Borrowed Children (review)

Abstract

hunting, edible plants, living off the land, and first aid in the back woods. In reviewing the facsimile edition, one concludes that 80 years after the initial publication Kephart's skills and experiences are still valid guides to the wild regions. This reprint deserves to be a working tool of every friend of the wilderness and life in the out-of-doors. Horace Kephart, a latter day Daniel Boone, leaves with a reader of his works "the charm of nomadic life in its freedom from care, its unrestrained liberty of action and the proud self-reliance of one who is definitely his own master." -John Frazier King Lyon, George Ella. Borrowed Children. New York: Orchard Books, 1988. Harback, $12.95. As any diligent reader can testify, some books are more worth carrying home than others-and George Ella Lyon's first novel, Borrowed Children, is worth the longest walk, the steepest climb. Borrowed Children draws on classic themes-growing up, leaving home and coming back, discovering family secrets-but what Lyon does with these themes is particularly and delightfully her own. Amanda (Mandy) Virginia Perritt tells the story in a voice as clear as spring water. She's twelve years old, the middle child of a close-knit family living in Goose Rock, Kentucky, dunng the Depression. Her father is a logger who works too far from home to sleep there except on weekends. Her two older brothers go to school in Manchester, taking along the "ham biscuit, jar of milk' lunches their mother packs for them. Once away from home, however, they begin slipping off to the Asher Hotel for lunches of "steak between white bread" (on the tab, of course, since they have no money). The day of reckoning arrives at the end of the month when the Perrits get a bill from the hotel -and the boys go to work to pay for their folly. Mandy s growing-up accelerates with the premature birth of a baby brother, Willie. Her mother suffers a postpartum hemorrhage which necessitates six weeks' bed rest and Mandy, the only child who cares deeply about getting an education, has no choice but to drop out of school to help with the baby and look after her two mischievous younger sisters . "A baby is a very heavy thing, any mother will tell you. Willie, settled in my arms, grew heavier than the house. All month I've held him, bathed him, diapered him, carried him to and from Mama's breast. The little daylight he shuts his eyes to I spend working: meals, floors, Mama. I haven't crossed the creek or opened a book since Daddy put him in my lap." As the six weeks pass, Mandy finds a colicky baby robs her of patience as well as sleep. In this scene, Lyon catches the moment when Mandy reaches the limits of her endurance: "Soon we are all seated at the table. I take my old place at the side to make room for Mama. Daddy blesses us and sends around the food. The gravy I made isn't as good as Mama's, but it covers. I eat it all off the crown of my potatoes and ask for more. Mama looks at me and the boys and then at Daddy, measuring. "? think not, Mandy,' she says. 'You don't want to get plump like me.'" "That's not what she means and she knows it. My ribs stick out. She means, leave it for your brothers, your daddy. Never mind if you want some more. And I made it! "David's hand edges toward the gravy boat. "All of a sudden I feel fire like Willie's gowns blazing. It's all around me. If I stay in my seat, if David's hand touches the china, I'll be caught in a roar of flames. So 66 I grab the gilt-edged handle, stand up, and hurl the gravy boat at the wall." Mandy fully expects to be punished, but her act meets with silence. The reason for this becomes clear later on, when, on a trip arranged by her parents as a reward for helping with Willie, she...