Wall, thinkses I, accordin’ to his idees that is considerable of a time. Alice, of course, didn’t care to stay there long, as she had stayed there all durin’ her vacations, and took excursions all over the country with that Miss Ponsione and her folks; there seemed to be a hull lot of ’em, all girls, as nigh as I could make out.
And it wuz from her that I learnt that her Pa had fell and sprained his ankle and hurt his head, and wuz bed-sick all the time he wuz in Germany; he wuzn’t able to lift his head from the piller, and so I guess it wuz ruther exhaustin’ study he gin to it. But I wanted to see the Rhine—I wanted to see “Fair Bingen on the Rhine,” I wanted to like a dog, and I told Alice so.
But she said Bingen looked jest about like any other city. And come to think on’t, I spoze it wuz the homesick longin’ for his own country that made the “Soldier of the Legion” want to see it so bad, and made its seenery seem fairer and lovelier, and made its moonlight fairer and brighter than that which looked down on that fur-off battle-field, where his body lay, and his homesick sperit a-wanderin’ off to “Fair Bingen on the Rhine.”
I eppisoded this to Josiah, and he sez with a sad look on his face—he wuz awful beat out, and his corns ached fearful—“Yes, that is it, I feel jest so; I could talk jest as melogious and affectin’ this minute about ‘Fair Jonesville on the Lyme.’”
Sez I, “You may feel jest as bad, Josiah, but you can’t write sech poetry as that.”
“Whattle you bet?” sez he, a-settin’ the bottle of liniment on the stand; he’d been tryin’ to irrigate them corns of hisen and quell ’em down some. “Whattle you bet I can’t?”
Sez I mildly, “That Soldier of the Legion wuz dyin’ in Algiers.”
“Wall,” sez he, “I’m a-dyin’ in France; what’s the difference?”
Sez I, “His talk about his distant home is enough to make anybody weep.”
“Home!” sez he. “Can’t I talk about home? Why,” sez he, “if I should swing right out into poetry and describe my feelin’s, nobody would look at that soldier’s verses agin, if I should let myself out and tell the beauties of Jonesville, and what we’ve been through sence we left its blessed presinks; why that soldier didn’t begin to know what trouble wuz. He wuz a single man,” sez he.