The orange-trees yielded other things beside shadow, though perhaps
nothing better 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 sweetness 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 exactly 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 devoured wild
oranges by the dozen, or in place of sweet ones; one sour orange goes a
good way, as the common saying is; but I ate them, nevertheless, or
rather drank them, and found them, in a thirsty hour, decidedly
refreshing.
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