Page:Florida Trails as seen from Jacksonville to Key West and from November to April inclusive.djvu/143

 the field do not take that color, nor are they so massed. The whole looked as striking and out of place as the weather in which I saw it. In this same town of Hastings is a big orange grove from which the fruit had been but half picked, the rest hanging, waiting for the holiday rush to be over, the market cleaned up, and the prices better. There the orange leaves were curled and crisp with the frost and a thousand boxes or more of splendid, golden fruit was still hanging, yellow, beautiful in the chill sun—and solid blocks of ice, from kumquats which are as big as one's thumb to grapefruit almost as big as one's head.

There is an alligator friend of mine out by the city gates for whose safety on that first cold morning I was much concerned. For free alligators one need have but little worry. Safe under water in the warm corners of the swamps they were sleepy and happy and would not come out till the sun called them with sufficient vigor to assure them a warm day. Nor need I worry much for the city alligator who is put into the little pond beneath a fountain in the plaza on the first of January, to be removed no doubt when the tourists go. The steady outflow of warm artesian water would make him comfortable. The East Coast railroad people have two that they put into similar tanks in their station grounds. These, too, seem to be a part of the decoration in honor