Hoodoo

“ The hoodoo may be anything particularly ugly or repulsive seen on the way to the game—a deformed old woman, a one-legged man, a lame horse, or a blind beggar, for instance. Most players are said to give full credit to the power of the hoodoo to bewitch them. Indeed, the term has been quite widely taken up as the synonym for bad luck, or, rather, the cause of150 it, even by the business world. If this is not, to all intents, a belief in witchcraft, it certainly comes very close to what passed for witchcraft two hundred years ago. ”

“ Have you ever heard of people who were ’hoodoos’? I guess you have. Well, sometimes I’m afraid I’m just that—like the snakes in that ring. I’m afraid I bring bad luck to people—people I like. It isn’t the harm to me that ever frightens 124 me. I guess I can fight that; but no one can fight a ’hoodoo,’ I guess; and your arm—”
“Oh, see here! Wake up, ’Tana, you’re dreaming! Who put that cussed nonsense into your head? ‘Hoodoo!’ Pshaw! I will have patience with you in anything but that. Did any one look at you last night as if you were a ’hoodoo’? Here comes Max ”

“ He wiped them away with his tooth-brush and passed on.
The next packet was much larger and evidently contained something soft and bulky. It had been too long to go into the stocking and was tied outside.
"I wonder what this is," Hoodoo mused, half afraid to open it. Then his heart gave a great leap, and he forgot all his other presents in the anticipation of this one. "It's the drum!" he gasped. "It's the drum, all wrapped up!" ”

“ I guess the sight of Red hurt her pride. Seated on the edge of the ticket stand, megaphone in hand, he was having the time of his life.
“La-adies and gents,” he yipped, “don’t forget the bi-ig show to-night. See Kermann, the great hoodoo magician, who has appeared before all of the crowned heads of Europe. Remember the [59] bi-ig show to-night at eight-thirty. O-only fifteen cents admission. Ten cents for kids.”
“That’s the kind of stuff to hand them,” grinned Scoop, “only don’t call me a ‘hoodoo’ magician. It’s ‘Hindu’ and not ‘hoodoo.’ ”
We could see that the Strickers were jealous of us. ”

“ As soon as she knew that she was no longer pinned by the jaws of the monster, the action of a strong mind was needed to ward off a threat of hysteria. But she controlled herself sufficiently to help William restore the Hoodoo to the perpendicular ”

“ I had a good opportunity of observing how the thing worked this Christmas, in the case of young Hoodoo McFiggin, the son and heir of the McFiggins, at whose house I board.
Hoodoo McFiggin is a good boy--a religious boy. ”

“ We mix things up that the Fates ordain, Bring back the past and the present detain, Postpone the future and sometimes tether The three and drive them abreast together— We rollicking, frolicking hoodoos! To us all things are the same as none And nothing is that is under the sun. Seven's a dozen and never is then, Whether is what and what is when, A man is a tree and a cuckoo a cow For gold galore and silver enow To magical, mystical hoodoos! SARALTHIA: What monstrous shadow darkens all the place, (Enter Smyler.) Flung like a doom athwart—ha!—thou? ”

“ Not all of the charms are to be seen by everybody; some are very private, and must be worn next the skin. The "hoodoos" and "fetiches" are of more importance than the ordinary charms, and their composition is more complex, consisting of leaves, barks, roots, horns and bones, either of man or beast, or of both, all carefully placed in a country-pot made of clay, and kept from every eye save that of the owners and perhaps near relatives. ”

“ Red Riding Hood's father has shouldered his axe, And is off to the woods again. At the thwacks and the cracks as the timber he hacks The echoing shades complain; But woe to the stem that his steel attacks, For its murmurs are all in vain. Red Riding Hood's mother has risen with day, As soon as the hens were awake, And down to the kitchen has taken her way, From the hearth all the embers to rake, And the butter and flour on the table to lay, For she's bent upon making a cake. But little Red Riding Hood's slumbering yet— She is terribly lazy, I fear ”

“ I have m}’self seen Hood only from the common level, but have beheld him in many moods and phases, when white, cold, and stern he towered rigidly over a winter landscape, and when draped from summit to base in a golden-tinted tissue of morning mist, through which he peeped like a girl in trying on a robe of yellow gauze,—not quite shaken down on one side, the petticoat of snow showing daintily underneath. Many are the solid old mountain’s masquerading airs, and, despite the dignity of his thousands of years, he sometimes affects the blushes of the rose. ”

“ There's the devil to pay. You heard Hoddy speak of the nigger who guarded the Holy Yhiordes, and that he [Pg 310] wanted to get out of Cairo before he turned up? Well, he turned up. He fooled Hoddy to the top of his bent. So far as I could learn, Fortune and Hoddy and Jones are all in the same boat, kidnapped by this Mahomed, and carried out into the desert, headed, God knows where! Now, don't get excited. Take it easy. Luck is with us, for Hoddy left all the diagrams with me. We need him, but not so much that we can't go on without him. You see, these Arabs are like the Hindus ”

“ Nobody loves me, but I'll teach my bird to love me."
"What is to be done about a cage for this little creature?" said Magdalen, looking up from her occupation of feeding the greenfinch with quillfuls of bread and milk. "Isn't there an old one anywhere about, that would do?"
"I'm afraid not," said Hoodie's mother. "What can we do?"
"Leave it in the basket for the present," said Magdalen. "And—if Hoodie is very good, perhaps——"
"Perhaps what?" said Hoodie, very eagerly.
"Perhaps some kind fairy will fly down with a cage for the poor little bird," said Magdalen, mysteriously. ”

“ Hodo seated himself delightedly at Charmides' table. Here, indeed, thought he, was a miracle: that a fellow scarcely attained to manhood, ignorant of every detail of the life and the language of a people also new to him, should have entered the gates of the greatest city in the world, and in four months find himself master of a household, earning a creditable income, and should at the same time have won for a wife one of the most delightful young women that the little Borsipite had ever seen. Ramûa, in fact, with one long-lashed glance, had completely conquered him. ”

“ In the midst of a snore The old lady woke up with a start, and said, "Lor! Red Riding Hood ne'er knocked so loudly before. Oh, deary me, it cannot be she; I 'll pretend I 'm still sleeping, and then we shall see." Rap, tap! once more She heard at the door: The wolf rapped so hard that his knuckles were sore. "The old woman sleeps like a top—what a bore! If she doesn't make haste, My time I shall waste— I shall miss that tit-bit who's so much to my taste." Rap, tap! Tap, rap! "She must wake from her nap, Or the child will be here Before I can clear Her foolish old grandmother up, every scrap." ”

“ Would their wardens ever wake up and see them fed? The carriers tied up his packs, and moved forward with a swing. Still there was no sign from the buck-sail, boy and master alike were still within, though the sun had climbed over the hills. Hood shrugged his shoulders, and moved off down the west road. He left that little mystery, as he had left bigger riddles in Africa, utterly unsolved.
Soon they dried themselves at a hospitable hut-fire in a village. It was Lady Day. Hood noted the seasonable blue-and-white of his blanket as he hung it on a rafter. ”

“ Hoodie forgot all her troubles in the pleasure of showing off her pets, and greatly distinguished herself by the cleverness with which she caught them and brought them up, one after the other, to be admired.
"Isn't they sweet?" she said, ecstatically; "when I'm big, I'll have a house with lots and lots of cocks and hens."
"I thought you were going to live in a cottage, like Red Riding Hood's grandmother, when you're big?" said Maudie, thoughtlessly. ”

“ We, the Brotherhood of Huo, laugh in scorn at the windy words of Zun. He sees a phantom up there in the darkness. Hia is swallowed up in Huo, whose body we have bound down to the rock for ever. Her spirit we have bound also to the moon-face, that we may see to work our will. By her bondage we shall live, but the life of Hia’s people shall be short and their death long. They shall die and become like soil, and those they leave behind them shall weep and wail and lament. ”

“ One day, just after the nursery breakfast, she hastened to her pet as usual. Rather to her vexation she saw that her two little brothers were standing by the cage, of which the door was open, Miss King beside them. Hoodie frowned, but did not venture to say anything.
"See, Hoodie," said Magdalen, "see how very confiding birdie has learnt to be. He has actually hopped on to Duke's finger when he whistled to him the way you do. It will do him no harm now to be friendly to other people too—now that he knows you so well. Look at him." ”

“ We closed the house on the fourteenth and went away, unforgiven by Robin Hood, who has never, so far as I know, come to human hand since Mary's clasp betrayed him to captivity. During those six days we caught flying glimpses of our estranged fosterling, easily recognized from a distance by the two white feathers in his tail, and a few times he started, by sheer force of habit, to hop across the road to us from Dame Gentle's, but, half-way over, he would turn sharply about, give an angry little yep, and hop back again. ”

“ And she's sure to reply, 'If you pull at the bobbin the latch will fly up.' That's how I get in." "Oh!" said wolf, in a hurry, "This lane is my way, So I 'll wish you good day." And he vanished at once in a terrible scurry; Said Red Riding Hood, "Doesn't he seem in a flurry!" Like a shot from a rifle,—or faster a trifle, Away goes the wolf, and, I 'll wager my life, 'll Be up to some mischief or other ere long, For his only delight is in doing what's wrong. ”

“ He ran backwards and forwards towards the jungle, and barked and tried to make them follow; but they wouldn’t understand, and so at last he had to set out himself to try and find him.
ow after Bab-ba had followed Hoodo a little way through the garden, the snake turned to a little path which led to a hole broken in the wall.
“You must crawl through here,” said Hoodo, “the pretty flowers are on the other side.”
So Bab-ba crawled through and found himself in the jungle.
urther on! further on!” cried Hoodo, every time Bab-ba stopped to gather any, “there are prettier ones further on.” ”

“ In all the writings of Hood that are not absolutely serious the grotesque is a present and pervading element. Often it shows itself, as if from an irresistible instinct of fantastic extravagance, in the wild and reckless sport of oddity. Combinations, mental, verbal, and pictorial, to ordinary mortals the strangest and the most remote, were to Hood innate and spontaneous. They came not from the outward,—they were born of the inward. They were purely subjective, the sportive pranks of Hood's own ME, when that ME was in its queerest moods. ”

“ And, when you hear the roaring of the sea overhead, and the great god Tangaroa lets loose the flood, then you will know that Te Makawawa has passed in safety, that his end is not yet.”
“And what then, O chief? Do we follow, or will you return?”
“I will let a rope down from above by the wall where you stand. Climb up the rope, O Friend. Then the Man-who-has-forgotten will tie the mountain lily to it, and together we shall draw her up, and let the rope down again for the Man-who-has-forgotten to ascend. ”

“ She creeps through the garden, Attempting to harden Her heart, and declare she "Don't care a brass farden." But, in spite of her trying, She's very near crying, And asking her granny to grant her a pardon. The knock is so faint, that the wolf's scarce aware That there's any one knocking, but cries out, "Who's there "Red Riding Hood"—here on her speech broke a sob in— "Come to see you." Said wolf, "If you pull at the bobbin, The latch will fly up!" So she opened the door, And tottered with terrified feet o'er the floor. Said wolf, "Where's the cake Mother promised to make?" ”

“ Hood’s fun is sometimes almost boisterous, Praed’s is never so. As regards the lighter verse, the advantage on comparison is all on the side of the younger man. But there is no other aspect to Praed. Notwithstanding the undertone of seriousness, notwithstanding too the strange power of that masterpiece of the grotesque, The Red Fisherman, it remains doubtful whether he had the capacity to be more than what he is, the prince of elegant and refined writers of light verse. Hood is indubitably a poet. ”

“ The Bishop of Hereford did not laugh, neither did the King, but he turned to the Queen, and quoth he, "Who are these men that thou hast brought before us?"
Then up spoke the Bishop hastily, for he could hold his peace no longer: "Your Majesty," quoth he, "yon fellow in blue is a certain outlawed thief of the mid-country, named Robin Hood; yon tall, strapping villain goeth by the name of Little John; the other fellow in green is a certain backsliding gentleman, known as Will Scarlet; the man in red is a rogue of a northern minstrel, named Allan a Dale." ”