Of course, we couldn’t put on the regular show, as it had to be dark to do that. But Scoop dressed in his magician’s suit of white cloth and Peg and I, who worked on the stage as unseen assistants, put on our black suits.
The reason why we were invisible to the audience was because everything back of us on the stage was black. Scoop could be seen because he was dressed in white, with his face and hair powdered white. Lights arranged up and down the sides of the stage, reflected into the audience, dazzled the spectators. Looking into these lights, they could see nothing on the stage that wasn’t white. Dressed in black, a black veil over our faces, Peg and I could move here and there without detection. [[57]]
The trick consisted of making tables, pitchers, cups and white things like that appear and disappear in a most surprising way. It was an easy trick to perform when one had the necessary stuff. We would have a white table behind a black screen and when we wanted the table to “appear,” Scoop, as the magician, would wave his wand and Peg or I, whoever had hold of the screen, would jerk it away, thus bringing the table, in a flash, into sight of the audience.
Scoop would make pitchers and cups appear and disappear on the white table. To do this, Peg or I would bring the necessary pitcher on the stage, keeping the white article out of sight behind a small black screen. Then we would rest the screen on the table top, with the white pitcher behind it, jerking the screen away at Scoop’s signal, thus making the pitcher “appear.” In the same way we could make cups and saucers appear and disappear—any number of times. We could make white flowers grow out of white flower pots; produce white rabbits from small white cups. By dangling a white ball on the end of a black string, we could make it do many surprising things.
Probably the best trick of all was what we called the “Living Head.” We had a wooden [[58]]platter, painted white, made so that I could slide my chin over the back edge. To the audience it appeared that my head was resting on the platter. Scoop would carry the platter across the stage, and, of course, I would walk under the platter, for I had to go wherever my head went. To do this trick I had to powder my face white, like Scoop’s, and in the trick, to get a laugh, I was supposed to wink and yawn, sort of droll-like. By keeping my black suit on from my neck down, the audience couldn’t see anything of me except my white head.
Following our rehearsal we ran the Sally Ann to the dock at the central bridge. A lot of kids gathered on the bridge, among them the Striker gang. When we started our hand organ, practically all of Main Street came running to see what was going on.
Red’s big sister came along with some stylish girl friends. But she didn’t stay very long. I guess the sight of Red hurt her pride. Seated on the edge of the ticket stand, megaphone in hand, he was having the time of his life.
“La-adies and gents,” he yipped, “don’t forget the bi-ig show to-night. See Kermann, the great hoodoo magician, who has appeared before all of the crowned heads of Europe. Remember the [[59]]bi-ig show to-night at eight-thirty. O-only fifteen cents admission. Ten cents for kids.”
“That’s the kind of stuff to hand them,” grinned Scoop, “only don’t call me a ‘hoodoo’ magician. It’s ‘Hindu’ and not ‘hoodoo.’ ”
We could see that the Strickers were jealous of us. They had their heads together, whispering and pointing. I could imagine how cheap they felt. They had tried to bust up our show, but we had been too smart for them.