Page:The Chinese Boy and Girl.djvu/160

 stretch the string, which he then held in the middle with finger and thumb and by a simple motion of the hand kept the balls whirling.

He was an expert, and changed the swinging of the balls in as many different ways as an expert club-swinger could his clubs.

"Boy acrobats," called out the manager, as the manipulator of the "shooting stars" bowed himself out amid the applause of the children.

The two smaller boys threw off their coats, hitched up their trousers—always a part of the performance whether necessary or not—and began the high kick, high jump, handspring, somersault, wagon wheel, ending with handspring, and bending backwards until their heads touched the ground.

One of them stood on two benches a foot high, put a handkerchief on the ground, and bending backwards, picked it up with his teeth.

The two boys then clasped each other around the waist, as in the illustration, and each threw the other back over his head a dozen times or more.

Exit the bear show with the boy acrobats, enter the old woman juggler with her husband who beats the gong.

This was one of the most interesting performances I have ever seen in China, perhaps because so unexpected.

The old woman had small, bound feet. She lay flat on her back, stuck up her feet, and her husband put a crock a foot in diameter and a foot and a half deep upon them. She set it rolling on her feet until it whirled like a cylinder. She 156