Kenneth Roberts, the New Englander who wrote Northwest Passage, recalled with nostalgia the one-horse bean carts of his youth, carts that ameliorated “the lot of the New England housewife who was so unfortunate as to have no professional help.” The driver perched under a roof with a box in front, a box behind, and a bell “like a broken front-door bell.” In the box in front were beans and salt pork; in the box behind were brown bread, white bread, cakes, and pies. The
