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TITLE: THE MAGICIAN'S SHOW BOX AND OTHER STORIES
AUTHOR: LYDIA MARIA CHILD
EBOOK: E00566 (O'Briens Book Cellar)

THE MAGICIAN'S SHOW BOX,

AND

OTHER STORIES.

BY

LYDIA MARIA CHILD

The Author of "Rainbows for Children."

CONTENTS

  THE MAGICIAN'S SHOW BOX

  THE VIOLET FLAME

  FLORIBEL

  THE LADY INTELLETTA

  VENUS'S DOVE

  THE GALA-DAY

  EARNING ONE'S OWN LIVNG

THE MAGICIAN'S SHOW BOX.

There was once a boy, named Gaspar, whose uncle made voyages to China,
and brought him home chessmen, queer toys, porcelain vases,
embroidered skullcaps, and all kinds of fine things. He gave him such
grand descriptions of foreign countries and costumes, that Gaspar was
not at all satisfied to live in a small village, where the people
dressed in the most commonplace way. At school he was always covering
his slate with pictures of Turks wearing turbans as large as small
mosques, or Chinese with queues several yards long, and shoes that
turned up to their knees. Then he read every story he could find of
all possible and impossible adventures, and longed for nothing so much
as to go forth, like Napoleon or Alexander, and make mincemeat of the
whole world.

One day he could bear it no longer; so, taking with him an oaken
dagger which he had carved with great care, off he started on his
conquering expedition.  He walked along the sunny road, kicking up a
great dust, and coining to a milestone, threw a stone at a huge
bullfrog croaking at him from a spring, and made it dive under with a
loud splash.  Pleased with his prowess, he took a good drink at the
spring, and filled his flask with the sparkling water. At the second
milestone he threw a pebble at a bird, singing in a tree. Off flew the
bird, and down fell a great red apple. "Ah, how fine!" he exclaimed,
picking it up; "and how the bird flies! I wish I had such wings." On
the third milestone sat a quiet-looking little man, cracking nuts; so
Gaspar stopped to crack nuts, and have a chat with him.

The man was very entertaining, and Gaspar listened and listened to his
wonderful stories until he saw the milestone shadow stretching far
along the bank. Then he jumped up and was going to walk on, but hop
went the little man quite across the road. Gaspar went the other side;
hop came the little man back again; and so they dodged about, hither
and thither, until Gaspar's patience was quite exhausted.

"He is only a small fellow, after all," he thought; "I can take a good
run and jump over him." He took the run and gave the jump, but the
little man shot up high into the air, and he might as well have tried
to jump over the moon.

"It is a most singular thing!" said Gaspar to himself; "a little gray
man, not much larger than I am, and yet he seems to be every where at
once, like sheet lightning. There is no getting by him, and all the
time he looks at me with those bright eyes and that quiet smile, as if
he were really very much amused. Well, he must go to sleep by and by,
and then I can step over him and walk off."

So he lay down, pretending to sleep, and the little man lay down also,
with his face turned to the sky. When Gaspar thought him fast asleep,
he arose very softly, believing he could now surely escape; but at his
very first step up came a sly hand, catching him by the foot, so that
down he fell at the old man's side, and there saw the bright eyes
gazing up at the stars, without a wink of sleep in them. But Gaspar
soon forgot his travels, with all his bold intentions, and fell asleep
himself, to dream of skewers and cimeters.

In the morning the little man said, "Come now, it is foolish for you
to go trudging about over the world. You will never see any thing more
than polywogs and sandflies, and those you can find in your native
village. Give me a drink from your flask, and a bite of your apple,
and I can show you more wonders in a day in my show box here, than you
would find wandering about for a lifetime."

Then he drew from the pocket of his gray coat a neat box, carved of
ivory, and having taken a bit of the apple and a sip of the water,
which Gaspar never thought of refusing, he touched a spring, up flew
the lid, and Gaspar peeped in. Ah, but it was a wondrous sight; for on
and on moved a procession of all imaginable things. Lions and
elephants seemed mere puppies, for here were mastodons and
ichthyosauri, and animals that lived before the flood was ever dreamed
of; and as for Turks and turbans, why, there were people with
headdresses that towered up into the skies, and ladies who made
rainbows pale.  There were queens whose thrones were all one driven
pearl, and warriors whose swords were a flash of sunbeams.

"Ah, yes!" exclaimed Gaspar; "this is better than travelling. But how
shall I remember all these enchanting sights?  I must make a note of
them." And seizing his wooden sword, he began to draw in the sandy
road each figure as it appeared.

Hour after hour the procession passed on in the little ivory box. Hour
after hour he drew it in the sand, and that little man stood by, with
his quiet smile and great politeness. At length a loud hallooing was
heard, and they saw all the boys from the village running towards
them.

"What is going on here?" they called out. "Never were such clouds seen
as have been sailing over the village to-day. Whales and astronomers,
kings and crocodiles, and nobody knows what.  They all sail from this
direction, and we have come to see what is going off here.  Can it be
you, Gaspar, who are raising such a wind? Did you draw all these
lively things in the sand, and blow them up into clouds?"

Gaspar said he knew nothing about the clouds, but he thought it was
getting rather dark, and was as much surprised as any of the boys, to
see what grand figures he had thrown up into the sky.  He begged his
new friend to show the boys his box; but he said, "No, it was not for
them," and put it into his pocket.

They all laughed at it, and said such great creatures never came out
of that little paint box.

Gaspar went back to the village with the boys, and for a while was
quite contented with the remembrance of what he had seen; but at last
his old love of travelling awoke in him. He did not feel satisfied to
have seen wonderful nations and animals merely passing through a show
box, but wanted to see them in living reality; but how was he to get
by the little magician? On foot he knew it was impossible, but thought
he might succeed on a fleet horse. So he went to his friend Conrad,
and offered him the apple which could never be eaten, for his good
cantering horse. Most boys are fond of red apples, but Conrad cared
for nothing else but apples and apple dumplings, not even for his
cantering horse, and readily exchanged him for Gaspar's apple, which
he could be constantly eating.  Off rode Gaspar with whip and spur,
sure now that the little gray man could not stop him.

As he cantered along the road very grandly, there were those bright
eyes fixed upon him.

"Whither so fast to-day?" said the gray man, with his queer smile.

"That's nothing to you," answered Gaspar; and on he tried to go; but
hop went the little man, to and fro, just as he did before, and Gaspar
did not like to run his horse directly over him; indeed he might as
well have tried to ride over the winds of heaven; so he jumped off,
exclaiming, "It's no use dodging about in this way; come, now, let's
fight it out;" and he drew his oaken dagger with a great flourish.

"Ah, ha! that is it, is it?" said the magician; and out flashed a
steel dagger.  At it they went, striking their weapons against each
other with might and main.  At every stroke Gaspar's wooden dagger
became sharper and sharper, and when he left off fighting he found it
was changed into good steel; but it was useless to hope for victory
from such a combatant, who might have pierced him through and through
at any moment, as Gaspar very soon saw; so he put up his dagger, and
they sat down on the stone, cracking their nuts and jokes together in
the old way.

"Now," said Gaspar, "if I had a few bags of nuts like these, I could
make my fortune. They do not grow in our village, and I have told the
boys about them until they are all wild to have some.  But I suppose
you cannot give me any, for although you never get out of them, you
seem only to have a handful at a time."

"Gaspar," answered the gray man, "there is no end to my nuts; we might
crack here until doomsday, and I should still have thousands and
thousands of uncracked ones left. I do not think much of them myself,
but you are young and easily amused, and if you would like a bag or
two, why, here they are;" and he held up his hands with a great sack
full of nuts in each. Gaspar jumped on his horse, dragged the bags up
after him, while the little man looked smiling on, and rode home to
the village.

What a shouting there was when the boys saw him riding through the
streets with his great bags of nuts! They offered him bat and ball,
hoop and kite; but Gaspar said he did not care for such childish
things; he wanted something to be of use on his travels round the
world. "You had better go to Lawyer Clang's," called out a newsboy;
"he has a horse such as never was seen afore."

Gaspar rode straight to Lawyer Clang's office, and walked in, horse,
sacks, and all.

"Sir," said he, "what will you give me for this cantering horse and
these very hard nuts?"

"My horse Wayfare; and a more serviceable animal was never known. I am
getting a little tired of him myself, but he is just the thing for
you, if you wish to see the world."

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