Back Home: Being the Narrative of Judge Priest and His PeopleCobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)
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Back Home: Being the Narrative of Judge Priest and His People
Cobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)
Kentucky -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, American
More wonders were coming. Daniel the Mystic and D. C. Davello hauled two
wooden chairs up close together and placed them facing each other; then
lifting Jack, still rigid and frozen, they put his head on the seat of
one chair and his heels on the seat of the other and stepped back and
left him suspended there in a bridge. We voiced our astonishment in
an anthem of gasps and overlapping exclamations. Not one of us in that
town, boy or man, had ever seen a person in hypnotic catalepsy.
Before we had had time enough to take this marvel all in, Daniel
the Mystic put his foot on Jack and stepped right up on his stomach,
balancing himself and teetering gently above all our heads. He was tall
and must have been heavy; for Jack's body bent and swayed under the
weight, yet held it up in the fashion of a hickory springboard. Some
of the men jumped up then and seemed about to interfere. Old Mr. Herman
Felsburg's face was red and he sputtered, but before he could get the
words out Daniel the Mystic was saying soothingly:
“Be not alarmed, friends. The subject is in no danger. The subject feels
no pain and will suffer no injury.”
“Just the same, Mister, you get down off that little boy,” ordered Mr.
Felsburg. “And you please wake him up right away. I don't care much to
see things done like that in my store.”
“As you say,” said Daniel the Mystic easily, smiling all round him at
the ring of our startled faces. “I merely wished to give you a small
demonstration of my powers. And, believe me, the subject feels no pain
whatsoever.”
He stepped off of him, though, and Jack's body came up straight and
flat again. They lifted him off the chairs and straightened him up, and
Daniel the Mystic made one or two rapid passes in front of his face.
Jack opened his eyes and began to cry weakly. One of the clerks brought
him a drink, but he couldn't swallow it for sobbing, and only blubbered
up the water when Mr. Felsburg held the glass to his lips. Van Wallace,
who looked a little frightened and uneasy himself, gave two of the boys
a nickel apiece and told us we had better get Jack home.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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