On one side riz up a high mountain full of green shrubs and flowers, and windin’ round and round from the bottom clear to the top, went cars filled with men and wimmen, boys and girls, up, up, down, down, as fur as from our house to Betsy Bobbet Slimpsey’s; but no Josiah wuz among the winders up or the winders down.
Even as I looked, a elephant passed me with stately tread, bearin’ on his richly ornamented back a small-sized man with a bald head; but it wuzn’t Josiah’s baldness or his small, meachin’ figger.
Two high tiers of balconies stretched along on one side, ornamented off with white pillows and posies where folks could set and eat their good meals, and enjoy the music and the never ceasing gayety. Beneath ’em, above ’em and beyond ’em, as fur as they could, see, towers, pinnacles, battlements, steeples, palms, flowers, color, light, music, and the endless, endless procession of pleasure hunters passin’ below. Rich men, poor men, wimmen in satin and serge, shiffon and calico, babies, boys and girls.
I made the calculation that about a million 241 folks could be accommodated on them balconies. I may have got one or two too many; I didn’t stop to count.
Lower down run a low, ornamented ruff, coverin’ hundreds of little tables where folks could set and git soft drinks and hard. The hard drink’s true to its name everyway. For when did the Whiskey Demon ever turn out anything but hard, from the time it exhilerates the consumer till it drives him away from love, home, friends, happiness, and at last gives him a final hard push, sendin’ him into a onlamented grave!
But truly no one has time to moralize or eppisode to any extent amidst the music, laughter and gay voices, the endless procession passin’ by. To most a seen of happiness, but to me they seemed like shadders; the Reality of life, my beloved pardner, wuz lost, lost to me. A pleasant lookin’ female standin’ by, seein’ the emotion in my face, and wantin’ to cheer me up, I spoze, sez:
“Have you tried the Loop de Loop?”
I answered with a sad dignity, “Yes, I’ve done considerable tattin’ in my day.”