One of A. B. Guthrie, Jr.'s, Novels

A new high school teacher and principal comes to the Montana town of Arfive and runs into difficult moral problems that has him in a tizzy as he copes with them and his new life. He is at odds with the school board on some of the proposals put forth and especially against the liquor magnate's suggestion that the school provide an award of $25 for the top student in each class for the mogul's support of the school. And he has other problems with his pregnant wife who has a history of miscarriages and has another one and gets pregnant again. Instead of giving up and returning to the East, he stays on at Arfive and finds a fulfilling life after all.

This is a story about a Western town in the midst of changing from the Old West to the Modern West where infernal, noisy machines are being bought by the rich locals for transport and the use of the horse and buggy and outdoor toilets are beginning to phase out. There are none of the traditional gunfights or settlers being kicked off the land by the big ranchers or fights over water and other rights. There are the typical small-town political battles mainly centered around the school board and moral issues caused by the local madam who finally retires and goes into the restaurant business.

The name of the novel is Arfive, a Houghton Mifflin Company publication copyright 1970 by the author and printed in the good old U.S.A. It is the fourth book in the "series", the others being the Pulitzer Prize winning The Way West, The Big Sky (a terrific novel in my opinion), and These Thousand Hills, all great reading.

A HAPPY EASTER TO EVERYBODY!!