We disembarked on the clean little wharf and walked up to the lot Whitfield had bought. It wuz a pretty place in a kind of a holler between high rocks, but with a full and fair view of the river on the nigh side, on the off side and on the back the tall trees riz up. The site of the house mebby bein' so low down wuz the reason that there wuz good deep earth there. Tirzah Ann spoke of that most the first thing:-- "I can have a good suller, can't I?" Whitfield spoke first of the view from the river, and little Delight sez, "Oh what soft pretty grass." Josiah looked round for a minute on the entrancin' beauty of the water and the islands and up into the green shadders of the trees overhead, and then off into the soft blue haze that wrapped the beautiful shores in the distance. After gazin' silently for a minute he turned to me and sez, "Didn't you bring any nut cakes with you? I'd like one to eat whilst I think of another Island far more beautiful than this, where I yearn to be." I groaned in spirit but handed him the desired refreshment, and then we talked over the subject of the cottage. Whitfield thought it would be splendid for the health of Tirzah Ann and the children, to say nothin' of their happiness. She and Delight both looked kinder pimpin', and he sez, "Mother, I've got the lot, and now I am going to lay up money just as fast as I can for our house; I hope we can live here in a year or two anyway." Well, we stayed here for quite a spell, Whitfield and Tirzah Ann buildin' castles higher than Castle Rest, on the foundations of their rosy future, underlaid with youth and glowin' hope--the best-lookin' underpinnin' you can find anywhere. And little Delight rolled on the green moss and built her rosy castles in the illumined present, as children do. And I looked off onto the fur blue waters some as if I wuz lookin' into the past. And furder off than I could see the water, the meller blue haze lay that seemed to unite earth and heaven, and I looked on it, and way off, way off, and thought of a good many things. Josiah wuz tryin' to ketch a fish for supper; the boatman had a pole and fish hook, but he couldn't ketch any, he hadn't any nack; it takes nack to ketch fish as well as worms. CHAPTER FIVE JOSIAH'S IMAGINATION ABOUT HIS FISHIN' EXPLOITS CARRIES HIM TO A PINT WHERE I HAVE TO REBUKE HIM, WHICH MAKES HIM DRETFUL HUFFY CHAPTER FIVE JOSIAH'S IMAGINATION ABOUT HIS FISHIN' EXPLOITS CARRIES HIM TO A PINT WHERE I HAVE TO REBUKE HIM, WHICH MAKES HIM DRETFUL HUFFY The next morning we went over to Alexandria Bay on a tower. We walked up to the immense hotels past the gay flower beds that seemed to be growing right out of the massive gray boulders, and great willer trees wuz droppin' their delicate green branches where gayly dressed ladies and good-lookin' men wuz settin'. And in front wuz fleets of little boats surroundin' the big white steamboats, jest as contented as big white geese surrounded by a drove of little goslins.