Parnassus on Wheels is a short novel about a delightful runaway named Miss Helen McGill. Helen, the narrator, describes how she’s been a stay-at-home housewife on a farm for many years. She’s done all the housework and cooking for her brother — a writer, and is sick and tired of it. A vagabond bookseller offers her a way to escape: one day, he sells her his wagon, his dog Bock, his horse Peg, and all his inventory, and shows her how to live on the road.
For a while, the bookseller goes along with her in the wagon, though always saying he’s about to get on a train and return to his urban roots in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, Helen gets used to cooking in the wagon and taking care of Peg and Bock:
“There were still some eggs and bread and cheese in the little cupboard, and an unopened tin of condensed milk. I gave Peg her nose bag of oats, and fed Bock, who was frisking about in high spirits. By that time the shoeing was done, and the Professor and I sat down to an improvised meal. I was beginning to feel as if this gipsy existence were the normal course of my life. ‘Well, Professor,’ I said, as I handed him a cup of coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs and cheese, ‘for a man who slept in a wet haystack, you acquit yourself with excellent valour.’” (p 67)
The joy of the road are many, and she cooks over an open fire — though when she has an opportunity to eat in a hotel she relishes it as well:
“My! how I enjoyed that creamed chicken on toast, and buckwheat cakes with syrup! After you get used to cooking all your own grub, a meal off some one else's stove is the finest kind of treat.” (p. 98)
It’s a fun read and I expect it’s been providing fun to readers throughout over 100 years since its publication. Maybe I’ll read another book by this author —
Review © 2026 mae sander
