"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-luster 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