f into the ocean beyond,
when, in fact, we were just entering upon that peculiar body of land at
West Wallen.

There was no one there to meet me. The little _depot_ was held by a
strange night brigade of boys and girls, playing "blind-man's buff."
They shouted like cannibals, and bore down on all opposing objects with
resistless force. I did not attempt an entrance. A rough, good-natured
looking man stood on the platform outside.

I put on my glasses (I was sadly and unaffectedly near-sighted), and
having further assured myself of his seeming honesty, inquired if there
was such a place as Kedarville in the vicinity.

"Waal, no, miss, thar' ain't," said he, with a noonday smile, which
informed me that there was yet something to hope for. "Thar's no
_Kedarville_ that I know on. Thar's a Wallencamp some miles up yender.
We don't often tackle no Sunday go-to-meeting names on to it, but I
reckon, maybe, it's the same you're a-lookin' for."

He had spoken with such startling indefiniteness of the distance that I
asked him how far it was to Wallencamp.

"Waal, thar' you've got me," said he, beaming on me in a broadly
complimentary way, as though I had actually circumvented him in some
skilful play at words. "Fact is, thar' ain't never been no survey run
down in that direction that I know on. We call it four miles, more or
less. That's Cape Cod measure--means most anythin' lineal measure.
Talkin' 'bout Cape Cod miles," he continued, with an irresistible air of
raillery; "little Bachelder Lot lives up thar' to Wallencamp, and they
don't have no church nor nothin' thar', so Bachelder and some on 'em they
come up here, once in a while, ter Sunday-school. Deacon Lancy, he'd
rather see the Old Boy comin' into Sunday-school class any time than
Bachelder; for he's quiet, the little bachelder is, but dry as a herrin'.
So the Deacon thought he'd stick him on distances. The Deacon is a great
stickler on distances.

"'How fur, Bachelder,' says he, 'did Adam and Eve go when they was turned
out of the garden of Eden?' says he.

"'Waal,' says Bachelder, coughing a little, so--that's Bachelder's way
o' talking--'we have sufficient reason to eenfer, Deacon, that, in all
probabeelity, they went a _Ceape Cod mile_.'"

My informant's delight at this reminiscence was huge. It yielded to a
more subdued sense of the ludicrous when I asked him if there was any
public conveyance to Wallencamp. He made a polite effort to restrain his
mirth, b