! That was purty, anyhow. Where is the piper, I wonder!"
He looked about for the musician, but could see no one. He was the only
person in the alley.

Again the song began, and this time he traced the voice to the house
against which he had been leaning. The window was just at his right, and
through one of the broken panes came the notes. Dick's modesty was not a
burden to him, so it was the work of only a moment to put his face to
the hole in the window and take a view.

A small room, not very nice to see, was what he saw; then, as his eye
became used to the dim light, he espied on a low bed in the corner a
little girl gazing at him with a pair of big black eyes.

"I say, there! Was it you pipin' away so fine?" began Dick, without the
slightest embarrassment.

"If you mean, was I a-singin'?--I was," answered the child from the bed,
not seeming at all surprised at this sudden intrusion upon her privacy.

"I say, who are you, anyhow?"

"I'm Gerty, and I stay here all the day while mother is away washing;
and she locks the door so no one can't get in," explained the girl.

"My eye!" was Dick's return. "And what are you in bed for?"

"Oh, I have a pain in my back, an' I lie down most of the time," replied
Gerty in the most cheerful manner possible, as if a pain in the back
were the one desirable thing, while Dick withdrew his head to ponder
over this new experience.

A girl locked in a room like that, lying in bed with pain most of the
time, with nothing to do, yet cheerful and bright--this was something
he could not understand. All at once his face brightened. Back went his
eyes to the window.

"I say, got anything to eat in there?"

"Oh yes, some crackers; and to-night maybe mother'll buy some milk."

"Pooh!" said Dick, with scorn. "Crackers and milk! Did you ever eat a
mutton pie?"

"A mutton pie," repeated Gerty, slowly. "No, I guess not."

"Oh, they're bully! Hot from Ma'am Vesey's! Tip-top! Wait a minute,"--a
needless caution, for Gerty could not possibly have done anything else.

Away ran Dick down the alley and around the corner, halting breathless
before Ma'am Vesey.

"Gi'e me one, quick!" he cried. "Hot, too. No, I wont eat it; put it in
some paper." The old woman had offered him one from the oven.

"Seems to me we're gettin' mighty fine," she said; for Dick was an old
customer, and never before had he waited for a pie to be wrapped up.

"Never you mind, old lady," was his good-natured, if so