THE BOYDS OF BLACK RIVER (P) Format: Paperback

There was always something going on in the rambling old mansion that housed the big Boyd family. The Boyds were country gentry in the old sense, and they lived to the hilt, as gentry could at the turn of the century, on a prosperous, sprawling farm in upstate New York.

As you drove up to the house in your buggy, the first thing you'd see was that these were horse people. Probably the great Blue Dandy himself would be pacing around the half-mile track and the colts in the paddock would put on a flurry for your benefit. John Callant, the groom, would take your horse and Uncle Ledyard, who would have spied you trotting down the road, would ask you in for a glass of port. Then you would meet the lovely Kathy and the Admiral, young Teddy and his dog Leonidas. And you might hear little Fanny crying upstairs in the nursery. Later on, Doone would come in, having finished his morning's workout with Blue Dandy. Then the plans would begin for going to the Fair, or for the grouse shooting, or for rounding up the sheep, or perhaps, most exciting of all, plans for a new trotting race.

It was a good life, overflowing with excitement, humor, good food and good drink, the smell of autumn leaves, the silence of deep snowdrifts, the clatter of the barnyard - all the million activities of country life at its fullest and best. You won't read more than three pages before you will find yourself an intimate, living part of it.