_By Virginia H. Reichard_
Along in the early nineties as I was traveling in the West, selling
shoes, I left the train at the little junction of Skywaw and surveyed
the town. I found that the proverbial hotel, blacksmith shop, general
store and a handful of houses, beside the depot, comprised the town.
After supper at the hotel, where I was waited upon by the landlord's
pretty daughter, I asked about the storekeeper across the way and found
to my surprise that he carried about a ten or twelve thousand dollar
general stock which included everything from a sheepskin to a paper of
needles. The farming country being so good, it was no wonder that this
man did almost as big a business as many others in much larger towns,
so the daughter told me, while the landlord himself chipped in with a
question: "Why, don't you know this is just the richest spot in Wahoo
County? In fact the ground is too rich. Just think of it--too rich to
grow pumpkins."
"Why," I asked, "can't you grow pumpkins?"
With a smile of confidence that his joke was entirely new he replied:
"The vines grow so fast it drags them over the ground and wears them
out. Go up and see the storekeeper and if you sell him you get your
money for the goods sure thing, for he sells for cash only."
I picked up my grips and started to see my man at once; found him
standing in the door chewing a quid and spitting out into the street at
any stray chicken or dog that chanced to wander by. As he stood there
indifferent, expressionless, he looked the typical Westerner, with an
air of "do as you darn please" about him; pants tucked into a pair of
boots that were run over and worn off at the toe in a peculiar way that
would indicate to a shoeologist that he was a sharp, keen trader, very
suspicious of strangers, hard to strike a trade with unless he could
see a hundred per cent in it for himself. In early days he had been a
horse trader and a dealer in buffalo hides, and had never seen the time
when he couldn't tell what o'clock it was better by the sun than by a
watch; a hard man to approach on the shoe subject as his mind didn't
seem to hover around shoes.
There must have been a depression in his skull where his bump of order
was supposed to be, as from the general appearance it looked as if the
devil had held an auction there the day before. I began my little
"spiel" by telling my business--who I was, where I was from--and asked
if my conversation would interest him at all if I talked about shoes
for awhile, remarking incidentally: "You'll have some business now
sure. Trade will get good right away, as I never opened up my samples
in a man's store in my life but what customers came dropping in."
"Well, then, for God's sake open them up. I need the business all right
enough," quoth he.
Then strange to say, as if to cinch what I had said, up rode six
country boys on horseback, and in a minute the big strapping fellows
came tramping in. You know the kind that work on a farm all day, ride
to town to buy one pound of sugar for family use and ten pounds of
chewing tobacco for their own use, and other articles in like
proportion while they are having a good time.
Taking seats on the counter opposite, they began a lot of loud talking.
One picked up a turnip and began peeling it, poising it on the tip of
his knife-blade, taking large bites, and never for a minute losing
sight of what we were doing in the shoe line.
It took a lot of persuading to get the proprietor to look at my
samples, but I soon noticed the shrewd gleam of his eyes that told that
he had had hold of good leather before and was a much better judge of
my line than I expected to find in such a place. But talk about
exhorting! How I worked with that fellow. And after keeping it up for
two whole hours--from seven until nine, I finally landed him, selling
him a little over five hundred dollars' worth of shoes. As I was
getting a straight eight per cent commission at that time, the sale
made me a little over forty dollars for two hours' work, and I was
feeling mighty good. Even my cold-blooded customer had warmed up some
from the effects of the deal on which he saw he was bound to make a
good thing.
While I was packing up my samples he said, sort of edging around: "Say,
can't you sing us a song or dance us a jig or do something to entertain
us all? You travelin' fellers allus know somethin' new, and are up to
whatever is goin' on over the country, ain't ye?"
I replied: "I can't sing; I am out of voice; but if you can furnish the
music I can dance a jig or clog. Oh, by the way, did you ever see any
sleight of hand or legerdemain tricks?"
None of them ever had; didn't even know what they were, and solemnly
assured me they were something new in that burg.
As I had been practicing coin tricks and other feats of sleight of hand
for the last ten years and could do many of the former, making the
coins appear and disappear at will in a mysterious manner, I decided to
try this form of amusement, thinking I had an easy bunch to work on. So
I showed them a silver dollar, giving it to one of them to examine,
passing it on to each one of them in succession, just to show them that
it was a genuine, everyday piece. Then taking it in my hand, I
proceeded to manipulate the coin by picking it out from underneath one
fellow's foot as he sat on the counter dangling his long legs; taking
it from another fellow's chin; picking it out from the pocket of the
jumper one of them had on; finding it in the next man's ear; and
finally, coming to the proprietor, I told him to hold his thumb and
finger together, pointing up; then took the coin from between his own
thumb and finger without his realizing how it got there or how it got
away. I caught his startled look--the fellows jumped down off the
counter and crowded close together--wonder and amazement written all
over them. This was the first time in their lives they had ever seen a
sleight of hand trick, where the motion of the hand is so quick the
sight cannot follow it.
But presto, chango, begono, magico, came near being too much for them.
They were absolutely horror stricken. Some of them were unable to
speak; some were afraid to; others couldn't speak above a whisper; and
one of these desired to know when I would be back in that country
again. He wanted Brother Bill to see it; in fact he would like to bring
the whole family in.
The proprietor's face was a study. Doubt, surprise and suspicion passed
over his face in succession, but gave way to fresh curiosity when I
asked him to bring me two hats and I would do Hermann's parlor trick
with two hats and four balls. The method of doing this is to place the
four balls in a square about three feet apart on a counter or a table,
then place the hats over two of the balls; the object being to find all
four balls under one hat, without, of course, anybody seeing how they
got there. This I accomplished successfully, and this performance
seemed to bring them close to the limit. They had been craning their
necks to see, but when it was over they all straightened up, took a
step backward in line and looked at one another. Then one of them said
solemnly:
"Folks is gettin' geniuser and geniuser every day, boys. Ain't it so?"
And Pete nudged Jim to make sure it was no dream, then spat excitedly
on the rusty stove.
The proprietor had been eyeing me with suspicion for a good while. I
noticed whenever I would pass in front of him he would step back and
plant his hands tight on his pockets where he kept his money, as if he
thought I might somehow coax it to jump out unless he held it in by
main force. Legerdemain had scared him some and made him both
suspicious and wary.
Pretty soon I began to realize I had done a little too much; in fact, I
had given them a little more than they had been able to digest. But
like many another fool who has overstepped, I tried to make up by
giving them something in another line.
The proprietor looked up with a distrustful glance. "Is that all you
can do?"
"That's all in the trick line, gentlemen. But I have something that I
can do that is out of the line of tricks. It's a gift--mind-reading.
Only about one in six millions has it. I do the same as Brown, Johnson
or Bishop--those big guns you have heard about--in finding any given
object. And if you, sir (to the proprietor), will place your mind on
any one of the ten thousand articles in this store, concentrating your
mind on it, I will get the object you are thinking about and hand it to
you."
"You can't do that; it ain't possible," he said.