Phoenix has teetered forward at least half a yard, and stands
looking at the show over the heads of a little knot of women hooded with
red plaid shawls. The epileptic boy comes out on his stoop and stays
there at least three minutes before the area-way swallows him. Up above
there is a head in almost every casement. Mamie is at her window, and
the little mulatto child at hers. There are only two people who do not
stop and look on and listen. One is a Chinaman, who stalks on with no
expression at all on his blank face; the other is the boy from the
printing-office with a dozen foaming cans of beer on his long stick. But
he does not leave because he wants to. He lingers as long as he can, in
his passage through the throng, and disappears in the printing-house
doorway with his head screwed half way around on his shoulders. He would
linger yet, but the big foreman would call him "Spitzbube!" and would
cuff his ears.

[Illustration]

The children are dancing. The organ is playing "On the Blue Alsatian
Mountains," and the little heads are bobbing up and down to it in time
as true as ever was kept. Watch the little things! They are really
waltzing. There is a young one of four years old. See her little worn
shoes take the step and keep it! Dodworth or DeGarmo could not have
taught her better. I wonder if either of them ever had so young a pupil.
And she is dancing with a girl twice her size. Look at that ring of
children--all girls--waltzing round hand in hand! How is that for a
ladies' chain? Well, well, the heart grows young to see them. And now
look over to the grocery. Big sister has come out and climbed on the
vegetable-stand, and is sitting in the potatoes with little sister in
her lap. Little sister waves her fat, red arms in the air and shrieks in
babyish delight. The old women with the shawls over their heads are
talking together, crooning over the spectacle in their Irish way:

[Illustration: THE CHILDREN ARE DANCING. THE ORGAN IS PLAYING "ON THE
BLUE ALSATIAN MOUNTAINS"]

"Thot's me Mary Ann, I was tellin' ye about, Mrs. Rafferty, dancin' wid
the little one in the green apron."

"It's a foine sthring o' childher ye have, Mrs. Finn!" says Mrs.
Rafferty, nodding her head as though it were balanced on wires. And so
the dance goes on.

In the centre of it all stands the organ-grinder, swarthy and
black-haired. He has a small, clear space so that he can move the one
leg of his organ about, as he turns from side t