"'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, but the muscles of his face twitched violently.
"Waal, no, miss," said he; "we don't run no reg'lar express up to Wallencamp; might be a very healthy oc'pation, but not as lukertive as some, I reckon—not as lukertive as pickin' 'tater-bugs: that's what they do, mostly, down thar'. Fact is, miss," he concluded, with considerable gravity; "we don't vary often go down to Wallencamp unless we're obliged to."
On my proposing to make it lucrative, he immediately called, in a loud voice, to one of the playful occupants of the dépôt:
"Hi, thar!' 'Rasmus! 'Rasmus! Here's a lady wants to be conveyed down to Wallencamp; you run home and tackle, now! You be lively, now!"
'Rasmus was lively. In a very few moments something of an unusual and ghostly appearance—so much only I could discover of what afterwards became a very familiar sort of vehicle—was waiting for me alongside the platform. The only means of getting into it was through an opening directly in front. Towards this I was encouraged to climb over the thills, but met with an obstacle, in the form of my trunk, which seemed effectually to block up the entrance.
"Thar', now! I told ye so," exclaimed one of the bystanders, a large number of whom had mysteriously gathered about the scene. "You'd orter got her in first."
A disconsolate silence prevailed. The trunk had been elevated to its present position through the most painful exertions.
"Perhaps I can climb over it," I said, and bravely made the attempt.