for his old newspaper, the New York Herald Tribune (1956 "was the year the windmills pumped air ... the termites ate the onions"). Last week Walker wrote again, this time with refreshing jubilance. Said he in the Trib: "Texas is turning green . . . like some beautiful, bewildering mirage . . . The reaction to the President's drought-study tour was friendly . . . but the comment was cautious . . . And then the rains came—days on end of drizzle and fog, with now and then a brisk shower. The term 'Eisenshower' was coined . . . The month of February 1957 will go down in history as the time of many Eisenshowers.

"There is mildew on the rocks, and the Judas trees are in bloom. The face of the country has been transformed. And the people are a little happier ... A neighbor, a very old man, said last fall: 'The hand of man is against me and the face of God is turned away. Pardner, whichever way you look, it's tough.' Last week he said: 'Son, just listen to the mockingbirds!' "