;
Molasses flows
Where our river goes.
Under your feet
Lies sugar sweet;
Over your head
Grow almonds red.
Our lily and rose
Are not for the nose;
Our flowers we pluck
To eat or suck.
And, oh! what bliss
When two friends kiss,
For they honey sip
From lip to lip!
And all you meet,
In house or street,
At work or play,
Sweethearts are they.
So, little dear,
Pray feel no fear;
Go where you will;
Eat, eat your fill.
Here is a feast
From west to east;
And you can say,
Ere you go away,
'At last I stand
In dear Candy-land,
And no more can stuff;
For once I've enough.'
Sweet! Sweet!
Tweet! Tweet!
Tweedle-dee!
Tweedle-dee!"
"That is the most interesting song I ever heard," said Lily, clapping
her sticky hands and dancing along toward a fine palace of white cream
candy, with pillars of striped peppermint stick, and a roof of frosting
that made it look like the Milan Cathedral.
"I'll live here, and eat candy all day long, with no tiresome school or
patchwork to spoil my fun," said Lily.
So she ran up the chocolate steps into the pretty rooms, where all the
chairs and tables were of different colored candies, and the beds of
spun sugar. A fountain of lemonade supplied drink; and floors of
ice-cream that never melted kept people and things from sticking
together, as they would have done had it been warm.
For a long while Lily was quite happy, going about tasting so many
different kinds of sweeties, talking to the little people, who were very
amiable, and finding out curious things about them and their country.
The babies were made of plain sugar, but the grown people had different
flavors. The young ladies were flavored with violet, rose, and orange;
the gentlemen were apt to have cordials of some sort inside of them, as
she found when she ate one now and then slyly, and got her tongue bitten
by the hot, strong taste as a punishment. The old people tasted of
peppermint, clove, and such comfortable things, good for pain; but the
old maids had lemon, hoar-hound, flag-root, and all sorts of sour,
bitter things in them, and did not get eaten much. Lily soon learned to
know the characters of her new friends by a single taste, and some she
never touched but once. The dear babies melted in her mouth, and the
delicately flavored young ladies sh
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