88 ALONG THE HILLSBOROUGH. 
than that. They were resplendent with 
fruit, and on my earlier visits were also in 
bloom. One did not need to climb the hill 
to learn the fact. For an out-of-door sweet- 
ness it would be hard, I think, to improve 
upon the scent of orange blossoms. As for 
the oranges themselves, they seemed to be 
in little demand, large and handsome as they 
were. Southern people in general, I fancy, 
look upon wild fruit of this kind as not ex- 
actly edible. I remember asking two colored 
men in Tallahassee whether the oranges still 
hanging conspicuously from a tree just over 
the wall (a sight not so very common in 
that part of the State) were sweet or sour. 
I have forgotten just what they said, but I 
remember how they looked. I meant the 
inquiry as a mild bit of humor, but to them 
it was a thousandfold better than that: it 
was wit ineffable. What Shakespeare said 
about the prosperity of a jest was never more 
strikingly exemplified. In New Smyrna, 
with orange groves on every hand, the wild 
fruit went begging with natives and tourists 
alike; so that I feel a little hesitancy about 
confessing my own relish for it, lest I should 
be accused of affectation. Not that I de- 
