WAGON WHEELS: A STORY OF THE NATIONAL ROAD.

By William A. Breyfogle '28. New York: Aladdin Books, 1956.192 pp. $1.75.

Written for members of Dartmouth's Class of ca. 1966 (and their non-Dartmouth compatriots who perhaps outnumber the former), Wagon Wheels mixes history and adventure to a fine degree.

William Breyfogle shows his Vermont residence by creating a hero who leaves that state in the early 1830's along with so many o£ his fellows to find the promised land elsewhere than in the narrow valleys of the Green Mountains. Joel Brigham is his name, and he is in quest of an elder half-brother, Peter, fortune, and adventure. While Joel finds these, we find ourselves learning something of the history of the Cumberland or National Road and - in fear of betraying our lack of sophistication - being entertained.

Briefly, the story tells how Joel, travelling alone, meets Amos Fair, a Connecticut peddler, no doubt the only one so named before or since, who is indeed a fair companion and takes Joel nearly the length of the road, teaching him its history and predicting its future. Amos at length delivers Joel to Peter, ready for a career of freighting over the road.

Intermixed with the main theme are glimpses of pioneer life on the frontier, explanations of why some people went West, and romantic travail centered on Peter Brigham, the best freighter on the road, and Imogene Garry, the widow who ran the best tavern on the National Road. Henry Clay, presidential hopeful for twenty years, appears several times throughout and has a major part in the solution of the problem. Whether he did this out of the goodness of his heart or for political gain cannot be adequately determined from this distance, some 120 years afterwards.

When all is said and done, we commend the book to young readers as entertaining and enlightening. Need we add that there are attractive illustrations as well?