As soon as I got rested enough I took sights of comfort a walkin’ round the grounds and a smellin’ the sweet breath of the posies on every side of me.
And watchin’ the gay birds a flutterin’ back and forth like big livin’ blossoms on wing.
And a listenin’ to the song of the little rivulet as it wound its way round amongst the pretty shrubs and flowers, as if it wuz loath to leave so beautiful a place.
Yes, I see that our son Thomas Jefferson had done well to make the dicker he had made and get this place for his own.
There wuz several little hills or rises of ground on the lawn, and you could see from them the roofs and chimneys of two little villages a layin’ on each side of Belle Fanchon, and back of the house some distance riz up a low mountain, with trees a growin’ up clear to the top. It wuz over that mountain that we used to see the sun come up (when we did see it; there wuzn’t many of us that see that act of hisen, but it paid us when we did—paid us well).
First, there would be a faint pink tinge behind the tall green branches of the trees, then golden rays would shoot up like a flight of gold arrows out over the tree-tops, and then pink and yellow and pinkish white big fleecy clouds of light would roll up and tinge the hull east, and then the sun would slowly come in sight, and the world would be lit up agin.
Down the western side of Belle Fanchon stretched the fair country for a long ways—trees and green fields, and anon, or oftener, a handsome house, and fur off the silvery glimpse of a river, where I spoze our little rivulet wuz a hurryin’ away to jine in with it and journey to the sea.
Yes, it wuz a fair seen, a fair seen. I never see a prettier place than Belle Fanchon, and don’t expect to agin.