“Yes,” sez Josiah, “I’d love to tell Elder Minkley and the brethern I’d been there.”
And Miss Meechim went on to say that she wanted to see the Acropolis and the Hall of the Nymphs and the Muses.
And Josiah told me that “they wuz nobody he had ever neighbored with and didn’t know as he wanted to.”
I guess Miss Meechim didn’t hear him for she went on and said, “Athens wuz named from Athena, the goddess Minerva.”
And Josiah whispered to me “to know if it wuz Minerva Slimpsey, Simon’s oldest sister.”
And I sez, “No, this Minerva, from what I’ve hearn of her, knew more than the hull Slimpsey family,” sez I. “She wuz noted for her wisdom and knowledge, and I spoze,” sez I, “that she wuz the daughter of Jupiter.”
Josiah said Jupiter wuz nobody he ever see, though he wuz familiar with his name. And I’d hearn on him too when Josiah smashed his finger or slipped up on the ice or anything, not that I wanted to in that tone. Arvilly thought mebby she could canvass the royal family or some on ’em, and Tommy wuz willin’ to go to any new place, and I spoze Carabi wuz too. And I said I wanted to stand on Mars’ Hill, where Paul preached to the people about idolatry and 386 their worship of the Unknown God. As we sailed along the shores Dorothy spoke of Sapho. Poor creeter! I wuz always sorry for her. You know she wuz disappointed, and bein’ love-sick and discouraged she writ some poetry and drownded herself some time ago.
And Robert Strong talked a good deal to Dorothy about Plato and Homer and Xenophon and Euripides, Sophocles, Phidias, and Socrates––and lots more of them old worthies; folks, Josiah remarked to me, that had never lived anywhere round Jonesville way, he knew by the names. And Dorothy quoted some poetry beginning:
“The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece.”
And Robert quoted some poetry. I know two lines of it run: