The Candy Country - Page 2

the green fields, and sugar birds sang in the trees.

Lily listened, and in a moment she understood what the song said,--

"Sweet! Sweet! Come, come and eat, Dear little girls With yellow curls; For here you'll find Sweets to your mind. On every tree Sugar-plums you'll see; In every dell Grows the caramel. Over every wall Gum-drops fall; Molasses flows Where our river goes Under your feet Lies sugar sweet; Over your head Grow almonds red. Our lily and rose Are not for the nose; Our flowers we pluck To eat or suck And, oh! what bliss When two friends kiss, For they honey sip From lip to lip! And all you meet, In house or street, At work or play, Sweethearts are they. So, little dear, Pray feel no fear; Go where you will; Eat, eat your fill. Here is a feast From west to east; And you can say, Ere you go away, 'At last I stand In dear Candy-land, And no more can stuff; For once I've enough.' Sweet! Sweet! Tweet! Tweet! Tweedle-dee! Tweedle-dee!"

"That is the most interesting song I ever heard," said Lily, clapping her sticky hands and dancing along toward a fine palace of white cream candy, with pillars of striped peppermint stick, and a roof of frosting that made it look like the Milan Cathedral.

"I'll live here, and eat candy all day long, with no tiresome school or patchwork to spoil my fun," said Lily.

So she ran up the chocolate steps into the pretty rooms, where all the chairs and tables were of different colored candies, and the beds of spun sugar. A fountain of lemonade supplied drink; and floors of ice-cream that never melted kept people and things from sticking together, as they would have done had it been warm.

For a long while Lily was quite happy, going about tasting so many different kinds of sweeties, talking to the little people, who were very amiable, and finding out curious things about them and their country.

The babies were made of plain sugar, but the grown people had different flavors. The young ladies were flavored with violet, rose, and orange; the gentlemen were apt to have cordials of some sort inside of them, as she found when she ate one now and then slyly, and got her tongue bitten by the hot, strong taste as a punishment The old people tasted of peppermint, clove, and such comfortable things, good for pain; but the old maids had lemon, hoarhound, flag-root, and all sorts of sour, bitter things in them, and did not get eaten much. Lily soon learned to know the characters of her new friends by a single taste, and some she never touched but once. The dear babies melted in her mouth, and the delicately flavored young ladies she was very fond of. Dr. Ginger was called to her more than once when so much candy made her teeth ache, and she found him a very hot- tempered little man; but he stopped the pain, so she was glad to see him.

A lime-drop boy and a little pink checker-berry girl were her favorite