Anne Ball

Just the Four of Us Anne Ball

There was a time when rural Georgia was mostly farmland and dirt roads, a time not so long ago when little settlements were centered around one general store that sold those few provisions farmers didn't grow on their land or in their pastures. Just the Four of Us is a collection of sixteen stories, plus three by the author's sister, about that time -- before shopping centers and interstate highways became part of the landscape; before mega-churches replaced those small congregations made up mostly of kinfolks; before summer homes for the well-to-do dotted the slopes of the quiet and majestic Blue Ridge Mountains. Reading these reflections, told with love of family and pride of place, takes you home to that time when you were welcome to pull up a chair on the front porch at the Bell place just before dark, become part of the conversation about the day's work, and maybe join in the singing of a hymn or two in four-part harmony as night eased across the tranquil valleys of Bartow County, Georgia.