"No, it isn't. It's a hamlet. Trolley seven miles away, post office five. There used to be a post office there when the mail-wagon made the trip over, but they needed the building to keep the hearse in, so it's gone."
"You're making that up, Kit," severely.
"I'm not," protested Kit. "You can ask Cousin Roxy. Nobody ever dies up there. They just fade away, and the hearse is seldom needed and was in the way. There are only nine houses in the village proper, one store, one church, and one school. Her house is a mile outside the village, so where will we be?"
"Is it on the map?" asked Doris hopefully.
"Some maps. Township maps. This morning Mother and I were looking up how to get there. You've got your choice of two routes and each one's worse than the other, and more of it."
"Kit, you're crawfishing."
Kit swept by the remark, absorbed in her own forebodings.
"You can reach this spot by land or sea. Cousin Roxy says that it takes five hours for anybody to extricate oneself after one is really there. You can take a boat to New London, ride up to Norwich, transfer to a trolley and trundle along for another hour, then hire a team at Tommy Burke's stable in East Pomfret, and drive an hour and a half more up through the hills. Or you can take a Boston Express up to Willimantic, and hop on a side line from there. A train runs twice a day--"
"What road, Kit?" asked Helen. They leaned around her, fascinated at her sudden acquisition of knowledge.
"Any road you fancy. Central Vermont up to Plainfield, or Providence line over to South Pomfret. There's South Pomfret and East Pomfret and Pomfret Green and Pomfret Station. It really doesn't seem to matter which way you go so long as it lands you at one of the Pomfrets. And Pomfret is five miles from Gilead Center, Plainfield is seven miles, Boulderville is--"