"I didn't say you _were_ a baby, you precious Flyaway! Who's cunning?"

"_I'm_ is," replied the child, settling back upon the seat with a sigh
of relief. She was very sensitive on the point of age, and, like Dotty,
could not abide the idea of being thought young.

"How far are we going?" asked Mr. Parlin.

"I do not know exactly," replied Mrs. Clifford; "but I will tell you how
far Mr. Skeels, one of our oldest natives, calls it. He says 'he reckons
it is three screeches.'"

"How far is a 'screech,' pray?"

"The distance a human voice can be heard, I presume."

"Let us try it," said Dotty Dimple; and she instantly set up a scream so
loud that the birds in the trees took to their wings in alarm. Katie
chimed in with a succession of little shrieks about as powerful as the
peep of a little chicken.

"I have heard that they once measured distances by 'shoots,'" said Mrs.
Clifford, laughing; "but I hope it will not be necessary to illustrate
_them_ by firing a gun."

They next passed on old and weatherworn graveyard.

"This," said Mrs. Clifford, "was once known, in the choice language of
the backwoodsmen, as a 'briar-patch;' and when people died, it was said