“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 111 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 at jest this minute, and she sez to me, “I feel just as you do, I feel as though I would fain dwell here forever.”
And Josiah sez: “I believe it would be a good thing for you, Miss Meechim, to stay here right along; you could probable do considerable good here preachin’ to the natives aginst marriage, they’re pretty apt to marry too much if they’re let alone, and you might curb ’em in some.” (Josiah can’t bear Miss Meechim, her idees on matrimony are repugnant to him.) But she didn’t argy with him. She sez: “Robert is planning a trip to the Pali, and wants to know if you won’t join us.”
And Josiah says, “Who is Pali?”
And she sez, “It is the precipice five hundred feet high, where King Kamehameha drove off his enemies.”
Well, we wuz agreeable and jined the party. Robert had got a wagonette and he and Dorothy, Miss Meechim and Arvilly and Josiah and I jest filled the seats, Tommy sot in Josiah’s lap or between us.
It is quite a long ride to the Pali, but we didn’ realize it, because the scenery all along is so lovely and so novel. That view from the top I hain’t a-goin’ to try to describe, nor I sha’n’t let Josiah try; I don’t like to have that man flat out in his undertakin’s. Good land! do you want us to tell how many sands there wuz on the flashing white beach that stretched out milds and milds? And we might as well as to describe that enchantin’ panorama and take up all the different threads of glory that lay before us and embroider ’em on language. No, you must see ’em for yourself, and then you hain’t goin’ to describe ’em. I d’no but Carabi could. I hearn Tommy talkin’ and “wonnerin’” to him as he stood awestruck beside me, but no mortal can.
Well, I thought I must not slight the volcano Kilauea, which means the House of Everlasting Fire. And how that volcano and everything in Hawaii reminded me of the queen who once rained here––and the interview I once had with her. We happened to be visitors to the same summer resort. You know she lives in Washington, D. C., now.