Books: Phase

ROME HAUL—Walter D. Edmonds—Little, Brown ($2.50).

Short hauls to Rome, N. Y., long hauls to Albany, the oldtime "canawlers" of the Erie Canal made with boatloads of machinery and produce. It was a leisurely existence, drifting along four miles an hour behind stout teams that trudged the towpath. For a few months Dan'l Harrow, farmer, was a part of it. Clever with horses, he hired on as driver to a canal captain and then fell heir to the boat. For "cook," meaning servant, companion, and mistress-as-long-as-compatible, he hired vivacious Molly; for driver he hired...