John of the Woods

It was late of a beautiful afternoon in May. In the hedges outside the village roses were blossoming, yellow and white. Overhead the larks were singing their happiest songs, because the sky was so blue. But nearer the village the birds were silent, marveling at the strange noises which echoed up and down the narrow, crooked streets.

"Tom-tom; tom-tom; tom-tom"; the hollow thud of a little drum sounded from the market-place. Boys and girls began to run thither, crying to one another:-

"The Tumblers! The Tumblers have come. Hurry, oh, hurry!"

Three little brothers, Beppo, Giovanni, and Paolo, who had been poking about the market at their mother's heels, pricked up their ears and scurried eagerly after the other children.

Jostling one another good-naturedly, the crowd surged up to the market-place, which stood upon a little hill. In the middle was a stone fountain, whence the whole village was wont to draw all the water it needed. In those long-ago days folk were more sparing in the use of water than they are to-day, especially for washing. Perhaps we should not be so clean, if we had to bring every bucket of water that we used from the City Square!

"Tom-tom; tom-tom; tom-tom"; the little drum sounded louder and louder as the crowd increased. Men and women craned their necks to see who was beating it. The children squirmed their way through the crowd.

On the highest step of the fountain stood a man dressed in red and yellow, with little bells hung from every point of his clothing, which tinkled with each movement he made. In his left hand he held a small drum, from which hung streamers of red and green and yellow ribbon. This drum he beat regularly with the palm of his skinny right hand. He was a lean, dark man, with evil little red-rimmed eyes and a hump between his shoulders.

"Ho! Men and women! Lads and lasses!" he cried in a shrill, cracked voice of strange accent. "Hither, hither quickly, and make ready to give your pennies. For the tumbling is about to begin,-the most wonderful tumbling in the whole round world!"

Stretching out his arm, he pointed to the group below him. The crowd pressed forward and stood on tiptoe to see better. Beppo and Giovanni and Paolo wriggled through the forest of legs and skirts and came out into the open space which had been left about the fountain. And then they saw what the backs of the butcher and baker and candlestick-maker had hidden from them.

From the back of a forlorn little donkey that was tethered behind the fountain a roll of carpet had been taken and spread out on the ground. Beside this stood the three tumblers. One of them was a thin, dark man, small and wicked-looking, dressed, like the drum-beater, in red and yellow. The second tumbler was a huge fellow more than six feet tall, with a shaggy mane of black hair. His muscles stood out in great knots under the suit of green tights which he wore.

"A Giant he is! Faith, he could toss me over his shoulder like a meal-bag!" muttered the Blacksmith, who stood with crossed arms looking over the heads of the crowd. "And the wicked face of him! Ugh! I would not wish a quarrel with him!"

But the little boys in the front row were most interested in the third tumbler, who stood between the other two, with his arms folded, ready to begin.

This also was a figure in green, with short trunks of tarnished cloth-of-gold. But beside the Giant, in the same dress, he looked like a pigmy or a fairy mite. This third tumbler was a little fellow of about eight, very slender and childish in form, but lithe and well-knit. Instead of being dark and gypsy-like, as were the other three of the wandering band, this boy was fair, with a shock of golden hair falling about his shoulders, and with a skin of unusual whiteness, despite his life of exposure to sun and hard weather. And the eyes that looked wistfully at the children in front of him were blue as the depths into which the skylarks were at that moment diving rapturously. On the upper eyelid of the boy's left eye was a brown spot as big as an apple-seed. And this gave him a strange expression which was hard to forget. When he was grave, as now, it made him seem about to cry. If he should smile, the spot would give the mischievous look of a wink. But Gigi so seldom smiled in those days that few perhaps had noted this. On his left cheek was a dark spot also. But this was only a bruise. Bruises Gigi always had. But they were not always in the same place.

"Oh, the sweet Cherub!" said a motherly voice in the crowd. "I wonder if they are good to him. They look like cut-throats and murderers, but he is like the image of the little Saint John in church. Wolves, with a lamb in their clutches! Save us all! Suppose it were my Beppo!"

At these words of his mother's, Beppo giggled, and the boy looked at him gravely. The Hunchback with the drum had heard, too, and darted a furious glance into the crowd where the woman stood. Then, giving a loud double beat on the drum, he signaled for the tumbling to begin.

The three kicked off the sandals which protected their feet, stepped upon the carpet, and saluted the spectators. The Giant stretched himself flat, and, seizing Gigi in his strong arms, tossed him up in the air as one would toss a rubber ball. Up, down, then back and forth between the elder tumblers, flew the little green figure, when he touched ground always landing upon his toe-tips, and finishing each trick with a somersault, easy and graceful. The boy seemed made of thistledown, so light he was, so easily he rebounded from what he touched. The children in the circle about him stared open-mouthed and admiring. Oh! they wished, if only they could do those things! They thought Gigi the most fortunate boy in the world.

But Gigi never smiled. At the end of one trick the Giant growled a word under his breath, and made a motion at which the boy cringed. Something had gone not quite right, and trouble threatened. He bit his lip, and the performance went on as before.

Now Gigi had to do the most difficult trick of all. With the Giant as the base, and Cecco, the other tumbler, above, Gigi made the top of a living pyramid that ran, turned, twisted, and capered as the great strength of the Giant willed. At a signal they managed somehow to reverse their positions. All stood upon their heads; Gigi, with his little green legs waving in the air, heard shouts of applause which always greeted this favorite act. But the sound gave him no pleasure. He was tired; he was sore from a beating of the previous night, and his head ached from the blow which had made that ugly mark on his cheek. Gigi grew dizzy-