“Bread and milk!” sez he bitterly. “I want pork and beans, and ham, and biled greens, and chicken pie and Injun puddin’!”
“Well, well,” sez I, “be calm. Do jest see them great waves and fields of lava, milds and milds of ’em, once jest melted fire, rollin’ on and rollin’ on––what a sight!” sez I. On one side wuz a sort of a high terrace, over which the fiery flames had fell and hardened into solid waves lookin’ some as our Niagara would look if her flowin’ waters should suddenly harden as they flowed. I pinted it out to Arvilly, who wuz by my side. Sez I, “Do look at that! It seems as if Nater had jest hung up that stupendous sheet there and writ on it the word Glory! Unapproachable glory and magesty!”
Sez Arvilly dreamily, “If I could jest dig out in that smooth lava the words, ‘The Twin Crimes of America––Intemperance and Greed,’ and train the volcano to run blazin’ fire into the mould, what a advertisement that would be for my book, or for the ‘Wild, Wicked and Warlike Deeds of Man.’ It would help the sale of both on ’em tremendously.”
And I sez, “Don’t try to train no volcanos, Arvilly; you would find them worse to handle than any man you ever tackled.”
“Well,” sez she dreamily, “I believe it could be done.”
Robert Strong and Dorothy stood clost together, he a-protectin’ her, as I spozed. ’Tennyrate he seemed dretful careful where she stepped and how and when, and she looked up real confidin’ and sweet into his face, and then, awestruck and wonder smit, down into the burnin’ lake below. The Englishman and Scotchman had gone on a little nigher to it, with the guide. Hale-mau-mau (House of Endless Fire), well did the natives name it. Well, it wuz long before we tore ourselves from the sublime seen, and I dremp 127 of it all night. I see Josiah bore from me on the lava flood, and then agin I wuz swep’ from him and dashed up on a billow of flame, and visey versey, versey visey. I had a dretful night, and got up twice and looked out of the winder on the grand spectacle. But towards mornin’ I had a beautiful vision: my pardner and me wuz bore back to Jonesville, and sot in our own door yard under a spreadin’ geranium tree, and Sister Bobbett stood admirin’ly before me with a tea-cup in her hand, beggin’ for a slip from the immense branches. It wuz a sweet dream, and I waked up refreshed.
CHAPTER XI
Well, one week later we found ourselves agin on the boundless deep, the broad Pacific, bound for the Philippines. How fur off from Jonesville did I seem as I thought on’t, but Love journeyed with me, and Duty. Tommy wuz gittin’ fat and rosy, his cough grew better every day, and he looked and acted like a different child.