he road is thirty milds
long, and if we tried it we shouldn't git here till they had done
blowin'."

"I hain't no idee of tryin' it, Josiah, I wuz only revellin' in the
idee of what the glory of the sight must be."

"Well," sez he, "I am revellin' in the idee of havin' a good meat
dinner if we ever git to Hilo." And he added with a sarcastick smile,
"Don't that make you think of poker? High, low--all it wants is Jack
and the Game."

I gin him a stern look and sez, "Some knowledge is demeanin' to a
perfessor." And he acted puggicky and didn't say another word for a
mild or so. But I sot calm and looked away into the entrancin' seen.
And all the time we wuz rollin' on towards the volcano.

Robert and Dorothy seemed to be enjoying the seen as much as I did,
and Arvilly wuz tryin' to canvass the Scotchman. The Englishman had
already bought the "Twin Crimes," and so she wuz as happy as she ever
would be, I spozed.

Well, after that long enchantin' ride through Paradise, at last we
reached the place we wuz bound for and put up to the Volcano House,
from which a good view of the volcano is seen at night, but nothin' to
what it is to stand on its shores. Well, I will pass over all
intervenin' incidents, some as the lava duz when it gits started, and
draw the curtain on us agin as we stood in front of that awful,
majestic, dretful, sublime, unapproachable, devilish, glorious--a
thousand times glorious--and not to be forgot till death, sight.
Tongue can't utter words to describe it; the pen hain't made, the egg
hain't laid to hatch out the soarin' eagle whose feathers could be
wrought into a pen fittin' to describe that seen. Why, I have thought
when the mash got to burnin' down to the lake it wuz a grand sight;
Jonesvillians have driv milds to see it. I have seen upwards of ten
acres of the mash burnin' over at one time, and felt awestruck, and so
did Sister Bobbett, for we went down together once with our pardners
on a buckboard. But, sez I to myself almost instinctively:

"What if Sister Bobbett wuz here? What would she say?"

Imagine a great lake of fire instead of water, waves of burning lava
dashing up onto its shores, bustin' way up in the air at times,
towerin' pillers of flame, swishin' and swashin', fire and flames, and
brimstun for all I know. What--what wuz goin' on way down in the
depths below if this wuz the seen outside? So wildly I questioned my
heart and Josiah. "Oh, Josiah!" sez I, "what--what a sight!