CHAPTER XXI
ALMOST CAUGHT
“Well, now, Miss Helen, what’s the trouble?” asked the ring-master, while Joe continued to gaze at the “vision.”
“Oh, I can’t get any lump sugar for Rosebud, and you know he won’t eat the other kind.” Her lips pouted prettily, and then she smiled—Joe declared at him, though it may have been at both of them.
“No lump sugar, eh? Well, that sure is a calamity!” laughed Jim Tracy. “I’ll have to see to that. Rosebud must have his sugar.”
“If he doesn’t, you know he won’t do his tricks well,” went on the girl, now smiling broadly. “Please get some for me, Jim.”
“I sure will, if I have to rob the breakfast table! I’ll be back in a minute,” he added to Joe. “You might wait here.”
Joe was perfectly willing to wait. He hoped the “vision” would return.
“Is he a new performer?” asked the girl, nodding and smiling at Joe, as she walked off with the ring-master.
“Well, no, not exactly, Miss Helen. I’ve made him an offer—I just had to, after I saw him doing some stunts on a trapeze—but he seems to think he likes magic better.”
“Then he doesn’t like our circus?” The girl stopped, and once more she pouted prettily.
“Oh, it isn’t that, I assure you!” exclaimed Joe quickly. “But you see I am under some obligations to Professor Rosello, and I don’t want to leave him in the middle of the season.”
“That’s right,” chimed in Jim. “It’s best to play fair. But come along, Miss Helen, and I’ll see if I can rustle some sugar for Rosebud.”
“Good-bye!” she called to Joe. “But I should think you’d like a circus better than doing those queer tricks. Though they are nice,” she added, with a little nod.
The sun seemed to have gone under a cloud to Joe as she went out of the tent. Brightness had vanished.
“I—I almost wish I had taken his offer,” mused the lad. “I wonder——” he paused as he remembered the flash of her brown eyes and her smile. “No, I’d better stick to the professor. Maybe—later——Oh, well, I’ll have to think about it.”
He walked about, looking at the preparations still going on to get the main tent in readiness for the show. He saw Jim coming back, alone.
“Did you get the sugar?” he asked the ring-master.
“Yes. Rosebud won’t starve to-day.”
“Who’s Rosebud?”
“Her trick horse, and a dandy, too.” Then, though Joe did not ask, Jim went on. “She’s one of our biggest drawing cards. Her name is Helen Morton, but she’s billed as Mademoiselle Mortonti. It looks better on paper.”
“What does she do?” Joe found himself asking.
“Fancy riding, and on a trick horse. She makes Rosebud do all sorts of tricks—amuses the young folks, and some of the old ones too. She makes a great pet of her horse and gives him lump sugar as a reward. I generally have a supply on hand for her, but it must have got side-tracked on account of the mix-up. However, I found some for her.
“She’s one of the finest little girls in the world,” went on the ring-master earnestly. “We all love her. She’s an orphan, but she doesn’t lack friends. Some folks sort of look down on circus performers,” went on Jim, with a flash of his eyes, “but I want to tell you, right now, that——”
“You don’t need to tell me anything,” said Joe in a low voice. “My mother was a circus performer. Madame Hortense was the name she rode under.”
Jim stared at Joe with open mouth.
“Your mother in the profesh?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, I can’t say I ever heard of her—but that’s not strange,” said the ring-master slowly. “I haven’t been in the business all my life. But if your mother was a circus rider then you know. Shake!”
He held out a powerful hand. Joe gripped it none the less powerfully.
“Say, you’ve got some hold!” exclaimed the ring-master with admiration in his voice. “Better think my offer over.”
“I’d like to,” answered Joe, “but I’d better stick where I am for the present.”
“Well, you know best. But if you ever decide to join—you can always find our advance route bookings in one of the theatrical papers. Drop me a line.”
Joe promised to do so, and went outside, perhaps hoping for a sight of Miss Morton. But he did not see her. He did, however, see much that interested him in the way of circus life, and he understood something of the fascination it had for his mother, especially as she was such an accomplished horsewoman; and feats of horsemanship are nowhere better appreciated than in a circus.
“Well, did you see all you wanted?” asked Benny Turton, as Joe rejoined him.
“Yes, I saw lots. Even got an offer to go with the show.”
“You didn’t!”
“Yes I did,” and Joe narrated his experience.
“Say, I think maybe you’d make out good in a circus,” said Benny, holding up his scaly suit for a close examination. He wanted no more leaks in it.
“No, I’ll stick to magic for a while yet,” Joe answered. “But I think you’ll be busy soon, getting ready for the performance, so I’ll leave you. Remember, I’m coming to see you do your stunt.”
“I hope you do.”
As Professor Rosello was not going to give a show that evening, Joe was free. He went to the afternoon and evening circus performances, and he tried to tell himself that it was to watch the “human fish” and some other special acts. But though Benny’s act was interesting and startling, Joe paid more attention to the riding of Miss Helen Morton and the tricks of her horse, Rosebud, than he did to Benny. And the performance of Mademoiselle Mortonti was well worth watching. It was a beautiful exhibition of horsemanship on the part of a refined young girl, and it brought forth round after round of applause, in which Joe joined enthusiastically.
The circus moved out of town after the final performance, and Joe and the professor gave their show.
They did not draw as large crowds as they would have done had not the counter attraction of the circus operated against them, but they did fairly well.
Joe introduced a new trick, which made an instant hit. It was very simple, too.
When his turn came to occupy the stage he advanced with a candle and a box of matches in his hand.
“Fire is a mysterious element,” he stated. “It is a good servant but a bad master. Well controlled, fire and light are very useful. Now I have here a candle which is exceptionally well educated. That is it can be lighted, extinguished and lighted again by the mere movement of my wand.
“Now I don’t say every one can do this, for you have not all of you magic wands. But, lest some of you think the trick is easy, I am going to ask one of you to come up here and light this candle. Will you come?” and he indicated a young man in a front seat. After some hesitation the youth ascended the stage.
“Do you know which end of a match to light?” asked Joe. The youth grinningly admitted that he did. Joe then handed him a candle and bade him light it. When it was aglow Joe handed the youth the wand, and told him to point it at the candle.
“Just point it at the flame, and order it to go out—vamoose!” Joe ordered. The youth tried this, but the candle still burned on. “I guess you’ll have to speak louder,” observed Joe with a smile, “the candle may be deaf.”
Accordingly the youth shouted, but still the candle burned.
“Louder!” urged Joe, and the youth fairly yelled. But still the candle burned brightly. “You see not every one has the magic power,” stated the young performer. “Now let me show you how it is done.”
“Just help this young man down the steps,” Joe directed his assistant, the boy previously referred to. “I am afraid he may have strained himself shouting.”
There was a laugh at this, and the audience watched Joe’s helper solicitously assisting the volunteer down the steps.
While this was going on Joe had taken the lighted candle and had walked back with it to one of his tables, on which he placed it.
“Now I will show you how it is done,” he said. “Ah, the wind has blown out the candle, but as the wind can not light it again I will first do so with a match, and we will then call on the forces of magic to do the rest.”
Joe lighted the candle, and then, standing some little distance from the table on which the glowing taper stood, he pointed his wand at it, and cried:
“Out, candle!”
Immediately the candle was extinguished.
“No, I didn’t blow it out.” Joe said, pretending that some one in the audience had said that. “To prove it I will, without moving, light it from where I stand.” Then he exclaimed:
“Candle, light!”
At once the candle leaped into a glow. There were surprised exclamations at this, and Joe repeated the trick several times.
“It is very easy when you know how,” he said, “and to prove there is no trick about it I will pass the candle down to you for examination.” Joe tossed a candle among the audience. Several examined it. There was no doubt that it was just an ordinary candle.
“How did he do it?” every one asked.
The secret lay in a trick candle. The first one Joe lighted for the young man was an ordinary taper. Once blown out it could not be lighted except with a match.
But when Joe had his helper assist the young man down off the stage, the young magician took advantage of the fun and confusion over this to substitute on his table a trick candle for the ordinary one.
This trick candle consisted of a metal tube, painted white, and made to look exactly like a candle, with a metal point at the top to represent a wick. Inside the hollow metal tube was a small wax taper, a miniature candle, and it was held up near the top by an inside, spiral spring. The spring was strong enough to carry up the taper as fast as it burned, but could be pulled down by a black silk thread, coming out at the bottom of the candle stick, and extending across the stage through the draperies, where it was held by Professor Rosello, who helped Joe in this illusion.
Joe quickly substituted the trick candle for the real one and lighted it, pretending that the wind had blown that one out as he walked to the table.
With the trick candle aglow, Joe only had to take his position where he pleased, and order the candle to go out. At once Professor Rosello, behind the scenes, pulled the black thread, invisible to the audience. The taper, still lighted, was pulled down inside the hollow metal candle stick, and, of course, it seemed just as if it went out. It was still burning, however, some small air holes on the back of the tube, where they could not be seen, providing the oxygen.
When Joe, pointing the other end of his wand at the candle, ordered it to light, Professor Rosello released the string, and the concealed spring raised the still lighted taper into view, so that the candle appeared to light itself in a mysterious manner.
Thus Joe did the trick, which was received very well, causing quite a sensation. Professor Rosello complimented him on its success.
It was toward the close of the performance. Joe was about to step down off the stage to pass through the audience with a vase for examination, when he looked to the back of the hall, and there, to his great surprise, he saw the vindictive face of his foster-father, Deacon Blackford. Joe gasped, and quickly turned back. Under pretense of arranging the trick with the professor, Joe whispered:
“My foster-father is out in the audience. He must have been following me and he has come here to arrest me. He thinks I stole that money, but I didn’t. I don’t want to be falsely arrested. What shall I do?”
The professor thought quickly.
“It was a narrow escape,” he said. “He almost caught you. He is probably waiting for you to come down in the crowd so he can grab you. Quick now. Go behind the scenes. I’ll hold the audience with some patter. Then you tell the boy to come out and help me with this trick. He can do it as well as you, as it is very simple. I’ll finish the rest of the show alone.”
“But what shall I do?” asked Joe.
“Slip out by the stage door, go to the hotel, get your things and take the first train for Seneca. We show there next. I’ll come on as soon as I can pack up after the show. We’ll fool the deacon. There is no need of being arrested if you are innocent, and it is evident he came here to take you into custody. It’s a good thing you saw him in time.”
Joe hurried back of the scenes, while Professor Rosello held the attention of the audience, including that of Deacon Blackford.