But where wuz Josiah? On every side wuz folks settin’ and walkin’, and mounds of sand with sometimes a head stickin’ out, or a foot, or a arm, or a nose. I had hard work to keep from treadin’ on ’em. There would be little hillocks of sand with mebby a child’s head or foot stickin’ out.
Anon a mound over a fat man or a woman big as a hay stack. I walked along for some time keepin’ a clost watch on every side, but no Josiah did I see nor no mound I felt wuz hisen, till jest as I wuz ready to drop down with fatigue with my arjous work to keep from treadin’ on folks, I ketched sight of a nose stickin’ out of a small mound that I thought sure I reconized. My heart bounded at the sight. My first look wuz to see if any girl mound wuz nigh him. But there wuzn’t nothin’ but some children’s heads and feet stickin’ about, and I hastened to that nose and poked the sand from it with my umbrell cryin’:
“Dear Josiah! Is this indeed your nose? Have I found you at last?”
When to my horrow a fierce red whiskered face rared itself up from the sand, and jabbored 289 at me in a onknown tongue; onknown the words, but the language of anger can be read in any tongue. Hisen betokened the most intense madness, and I spoze that in my agitation I might have jabbed him some with my umbrell, and I hastened away, tromplin’ as I did so in my haste on various heads and arms, and follered by loud busts of what I most know wuz blood curdlin’ profanity, though not Jonesville swearin’.
Well, I wuz tired out and discouraged. No Josiah, no pardner! I felt some like a grass widder, or I guess it wuz more like a real widder. ’Tennyrate my feelin’s wuz too awful to describe, so lonesome, so cast-down and deprested. And no knowin’ as I would ever feel any better, no knowin’ if that dear man would ever be found. And what would life be without him? Nothin’ but a holler mockery filled with movin’ shadders, the Reality of life gone and lost.
Night wuz comin’ on apace and I thought I might as well abandon my quest for the time, so I returned to Bildad’s feelin’ some as if I wuz a sickly serial readin’—“To be continued in our next.” For I knowed that I would resoom the search bright and early, and find that man or perish in my tracks. 290
Friday—onlucky day, as it has always been called—had gone to jine the days of the past. I sot on the piazza at Bildad’s lookin’ out on the seen that, bewilderin’ as it wuz by daylight, wuz ten times more bewilderin’ly beautiful by night. Like stars in the tropics, the electric lights flashed out over the hull place, the greatest number of electric lights in the same space in the world, I wuz told and believe.
Every pinnacle, battlement, tower, balcony, winder, ruff, wuz edged with the blazin’ fire embroidery. And the tall mountains, palaces, graceful bridges, piers, pleasure places of all kinds, looked fairy like, under the friendly hand of Night. And ’way up to the very heavens Dreamland tower lifted itself, a gigantic shaft of dazzling brilliancy, dominatin’ the hull island. Passingly beautiful tower by night or day, the first thing the homesick mariner sees as he approaches his Homeland.
Thousands and thousands and thousands of gay pleasure seekers trod the walks to and fro. Thousands and thousands more, rich and poor dined in the gay restaurants and balconies, surrounded with flowers and light and music. And still other thousands enjoyed the myriad amusements afforded them. Bildad’s sister, 291 who wuz on a visit there from Hoboken, thinks it aristocratick, and herself more refined and rare to run the place down. Lots of folks do that; they go there and stay from mornin’ till night, go up in the Awful Tower, take in every Bump-de-Bump and Wobble-de-Wobble, and then turn up their noses talkin’ to outsiders about it, as fur as their different noses will turn. She was lame at the time from tromplin’ all over the place for the past week. But she sez to me (with her nose turned up as fur as it could, bein’ a pug to start with):