LEND ME YOUR EAR: EFFIE LELAND WILDER OFFERS SEQUEL IN `OVER WHAT HILL?'

Readers may recall our review of Mrs. Wilder's enchanting first novel "Out to Pasture (But Not Over the Hill)," published by Peachtree Press a year ago. So many readers the country over begged for a sequel that Mrs. Wilder, now 66, responded with Over What Hill. No one, not even those who missed Pasture, will be disappointed in the author's delightful response.

Her story is set in FairAcres, a retirement center similar to the Home Mrs. Wilder resided in in Summerville, S.C., before settling for FairAcres. Writing under the pseudonym Hattie McNair, she continues to dream up adventures with the charm, humor, and down-to-earth philosophy that made Pasture an instant success. Her "inmates," as some residents facetiously call themselves, display swings of mood and eccentricities typical of the aging, including Hattie herself.

Hattie has a soulmate in the manager of The Home, "Mr. Ditwiler." Though much younger than Hattie, he depends on her for ideas for keeping FairAcres as homelike as possible. During one of their conversations about their Homemates, Mr. Ditwiler suggests they should have a test for newcomers before they could be admitted.

Mrs. Wilder's alter ego replies with a question. "Instead of an IQ test, it would be a CQ test? Contrariness Quotient?" She pursues the idea throughout the story, but is always too busy trying to assist and entertain her companions to follow through.

In Over What Hill?, Hattie the realist permits death to disrupt plans -- but only temporarily. Hattie the romantic is more concerned with concocting a wedding, because even a short novel must have a plot, and a retirement center is a natural for involvements in getting two elderlies to the altar.

Hattie the creator concentrates on her old school friend "Retta" (Henrietta Gooding) and the popular widower Sydney Metcalf, who has had his eye on Retta for some time. Retta plays hard-to-get, but Hattie urges her on, gradually persuading her to accept Sydney's advances. In turn, the plot is advanced, in ways only Effie Leland Wilder could contrive.

Off and on, Hattie brings groups together for special discussions and events. Hilarious interludes are the norm. At one gathering, a man who has just recovered from a serious illness suddenly interrupts with, "Oh my God! I must be having another stroke! I keep scratching my leg and can't feel a thing!"

"No wonder," returns the woman sitting next to him. "That's MY leg you're scratchin'!"

When a noted specialist on aging comes to give a lecture on the effects of Alzheimer's, a resident arrives late and sits down at the back. Presently she calls out, "For Lord's sake change the channel!"

Some days after the lecture, Hattie organizes a group for residents who want to express their own feelings about aging. Hattie offers a quotation from Tennyson's "Ulysses" as one that comes closest to her answer: "Though much is taken, much abides." Fond of poetry, she manages to inject verses of her own on the subject of aging and on other subjects of interest to her Homemates. This habit enables her to laugh with the rest about the problems facing them all.

In the final chapter, an evening is devoted to story-telling to raise funds for a cause special to all. Most of the tales invoke gales of laughter. But when Sydney is asked for a story, he rises to make a serious announcement: Mrs. Henrietta Gooding only today has accepted his proposal of marriage, and everyone present is invited to the wedding. Hattie murmurs that perhaps she didn't godmother the match, but she encouraged it. "Encouraged" was not the right word. She manipulated it!

Illustrations in black and white by Laurie Allen Klein add interest, and in some instances hearty, even uproarious guffaws. All in all, Over What Hill? would solve a Christmas-gift problem for friends of any age. Not only for elderlies who can relate, but families and friends who must cope. I confess I have friends who will delight in a brief conversation Mrs. Wilder recounts of two chatterboxes at The Home. When one censures the other for talking too much, the accused replies: "Maybe I do. But my tongue is the only thing about me that still works." Touche!

~Aileen Lorberg is a language columnist for the Southeast Missourian.