it bring him honour, may it bring him riches, may it bring him his heart's desire. May it bring him success in everything he undertakes. May it bring him happiness. I call for it in the Name of God."
These kind wishes sound a good deal like a Christian prayer, but you should have seen this ancient, ill-smelling, half-naked, black sinner as he rocked himself to and fro, now muttering in a whisper, now raising his voice to its ordinary conversational pitch as he repeated the good wishes over his materials, four skeins of white yarn, four skeins of white sewing-silk, four leaves and blossoms of red clover, four bits of tinfoil, four little pinches of dust. Over and over he said the words: I couldn't keep count of the times, but he said that as he tied each knot in the yarn and silk, he carefully said his charm four times. Four skeins, four knots in each skein, four times muttered the formula for each knot. And then the whiskey and the saliva, no prayer surely ever had such an accompaniment! The king had a bottle of whiskey beside him, and filled his mouth therefrom every time he tied a knot. Half of it he swallowed, and the other half with a copious addition of saliva he sprayed through his jagged stumps of teeth upon the knots. When all were tied he spat upon the clover, the tinfoil, the dust, and declared that his own strong spirit was imparted with the spittle. When he had gathered the several components into a little ball he spat once more, violently and copiously. "Dar," said he, "dats a mighty strong spurrit. Now to keep it dataway wet it in whiskey once a week."
"Shall I spit on it, or tell Mr. Leland he must?" I asked.
He looked at me with scorn, and made reply that we neither of us had any strength. We had nothing to spit out.
Last of all he breathed on the ball and shed, or pretended to shed, a tear. Then the ball was done. It had a spirit in it to work for the one for whom it was named.
"Go to the woods, Charles Leland," commanded Alexander, dangling the ball before his eyes, "for Im going to send you a long way off, an awful long way, across big water. Go out in the woods now and 'fresh yourself. Do you hear me? Are you going, are you going 'way off? Are you climbing? Are you climbing high?" After a long pause Charles Leland was invited to return. Was asked if he had started back from the woods, if he was drawing nearer, if he was back in the ball.
