Phinizy County

THE THREE-HEADED ANGEL -- Roark Bradford-Harper ($2.50).

Phinizy County, Tenn. (it is not on the map) was a rough place in some ways before it got civilized. In those days the first citizen was Old Bas Younger, who brought his clan to settle Hoop Pole Ridge and was he-coon there till he died at 100. Old Bas died while he was making a political oration on the Fourth of July and got too excited cussing the Republican candidate, Abe Lincoln. Phinizy County had begun to get a little sissified by the time Young Bas took over the he-coonship at 70. Richard Whiting, who bought land from Old Bas, was an aristocrat. He brought slaves and blooded horses; pretty soon he brought a wife, who was a real lady.

Before Richard Whiting and his Eastern ways had time to turn the whole county into a mollycoddle community, the Civil War gave the men of Phinizy County a real outlet. Those who did not fight with Forrest fought with Morgan. Even after the War petered out, some of them had not had their bellyful. When Lafe Potter ran off with Mersery Pillow, five of the Pillow clan went to get her back. When the shooting was over Lafe turned to his bride and said casually: "I got four of the bastards." Said Mersery: "I'm glad."

Even after Squire Whiting became the acknowledged boss of Phinizy County, things went on, especially on Hoop Pole Ridge. Little Bas Younger, the current he-coon, got licked in an argument in front of the courthouse, and that night his opponent's house burned down. Squire Whiting was getting ready to turn over the county to his successor, but he wanted things shipshape, so he rode out to Hoop Pole Ridge and shot Little Bas. The inhabitants of the Ridge let Little Bas lie. Said one of them to the heir apparent, "I reckon you air the he-coon, now?" "Yep," said he, "I air."

Roark Bradford has already added his bit to U. S. letters in Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun, the book from which Marc Connelly made The Green Pastures. Author Bradford has never quite recaptured the careless rapture of his first book, but he is now well established as a legitimate heir of Joel Chandler Harris. The Three-Headed Angel is a new departure for him, not only because it is not laid in the deep South but because it has only one Negro character. Most readers will consider that his Hoop Pole Ridgers make up for the loss. Author Bradford swears he has made up the names of all his characters. Mersery Pillow's mother called her that after the planet Mercury. Brigadier-General Bushrod Johnson Potter was what Mersery and Lafe called their firstborn.

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