Juggler

“ Said the hesitating manager, unconscious of this interlude, “I don’t half like that basket trick.”
“Why?” demanded the juggler, surprised. “It’s the best thing I can do. And when we rehearsed it, I thought we had it down to a fine point.”
“Yes,” still hesitating, “but I’m afraid it’s dangerous.”
The juggler burst into laughter. “It’s as dangerous as a pistol loaded with blank cartridges! See here,” he cried joyously, turning with outspread arms to the group of youths fantastic in their stage toggery, “I call you all to witness—if ever Millden Seymour hurts me, I intended to let him do it. ”

“ The juggler was hardly disposed to felicitate himself upon this feat of simulation which had served to deceive the whole of his native city, and to bury a stranger, as it were, in his own grave. He began to pity the plight of the dead if they could so yearningly remember the life they had left. ”

“ He was all the more easily flattered to be thus singled out by the juggler, the conspicuous cynosure of all eyes, to give his judgment and pronounce upon the identity of the seed. The love of notoriety is a blasting passion, deadening all considerations of the conformable. ”

“ Not so Tubal Cain Sims. It is to be doubted whether in all his life he was ever so earnestly and markedly benign and courteous as when he again met the juggler. His whole manner was so charged with the sentiment of placation that the young man’s quick discernment easily divined his state of mind and his covert terrors. It eliminated for the present any other course of action than drifting along the smooth tides of love’s young dream, for no elopement was possible when there was naught from which to flee. ”

“ It was no way, he argued within himself, to assume the character of a lovesick swain by demonstrating his superiority to the fair maiden,—to flout her poor and painful efforts by the exhibition of his glib accomplishment. “I must needs always have an audience,—be always exhibiting my various feats and knacks. I was born a juggler,” he said ruefully. ”

“ The danger had come very near. Rough handling might well be encountered amongst these primitive wights, inflamed by pulpit oratory and religious excitement, and abetted by their pastoral guide. “In two minutes,” he went on, “I can teach you to perform this simple feat which seems to you impossible to human agency. It is nothing but sleight of hand, a sort of knack.”
For one moment Parson Greenought hesitated, beguiled. His eye kindled with curiosity and eagerness; he made as though he would leave the bench whereon he was ensconced, to approach the alluring juggler. ”

“ And if in the ensuing excitements his mind did not match his lowly attitude, the juggler is not the only man who has ever been upon his knees with no prayer in his heart. Taking license from the stir near at hand, he too shifted his posture that his furtive glance might command a view of the man thus deputed to pray.
The suppliant was among the congregation, but his face, as he knelt in an open space near the pulpit, was irradiated by the slant of the sunset glow. Beheld above the benches and the kneeling congregation, it had a singularly detached effect,—it was like the painting of a head ”

“ He was wonderfully quick in learning, even quick in acquiring any mechanical art that struck his attention. He had really become a skillful prestidigitator (how the juggler blessed the six-pronged unpronounceable word as Euphemia struggled to take hold of it, and finally left it as incomprehensible!) : and this came about partly through his extraordinary quickness, and partly because no one could resist his fascinating bonhomie, and many a traveling artist in legerdemain had imparted his professional secrets to him from sheer good will and liking. ”

“ The suggestiveness of this lyric of two tones was not lost on the juggler. He was pierced by the poignancy of exile. He could hardly realize that he was of the same species as the beings who [28] had formed the “cultivated and intellectual audience” he had had the honor to entertain. Not one process of his mind could be divined by them; not one throb of their superstitious terrors could he share. ”

“ In the midst of the clamor of denial of any greater possible proficiency, from the two old people, [208] who had not heard the juggler’s reading during the afternoon, she involuntarily cast upon him so appealing, so disarming a glance that for once he was ashamed to even secretly laugh at them.
“If it’s erudition that goes,” he said afterward, lighting his pipe under the stars and finding the grace to laugh instead at himself, “I am the learned man to suit the occasion.” ”

“ The poor juggler does not seem to take much by his motions, however, for, after swallowing an intolerable quantity of stone, and throwing up large bricks, and allowing them to break themselves on his head, thereby creating baldness on the crown, and otherwise amusing a distinguished circle of spectators for twenty minutes, he mildly solicits "cash," and has a wretched pittance thrown into the ring, much as one would throw a bone to a dog. ”

“ This same juggler performed many tricks of producing great dishes of water from under his garments, the mere enumeration of which, might prove to be tiresome.
I was walking along the street one day near the mouth of Filial Piety Lane where a large company of men and children were watching a juggler, and from the trick I thought it worth while to invite him in for the amusement of the children. ”

“ Screams of delighted mirth came from the younger portion of the audience, and exclamations hardly less flattering from the laughing elders. But ever above the babel terrified shrieks, shrill and clamorous, rose higher and higher, and the juggler frowned with sudden sharp annoyance when he distinguished the fact that an elderly woman was crying out that these were the works of the devil,—that here was Satan, and that she would not bide easy till he was bound, neck and heels together, and cast forth into the river. ”

“ But although he had had his spiritual sufferings of denial, and floutings, and painful patience, and hope that played the juggler with despair, he had anticipated no ordeal like this. He looked in her eyes for some token of relenting, his own full of tears above the hardly quenched brightness of his fervor of faith, a quiver on his lips.
Her face was set and stern. With a realization how deeply the fantasy had struck roots in his [184] nature, she perceived that she must needs share it or flee it. ”

“ As the juggler stepped back to the platform he took up the table-cloth and shook it out, that they might all be assured that there was nothing concealed in its folds.
[12] “Now, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, taking heart of grace and his former manner of covert half-banter and mock politeness together, “we all know that it is by the action of the sun on the soil, and the dew and the rain, that the seeds of plants germinate and the green herb grows for the service of men. ”

“ Here and there reassuring voices confirmed the spokesman, and as the discomfited juggler turned to the table drawer, resolving on something less bloody-minded, he heard a vague titter from that portion of the building in which, being young, he had already observed that the greater number of personable maidens were seated.
None so dread ridicule as the satirist. ”

“ But Euphemia was her only child, and it is not necessary that the materials shall be ivory and gold and curious inlay to enable a zealous worshiper to set up an idol. Mrs. Sims looked into the juggler’s handsome face with its alert eyes and blithe mundane expression, and as proxy she loved him so heartily that she did not doubt his past, nor carp at his future, nor question his motives. The fact of his lingering here so long—for he had asked only a night’s lodging, and afterward had taken board by the week—occurred to her more than once as a symptom of a sentimental interest in Euphemia ”

“ Perhaps they were as well content, however, with the appearance of two live rabbits from the folds of the large white silk handkerchief of an old gentleman in the crowd, borrowed for the purpose, and the little boy who came up to receive the article for restoration to its owner went into an ecstasy of cackling delight, with the whole front row in delirious refrain, to find that he had one of the live rabbits in each of the pockets of his jacket, albeit the juggler had merely leaned over the footlights to hand him back the handkerchief. ”

“ The juggler, as he listened, repeatedly felt that cold thrill which he was wont to associate with a certain effect on his critical faculties. Only a high degree of excellence in whatever line appealing to them was capable of eliciting it. ”

“ Unfortunately, it was at the moment that the young man’s hands, grasping the persimmon shoot near the base, drew it forth from the earth with a wrench, so firmly was it planted, and showed to the discerning bucolic gaze the fully developed root with the earth adhering to its fibres; thus proving by the eyesight of the audience, beyond all power of gainsaying, that it had sprouted from the seed and grown two feet high while this juggler—this limb of Satan—had sung his little song about his Pretty Jane.
A man rarely has to contend with an excess of faith in him and his deeds. ”

“ He was fain to step down from the platform and hand the seed to the old man on the front bench, whose bleared eyes were glittering with delight in the greatest sensation that had ever fallen to his lot; for the juggler judged that of all the audience he was nearest the masculine counterpart of the progressive Jane Ann Sims. The old man, in his circle, was not a person [13] of consideration nor accustomed to deference. ”

“ The juggler was out of countenance. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, with indignation coloring his face to the roots of his hair, “these things are done for amusement. If they fail to amuse, they [8] fail altogether. I will go on, or, if you desire, your money will be refunded at the door.”
“Lawd, naw, bub!” exclaimed a toothless old fellow, bent nearly double as he sat on a front bench, his clasped hands between his knees. “We-uns want ter view all ye know how ter do,—all ye know how ter do, son.” ”

“ The feathers are yet nodding in the distance, when the juggler has the basin spinning on a cane, and has the same crowd to admire it. But the juggler’s wife is less alert than usual with the money-box, for a child’s burial has set her thinking that perhaps the baby underneath her shabby shawl may not grow up to be a man, and wear a sky-blue fillet round his head, and salmon-coloured worsted drawers, and tumble in the mud. ”

“ I viewed it plain this time,” said one of these.
“He can’t fool me,” protested a sour-visaged woman who kept up a keen espionage on all the world within the range of her pink sunbonnet.
“One lie never mended another,” said the old preacher aside in a low voice to a presiding elder. “Potsherds, lies are, my brother; they hold no water.”
The juggler could deceive them easily enough, but alack, he could not undeceive them! ”

“ The Juggler Look how he throws them up and up,
The beautiful golden balls!
They hang aloft in the purple air,
And there never is one that falls.
He sends them hot from his steady hand,
He teaches them all their curves;
And whether the reach be little or long,
There never is one that swerves.
82 Some, like the tiny red one there,
He never lets go far;
And some he has sent to the roof of the tent
To swim without a jar.
So white and still they seem to hang,
You wonder if he forgot
To reckon the time of their return
And measure their golden lot. ”

“ He had developed a vivid curiosity concerning the [63] juggler. The suggestion of the devil’s agency was a far cry to his fears,—be it remembered he had not seen the bayonet swallowed!—and he had phenomenal talents for contrariety, and graced the opposition with great persistence and powers of contradiction.
“Bein’ ez ye hev reason ter suspect that man o’ murder or sech, we-uns ain’t got the right ter give him hours ter leave. Ye ain’t got the right ter turn him out’n yer house ter escape from the off’cers o’ the law.” ”

“ It was with a good-natured feigning of interest that the young men pressed round, at first, all willing to aid the salving of the honest pride which their offering had evidently so lacerated. But this gave way to an excitement that had rarely been paralleled at New Helvetia Springs, as feat [365] succeeded feat. The juggler was soon eager to get away, having served his purpose of eluding their bounty, but this was more difficult than he had anticipated. ”

“ This faculty I wished to acquire and apply to sleight-of-hand; still, as music could not afford me the necessary elements, I had recourse to the juggler’s art, in which I hoped to meet with an analogous result.
It is well known that the trick with the balls wonderfully improves the touch, but does it not improve the vision at the same time? In fact, when a juggler throws into the air four balls crossing each other in various directions, he requires an extraordinary power of sight to follow the direction his hands have given to each of the balls. ”

“ The juggler’s prudential motives had collapsed utterly in the prospect of Mrs. Sims’s society in the long walk home. He looked about him with a desperate hope of diversion, in which Euphemia and the curiosity she had newly excited were factors. But he was fain to be content with his elderly companion, for as Euphemia’s rose-hued dress blossomed in the portal against the dark brown background of the interior he noticed that Owen Haines was standing at the foot of the steps evidently awaiting her. ”