CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
IN WHICH I CONTINUE MY SEARCH FOR JOSIAH THROUGH DREAMLAND, HUNTIN’ FOR HIM IN VAIN, AND RETURN TO BILDAD’S AT NIGHT, WEARY AND DESPAIRIN’
Creation wuz such a good show I felt considerable rested and refreshed when it wuz over. And I thought the woman looked quite a little perter; it duz down-trod folks lots of good to have somebody take their part. I felt kinder good to think I had lightened a sister female’s sperit a little, and wuz walkin’ along quite comfortable in mind when like an arrow out of a bo, the old pain and anxiety stabbed me afresh. Another hour gone and Josiah Allen not found! What shall I do? Where shall I turn the eyes of my spectacles? Jest as I wuz askin’ this question to my troubled soul I hearn a boy speak to another one about a futur’ state of punishment in sich a vulgar and familiar way that I turned round to once, carryin’ out my roll of Promisicous Adviser, and I 276 sez, “You wicked boys you, to talk so light of your future states, I wonder you dast! If I wuz your mother and had had your bringin’ up, you wouldn’t dast!”
They looked real impudent at me, and one on ’em sez, “You hain’t the money to go with, that’s what ails you.”
I sez solemnly, “Riches is a snare. I know how hard it is for the eye of a needle to have a camel git through it; I know how the rich man longed for a drop of water. And you’d better meditate on these things and try to git used to heat, instead of talkin’ light about ’em!” I don’t know how much longer I should have gone on as a P. A. and P. I. but the woman I had befriended stepped up and sez, “He means the show there.” And lookin’ up, if you’ll believe it, I see the words “Hell Gate,” and sez she, “I have got two tickets and my husband don’t care about goin’, won’t you go with me?”
I thought to myself, he probably thinks he’ll have chances to sample it in the futur, but mebby he wuz jest sulky. But I only sez to her, “It is the last place I ever laid out to go unless I wuz obleeged to. But lead on,” sez I recklessly, “I’ll foller.” For the thought had come to me onbid, How did I know how fur 277 Josiah Allen had back-slided? How did I know but I’d find him there?
“We got in a small boat and wuz carried round and round till we dived into a dark tunnel.”
But to my great surprise—and I wish Elder Minkley could see it, I thought mebby it would modify his sermons some—the first thing we see wuz a great trough of water, and I said to the woman in surprise, “I never expected that folks would go to this hot place by water!” 278 But we got into a small boat and wuz carried round and round like a whirlpool, till the boat got in the very center, when it dived down into a dark tunnel.