Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch_," which led me, perhaps foolishly,
to hope that _Mrs. Wiggs_ and I were to foregather once more, and when
we didn't made me just a little surly towards a book of short tales
which, opened with any other expectation, would have seemed much above
the average. There are eight stories in the book, and in almost all of
them is found that blend of pathos and humour that Mrs. ALICE HEGAN RICE
has taught us to expect. I liked "Cupid Goes Slumming," because it was
almost _Cabbage Patch_; but "Hoodooed," the story of an old negro who
believed himself the victim of a spell which involved the presence of a
cricket in his leg, delighted me even more. His wife removes the charm
with a vacuum cleaner, in which she has previously secreted a cricket,
and the victim recovers. It pleased me very much to learn that among
"white folk's superstitions" is the theory that it is "bad luck to sleep
with the windows shet," and, when I come to think of it, I believe that
it is very bad luck indeed.
* * * * *
I should have liked GABRIELLE VALLINGS' _Tumult_ (HUTCHINSON) a good
deal better if she could have managed it without the aid of a Pan who
wandered, emitting a strong smell, chiefly in the demesne of a very
expensive and over-cultivated French noble.
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