If Maine Goes

NEIGHBOR TO THE SKY--Gladys Hasty Carrol--Macmillan ($2.50).

Gladys Hasty Carroll is not a Pollyanna, but she strongly sympathizes with her hero, who says: "I know something most folks don't seem to know. I know this world is full of the damnedest sweetest people a man would ever hope to meet." Not everybody in Neighbor to the Sky could be called sweet, but both Author Carroll and her hero reach their last-page goal without changing their minds. Like her earlier novels of Maine (As the Earth Turns, A Few Foolish Ones), Author Carroll's latest is as sound and sweet as a good Baldwin apple.

Luke was the oldest of the Gilman sons and he was the one who best fitted the old Gilman place. A carpenter by trade and inclination, he found plenty to do in his own neighborhood, could not conceive why his more restless brothers wanted to leave home. When Margery Lee, the local schoolmistress, came to board and his brother Jeff courted her with signal unsuccess, Luke understood Jeff's sudden departure. But Luke was pretty sure nothing could change him. Then he fell in love with Margery himself. She hated the country, was consumed with metropolitan ambitions, swore she would some day see her name in Broadway lights. But when she married Luke that complicated her singleminded aim.

First step was to finish Luke's education. Architecture was to be Luke's field. But somewhere along the way his quiet talent turned to teaching; by the time he had his Ph.D., architecture and the stage were alike long forgotten. Margery was content to have only the career of being Luke's wife, but she was bound that Luke was to be an acknowledged great man. While he kept plodding through the academic maze, Margery did her best to keep up with him, was beguiled into one blind alley after another. By the time Luke was an assistant professor of educational psychology in a midwestern university, Margery thought the goal was in sight. What Luke saw was not a goal but the monster at the end of the labyrinth. Before it was too late he resigned his job, took his wife and son back to the old home town where they belonged.

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