Home on the Double Bayou

<p>Once again through a boy's eyes Ralph Jackson sees a winter sky darkened with geese and ducks a kitchen stove glowing with cheerful warmth Aunt May strolling in her flower garden moonlight filtering through treetops to cast patches of white light on a sandy woodland road.</p> <p>Again he catches odors once so familiar: of a mysterious attic of burning salt grass in late summer of mountain streams with their fresh green smell of dark-roast coffee and of slab bacon sizzling in the pan.</p> <p>He hears again a panther's scream from the darkness surrounding a campfire the scampering of mice across the barnloft floor the sigh of a felled pine tree changing to a crashing roar as it meets the ground the sounds of a meal in preparation the hum of a mosquito swarm rising from the marshes.</p> <p>He remembers the taste of barbecued goat the sweet sharpness of peppermint candy the flavor of gumdrops from the country store-where as showcase neighbors of cigars and chewing tobacco they acquired a faint tobacco taste.</p> <p>And he feels again the welcome shock of frigid spring water on a hot perspiring body the pleasant sensation of sand between his toes the breathtaking exhilaration of swinging on a sapling top.</p> <p>The joy of childhood on an East Texas ranch is the subject of this book: exciting events like the arrival of the first norther of the season swimming with alligators hogkilling building tree houses roundup hunting and fishing calf-riding fording strange streams. Interspersed among these episodes are others of darker mood: a smallpox epidemic the burning of the ranch house wolves attacking the cattle.</p> <p>Jackson's characters come alive. Scenes are vivid; moods are various and enveloping. The author has told the delightful story of his boyhood from a highly personal yet universal perspective and in doing so he has presented a picture of a region of the state previously largely neglected in Texas literature.</p>