String too short to be saved : recollections of summers on a New England farm

**"These vivid New Hampshire farm sketches from Hall's well-spent youth—all written when he was full-grown—are as much attuned to the supple and enticing utilities of language as they are grounded in a vanished time which may, at a glimpse, seem simple, but were complex and rich and not simple at all."—Richard Ford** This is a collection of story-essays diverse in subject but united by the limitless affection the author holds for the land and the people of New England. Donald Hall tells about life on a small farm where, as a boy, he spent summers with his grandparents. Gradually the boy grows to be a young man, sees his grandparents aging, the farm become marginal, and finally, the cows sold and the barn abandoned. But these are more than nostalgic memories, for in the measured and tender prose of each episode are signs of the end of things: a childhood, perhaps a culture. In an Epilogue written for this edition, Donald Hall describes his return to the farm twenty-five years later, to live the rest of his life in the house that held a box of string too short to be saved. This is a collection of stories diverse in subject, but sutured together by the limitless affection the author holds for the land and the people of New England. Donald Hall tells about life on a small farm where, as a boy, he spent summers with his grandparents. Gradually the boy grows to be a young man, sees his grandparents aging, the farm become marginal, and finally, the cows sold and the barn abandoned. But these are more than nostalgic memories, for in the measured and tender prose of each episode are signs of the end of things - a childhood, perhaps a culture. Sixty Years Later -- One: The Wild Heifers -- Two: The Gallery -- Three: A Hundred Thousand Straightened Nails -- Four: The Left-footed Thief -- Five: Haying, A Horse, And A Hired Man -- Six: Luther, Nannie, And The Callers -- Seven: The Long Day -- Eight: The Blueberry Picking -- Nine: Old Home -- Ten: Late Summers -- Eleven: Out Of The Garden -- Epilogue: More Strings By Donald Hall ; Illustrations By Mimi Korach. Subtitle From Cover. MY grandfather always put his heifers out to pasture in the spring, on a lot about five miles from the house, and visited them once a week to salt them, grain them, and see that they had water.