d
magnificent oleanders and fuchias and geraniums and every other
beautiful tree and blossom you ever hearn on.

And take it with these rich colored posies and luxuriant green foliage
and the white suits and hats of the men, and the gay colored clothing
of the women we met, lots of them with wreaths of flowers round their
necks hangin' most to their feet, take it all together it wuz a seen
long, long to be remembered. And then we walked up on Punch Bowl
Hill, five hundred feet above the level of the sea, and looked off on
a broad beautiful picture of sea, mountain and valley soft and
beautiful and a-bloom with verdure, and anon bold, rugged and sublime,
and I sez to Josiah:

"This very place where we're standin' now wuz once a volcano and
belched forth flames, and that also," sez I, pintin' to Tantalus that
riz up two thousand feet. "And," sez I, "they say that the view from
that is glorious."

"Well," sez he, "I guess we hadn't better climb up there; it might
bust out agin. And I wouldn't have you sot fire to, Samantha, for a
thousand worlds like this," (he didn't want the work of climbin', that
wuz it). And I didn't argy with him, for I thought it would be quite a
pull for us to git up there and git Tommy up, and I didn't know as the
child ort to climb so fur, so I didn't oppose my pardner when he
propsed to go back to the tarven, and we santered back through the
streets filled with citizens of all countries and dressed accordin',
to the grounds around the tarven. We put Tommy into a hammock and sot
down peaceful nigh by him. The sun shone down gloriously out of a
clear blue sky, but we sot in the shade and so enjoyed it, the bammy
air about us seemed palpitating with langrous beauty and fragrance,
and I sez to my pardner:

"Don't this remind you, Josiah, of what we've heard Thomas J. read
about:

"'The island valley of Avileon
Where falls not rain nor hail nor any snow.'"

"Where it seems always afternoon."

"I d'no," sez Josiah, "as I ever hearn of such a land. I never wuz any
hand to lay abed all the forenoon."

"But, Josiah, there is sunthin' so dreamy and soothin', so restful in
the soft slumbrous atmosphere, it seems as if one could jest lay down
in that hammock, look off onto the entrancin' beauty around,
breathin' the soft balmy air, and jest lay there forever."

"I guess," sez he, "that the dinner bell would be apt to roust you out
the second or third day."

But Miss Meechim jined us