Two That Were Tough

New York, New York, U.S.A.: The Viking Press, 1976. First Edition First Printing Stated . Hard Back. Very Good/Very Good. 7 1/2" X 8 1/4. Cuffari, Richard. 80 Pages. Six line gift inscription with the author's signature and Fayetteville, Georgia - Christmas - 1986. No other marks or stamps. Interior text and extensive art pages are flawless. Dust jacket has very light edge wear and a small store label for the Fayette Book Shop. Set in rural Georgia, the country Robert Burch knows so well, this book is a moving story about a man's coming to terms with old age. In spite of all his daughter's arguments and pleas that he move to Atlanta to live with her, Mr. Hilton, a lonely and proud gristmill owner, has steadfastly refused to leave the cottage where he was born and has lived for all his life. Like Wild Wings, the gray chicken which had hatched in the briers near the gristmill, the miller was alone and happy to be free. As the seasons passed, Mr. Hilton identified more and more with Wild Wings' spirit of freedom and joy in taking risks; he had no desire to give up the only way of life he had ever known. Yet Mr. Hilton could not help but become aware of another way in which he and Wild Wings were alike: time and age were catching up to both of them. In his illustrations, Richard Cuffari has tenderly and unsentimentally evoked, with a sensitivity that matches Burch's own, a feeling young readers on the lonely verge of adulthood will recognize -- one man's determination to preserve his independence. The author was born in Fayette County, Georgia, and grew up there with seven brothers and sisters. Despite the economic hardships of the 1930s, he relishes many happy memories of those years. Burch now lives in the house in which he spent his youth, and he devotes most of his time to writing -- the career he says he would not trade for any other. The art work was done in pencil with watercolor washes and the book is bound in paper and cloth over boards. Contents in Nine Chapters: Hatched in the Briers, Worms That Cost a Dime Apiece, The Ice Storm, The Picnic, The Close Call, The Feast, The Trap, The Catch. And the Neighbors.