Escape to Maine

WE TOOK TO THE WOODS -- Louise Dickinson Rich--Lippincott ($2.75).

Author Rich's book is one of the most incongruous that ever became a Book-of-the-Month Club selection in the middle of a world war. Its 322 pages do not have the slightest connection with totalitarian wickedness or the fire power of the General Sherman tank. The book is a pleasant, intelligent account of how it feels to live in a remote corner of the Maine woods.

Author Rich lives in the wilds with Husband Ralph, Son Rufus and various dogs, skunks, neighbors. She bathes in a washtub placed near the kitchen stove. She uses ("supreme test of fortitude") an outhouse, which in winter can be reached only through knee-deep snow. "Bear and deer and wildcat tracks are all in the day's walk, while a stray human bootprint throws us into a dither."

The nearest doctor is miles away. Before Baby Rufus was born, Father Rich shed quarts of perspiration over a handbook called If Baby Comes Ahead of the Doctor. Baby did. Father Rich tied the umbilical cord with a piece of old cord, expertly greased the infant. Said he: "After all the pistons I've oiled. . . ."

For a living the Riches write articles, stories, guide city "sports," haul anything from logs and boats to litters of pigs and Camp Fire Girls. In December they stock up for winter from their nearest A. & P.--40 miles away. Pork loin and whole deer swing frozen from ceiling hooks in the sheds.

Author Rich has crammed her book with observations on cooking, dressing, neighborliness, forest fires, fishing, customs, communications. But she has no scorn for city dwellers: "In spite of the literary convention of bursting barns, overflowing larders, and cellars crammed with luscious preserves and delicious smoked hams, in spite of the accepted version of the countryman as being clad in the warmest and best of wools . . . the country standard of living is very much lower than the city standard."

But she adds: "Three hundred and fifty-five days of the year, I don't question anything. ... I am more at home in this world that we have created than ever I was in that vast and confusing maelstrom that we call civilization."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.