appen, she didn't know what.
After the man had played for some time without attracting attention from
any body but Flyaway and a poor old beggar woman, he put his harp in a
green bag, slung it over his shoulder, and walked off. Flyaway followed
without knowing it. Down Sixth Avenue went the music-man, and close at
his heels went she. By and by she saw a little girl, no larger than
herself, with a great bundle on her shoulders.
"You don't s'pose she's got a music on _her_ back?--No, not a music;
it's too soft all swelled out in a bunch."
Fly went nearer the little girl, to see what she was carrying; and as
she did so, some gray coals, mixed with ashes, fell out of the bundle
upon her nice cloak.
"Why, she's been and carried off her mother's fireplace," thought Fly,
shaking her cloak in disgust; "what you s'pose she wanted to do that
for?"
But far from carrying off her mother's fireplace, the ragged little girl
had only been picking up old coal out of barrels, and was taking it home
to burn. It had already been burned once, and picked over and burned
again, and thrown away; but perhaps this poor child's mother could coax
it into a faint glow, warm enough to fry a few potatoes.
While Flyaway was shaking her cloak, and staring at some old silk
dresses and bed-quilts, which were hung before a shop-door, the man with
the harp on his back, and the boy with a violin under his arm, had
turned a corner, and passed out of sight. Flyaway rubbed her eyes, and
looked again. They must have gone down through the brick pavement, but
she couldn't see any hole. Far away in the distance she heard their
music again, and it did not come from under ground. She ran to overtake
it, and turned into Bleecker Street. No music-man there, but a good
supply of oranges and apples.
"Needn't folks put their hands in, and take some out the barrels? Then
why for did the folks put 'em on' doors?"
While pondering this grave question, she was jostled by a man carrying a
rocking-chair, and very nearly fell down stairs into an oyster-saloon. A
minute more and she was back on Broadway, the very street, where Aunt
Madge and Prudy were waiting for her, but so much lower down that she
might as well have been in the State of Maine.
"Now, I'll go find my Hollis," said she turning another corner, and
running the wrong way with all her might. Past candy-stalls, past
toy-shops, past orange-wagons. Hark, music again! Not the soft strains
of a harp, b
|