First published in 1998

For certain expert information essential to these stories, my thanks to Ruth Roy, Mary Carr, and D. C. Coleman. And for his inspired and ingenious research on many occasions, I thank Reg Thompson.

Stories included in this collection that were previously published in The New Yorker appeared there in very different form.

For the last couple of decades, there has been a museum in Walley, dedicated to preserving photos and butter churns and horse harnesses and an old dentist’s chair and a cumbersome apple peeler and such curiosities as the pretty little porcelain-and-glass insulators that were used on telegraph poles.

Also there is a red box, which has the letters d. m. willens, optometrist printed on it, and a note beside it, saying, “This box of optometrist’s instruments though not very old has considerable local significance, since it belonged to Mr. D. M. Willens, who drowned in the Peregrine River, 1951. It escaped the catastrophe and was found, presumably by the anonymous donor, who dispatched it to be a feature of our collection.”

The ophthalmoscope could make you think of a snowman. The top part, that is-the part that’s fastened onto the hollow handle. A large disk, with a smaller disk on top. In the large disk a hole to look through, as the various lenses are moved. The handle is heavy because the batteries are still inside. If you took the batteries out and put in the rod that is provided, with a disk on either end, you could plug in an electric cord. But it might have been necessary to use the instrument in places where there wasn’t any electricity.