Three Young Knights Part 3

Somewhere there was music. [Transcriber's note: the word "trig", above, is as it appears in the original book.]

"Hark!" Jot cried.

"Hark yourself! That's a good hand-organ," Old Tilly said; and he hummed the familiar tune, and both wheels sped on to the time of it, as it seemed. The music grew louder. "Look up in that dooryard, will you!

Jot Eddy, look at the chap that's grinding it!"

Jot uttered an exclamation of astonishment.

CHAPTER III.

Up in one of the shady side yards stood Kent, turning the crank of a hand-organ! He was facing the highway where the other two boys were, but not a trace of recognition was in his face. Ranged in a semicircle before him was a line of little children shuffling their toes to the gay tune.

"It's Kent!" gasped Jot.

"Or his ghost--pretty lively one! Where in the world did he get that hand-organ? And what's he done with his bike? Why--oh!"

Old Tilly added two and two, and, in the light of a sudden inspiration, they made four. Yes, of course, that was it, but he would wait and let Jot guess it out for himself. Jot had other business in hand just then.

"Say, come on up there with the youngsters, Old Till!" he whispered excitedly. "Come on, quick! We'll make him smile! He can't keep his face with us tagging on with the children!"

They left their wheels beside the road and stalked solemnly up the path.

The children were too intent on the music to notice them, and the figure at the crank did not change its stiff, military att.i.tude. The tune lurched and swayed on.

Suddenly, with a sharp click, the music swept into something majestic and martial, with the tread of soldiers' feet and the boom of drums in it. The faces of the little children grew solemn, and unconsciously their little shoulders straightened and they stood "at attention." They were all little patriots at heart and they longed to step into file and tramp away to that splendid music.

Again the tune changed sharply, and still again. Then the organ-grinder slung his instrument with an experienced twist and twirl across his shoulders, and took off his cap.

"Look, will you? He's going to pa.s.s it round!" giggled Jot, under his breath. "He'll pa.s.s it to us, Old Till!"

"Keep your face straight, mind!" commanded Old Till, sharply.

The organ-grinder handed round his cap, up and down the crooked line of his audience. The two sober boys at one end dropped in a number of pennies, one at a time deliberately,

"Bless ye!" murmured the organ-grinder, gratefully. Jot's brown face tweaked with the agony of keeping straight, but Old Tilly was equal to the occasion. He a.s.sumed a benevolent, pitying expression.

"Hold on a minute!" he called. "Here's a nickel for your poor wife and children. How many you got?"

"Five, sir, your honor," the musician murmured thickly.

"Starving?"

"Sure--all but a couple of the little uns. They're up 'n' dressed, thank ye; bless ye!"

Jot made a strange, choking sound in his throat.

"Is the young gent took ill?" inquired the organ-grinder, solicitously.

"No, oh, no; only a slight attack of strangulating--he's liable to attacks. It was the music--too much for him!"' Old Tilly gravely explained, but his lips quivered and struggled to smile.

The whole little procession trailed slowly down the lane to the street.

At the next house and at all the others in succession, it turned in and arranged itself in line again, prepared to listen with ears and dancing toes. Jot and Old Tilly followed on in the rear. They found it hard work to find pennies enough to drop into the organ-grinder's cap at every round. Toward the end they economized narrowly.

The small settlement came to an abrupt ending just over the brow of the hill. The houses gave out, and the musician and his audience swung about and retraced their steps. The children dropped off, a few at a time, until there were left only the three boys, who went on soberly together.

"Oh, say!" broke out Jot at last.

"'Tis not for the likes o' me to 'say,' your honor," the organ-grinder murmured humbly, and Jot gave him a violent nudge.

"Let's knock off foolin'!" he cried. "I say, where'd you get that machine, Kentie? Where'd you get it? And for the sake o' goodness gracious, where's your wheel?"

"'Turn, turn, my wheel,'" quoted Kent from the Fourth Reader. He was shaking with suppressed laughter, that turned into astonishment at Old Tilly's calm rejoinder. If it didn't take Old Till to ferret things out!

"It isn't liable to 'turn, turn,' while that old tramp has it," Tilly said calmly. "He isn't built for a rider. What kind of a trade did you make, anyway? Going halves?"

"No, going wholes!" Kent answered briefly, and would say no more. They went on down the sandy road. When they got back to the forlorn old figure under the tree, it was slowly rising up and regarding them out of tired, lack-l.u.s.ter eyes. The wheel still leaned comfortably in its place close by.

"Me--bring--money. Play--tunes. You--buy--food," Kent said very slowly and distinctly, pausing between every word. "He's a foreigner, you know," he explained over his shoulder to the boys. "He no understand.

You have to talk pigeon English to him. See how he catches on to what I said?"

The old face had grown less dull and weary. A slow light seemed to illumine it. As the little stream of pennies dripped into the tremulous, wrinkled old hand, it suddenly flashed into a smile. Then a stream of strange words issued from the old man's lips. They tripped over each other and made weird, indistinguishable combinations of sound, but the boys translated them by the light of that smile. How pleased the old fellow was! How he fingered over the pennies exultantly!

"Tell the whole story, old man," Old Tilly said quietly as they mounted their wheels and glided off. "It looks like a reg'lar novel!"

"Yes, hurry up, can't you!" impatiently Jot urged. "Begin at the beginning, and go clear through to the end."

"You've helped folks. Why shouldn't I? There weren't any old ladies with empty water pails, or any cows in corn lots, so I had to take up with the poor old organ-grinder. That's all."

"All!" scoffed Jot, "Go on with the rest of it, Kent Eddy!"

"Isn't any 'rest,'" grunted Kent, "unless you count the organ-grinder; he had some-looked as if he'd rested. Well, sir"--Kent suddenly woke up--"but without any fooling, you ought to have seen that old chap when I came on him. He was all used up--heat, you know. There was a creek, back a ways, and the water kind of pulled him up. He couldn't talk English, but he offered me a black two-cent piece for pay. He turned his pocket out to find it. That set me to thinking I'd make him a little richer."

"Of course! Go on!" hurried Jot.

"Isn't any 'on.'"

"There's honor," Old Tilly cried softly. "I say that was splendid, Kentie! I like that!"

Kent flushed uneasily. Old Tilly's face looked like father's when he said his rare, hearty words of commendation.

"Well, the organ-grinder likes it, too!" Kent laughed. "Now he can have something to eat. Poor old fellow! He couldn't have gone through all those dooryards to save his life! He was 'most sunstruck. I told a motherly old lady about him, at one of the houses, and she's going to be on the lookout for him, and give him a snack of meat and bread."

They went on for half a mile quite silently. Then, without warning.

Jot suddenly began to laugh. He tumbled off his bicycle and collapsed in a feeble heap.

"Don't anybody st-op me !" he cried. "It's dangerous! I'm having one o'

my 'attacks'!"