"April Twenty-fifth As Usual," cheerfully proclaiming the inevitableness
of spring cleaning, might be published with the sub-title, An Epic of
the Housekeeper.

They were alert for reflections of life--in America and elsewhere. The
politics of "Gum Shoes, 4-B"; the local court of law in "Tom Belcher's
Store"; the frozen west of "Turkey Red" seemed to them to meet the
demand that art must hold the mirror up to nature.

In particular, the Committee hoped to find good stories of the war. Now
that fiction containing anything of the Great Struggle is anathema to
editors, and must wait for that indefinite time of its revival, it was
like getting a last bargain to read "Facing It," "Humoresque,"
"Contact," "Autumn Crocuses," and "England to America." In these small
masterpieces is celebrated either manhood which keeps a rendezvous with
death.

The Committee accepted style as the fit medium for conveying the
matter....

Since the Committee confess to catholicity of taste, the chosen stories
reveal predilection for no one type. They like detective stories, and
particularly those of Melville Davisson Post. A follower of the founder
of this school of fiction, he has none the less advanced beyond his
master and has discovered other ways than those of the Rue Morgue. "Five
Thousand Dollars Reward" in its brisk action, strong suspense, and
humorous denouement carries on the technique so neatly achieved in "The
Doomdorf Mystery" and other tales about Uncle Abner.

The Committee value, also, the story about animals: universal interest