he tune of "Johnny, Get your Gun," and the "Jolly Brothers
Gallop," as they are ground out of the music-boxes by little fingers
that but just now toyed feebly with the balusters on the golden stair.

That music! When I went over to the island it fell upon my ears in
little drops of sweet melody, as soon as I came in sight of the
nurses' quarters. I listened, but couldn't make out the tune. The
drops seemed mixed. When I opened the door upon one of the nurses, Dr.
Dixon, and the hospital matron, each grinding his or her music for all
there was in it, and looking perfectly happy withal, I understood why.

They were all playing different tunes at the same time, the nurse
"When the Robins Nest Again," Dr. Dixon "Nancy Lee," and the matron
"Sweet Violets." A little child stood by in open-mouthed admiration,
that became ecstasy when I joined in with "The Babies on our Block."
It was all for the little one's benefit, and she thought it beautiful
without a doubt.

The storekeeper, knowing that music hath charms to soothe the breast
of even a typhus-fever patient, had thrown in a dozen boxes as his own
gift. Thus one good deed brings on another, and a good deal more than
fifty dollars' worth of happiness will be ground out on the island
before there is an end of the music.

There is one little girl in the measles ward already who will eat only
when her nurse sits by grinding out "Nancy Lee." She cannot be made to
swallow one mouthful on any other condition. No other nurse and no
other tune but "Nancy Lee" will do--neither the "Star-Spangled Banner"
nor "The Babies on our Block." Whether it is Nancy all by her
melodious self, or the beautiful picture of her in a sailor's suit on
the lid of the box, or the two and the nurse and the dinner together,
that serve to soothe her, is a question of some concern to the island,
since Nancy and the nurse have shown signs of giving out together.

Three of the six sheep that were bought for the ridiculously low price
of eighty-nine cents apiece, the lambs being thrown in as makeweight,
were grazing on the mixed-measles lawn over on the east shore of the
island, with a fairy in evening dress eying them rather disdainfully
in the grasp of tearful Annie Cullum. Annie is a foundling from the
asylum temporarily sojourning here. The measles and the scarlet fever
were the only things that ever took kindly to her in her little life.
They tackled her both at once, and poor Annie, after a six or eig