Not far away from there is Jericho. On the southwest rises the Hill of Zion, one of the four hills on which Jerusalem stands. As I looked on it I spoke to my pardner almost 284 onbeknown to me, “Oh, Josiah! how many times we’ve sung together:
‘The Hill of Zion yields a thousand sacred sweets,
Before we reach the heavenly fields or walk the golden streets.’
“But,” sez I, “did you ever expect to set your mortal eyes on’t?” He wuz affected, I could see he wuz, though he tried to conceal it by nibblin’ on some figs he had bought that mornin’.
Miss Meechim wuz all carried away with the seen as the guide pinted out the different places. Robert Strong and Dorothy didn’t seem to want to talk much, but their faces wuz writ over with characters of rapt and reverential emotion.
Arvilly for once seemed to forgit her canvassin’ and her keen bright eyes wuz softened into deep thought and feeling. Tommy, who had heard us talkin’ about Herod walling in that part of the city, wonnered how any man could be so wicked as the cruel king who killed all the little children, and he wonnered if there ever wuz another king in the hull world so wicked.
And my Josiah soothed his childish feelings by assuring him that all such wicked rulers wuz dead and buried ages ago.
And so queer is Arvilly’s mind since what she’s went through that she spoke right up and told Tommy that there wuz lots of rulers to-day jest as wicked and fur wickeder. Sez she, “There are plenty of men in every city in America that get the right from the rulers of the country to destroy children in a much worse way than to cut their heads off.”
Sez she, “There are men who entice young children to smoke cigarettes, drugged on purpose to form a thirst for strong drink, then enticed into drinking-dives, where goodness and innocence are murdered and evil passions planted and nursed into life, for the overthrowing of all their 285 goodness, for the murder of their family’s safety and happiness and making them the nation’s menace and greatest danger.”
And Tommy wonnered and wonnered what could make men do so, and so did I.