Books: Minister's Moppet

BEING LITTLE IN CAMBRIDGE WHEN EVERYONE ELSE WAS BIG—Eleanor Hallowell Abbott—Appleton-Century ($2.50).

Contemporary reminiscences of childhood, appearing in more autobiographical novels than most readers would care to study, usually present a grim picture of the years of innocence, attach dubious value to fabled and Freudian childish joys. Last week a quaint book written in the mood of a less self-conscious age gave a lively account of a happy girlhood in one of the most repressed and inhibited environments in the U. S—the household of a Cambridge clergyman in the 1870's. Eleanor Abbott's grandfather...