Wall, I wuz so lost in my own feelin’s of delight, and so carried away some distance by ’em, that I clean forgot that I wuz still in the flesh and still had a earthly pardner by the name of “Josiah.” But I wuz too soon fetched back to a realizin’ sense on’t.
For even as the sweet echoes wuz a-floatin’ back from peak to peak lingerin’ly, as if they wuz loth to let go on ’em, a voice spoke beside me—
“You’ll hear yodellin’ when we git home, Samantha Allen. Hereafter I shall never say ‘co-boss, co-boss’ to cows, or ‘co-day, co-day’ to sheep; after this I shall always yodel to ’em. Why,” sez he, “what a stir it will make in Jonesville! how the inhabitants will gather round me as I stand on the blackberry hill and yodel acrost to the creek paster! Why,” sez he, all carried away with the subject, as his nater is, “mebby I can learn Uncle Sime Bentley, so he can yodel back to me; mebby,” sez he, growin’ ambitious, “I shall yodel to Sister Bobbett and she that wuz Submit Tewksbury.”
Sez I coldly—“Do you confine your yodellin’ to dumb brutes, Josiah, who hain’t got sensibilities nor feelin’s to be woonded.”
“Mebby you hain’t willin’ I should yodel to Ury; but I’ll let you know I shall anyway, mom!”
“Wall,” sez I, “he is used to your performances; he won’t mind ’em so much.”
I knew it wuzn’t best to draw the string too tight; I knew I couldn’t break up his yodellin’ out to the barn, or round, when I wuzn’t in sight, and I felt that I would be glad to confine it to dumb brutes, and Ury, and sech.
Wall, anon, after passin’ through lovely seens—lovely ones, we found ourselves on beautiful Lake Lucerne, the most beautiful lake in Switzerland, or the hull world, for all I know—beautiful, beautiful for situation it is. You could spend weeks a-admirin’ the lovely views, and then begin agin and keep it up for years.
And before long we found ourselves, much to my pardner’s relief, in a good tarvern with a long Swiss name, that I always forgit, and called it to myself “The Swizzler,” which wuz jest as good so fur as I wuz concerned.
We didn’t stay here long, owin’ to Martin’s pecular views. But we hearn the organ in the old cathedral, and I wuz carried fur away from myself into the land of happiness, love, and peace, into the realm—where is it?—that lays so nigh to us, that a burst of glorious music will sweep us right into its gates, but so fur off that we hain’t never ketched a glimpse of its glorified mountains with our nateral eyes.