BOBBY AND BETTY FOLLOW THE HAND-ORGAN MAN
“Listen!” said Bobby. “Is that the band?”
“Let’s go and see,” said Betty.
Bobby and Betty ran out to the street.
A hand-organ man was coming.
He had been playing up the street and now was coming near.
“Let’s go and hear him play,” said Bobby.
“All right,” said Betty.
So Bobby and Betty ran up the street.
All the children in the block came out.
Some of them danced and clapped their hands while the hand-organ man played.
The organ man kept looking up at the windows.
“Here’s a nickel,” said a woman to her little boy. “Take it to the hand-organ man.”
The boy took the nickel to the organ-grinder.
He played another piece.
When this was played, Bobby said, “Please play another. I’ll bring you a penny.”
Bobby and Betty ran to the house and Mother gave each of them a penny.
Bobby gave his penny to the hand-organ man, and the man started to go.
“Play another piece,” said Betty. “I’ll give you a penny.”
Again the organ-grinder played.
Betty gave him a penny.
The organ-grinder went farther down the street.
All the children followed.
When they came to the end of the block, all but Bobby and Betty turned back.
Bobby and Betty stood still.
“It’s time to go back,” said Bobby.
“Let’s go a little farther,” said Betty. “Mother won’t care.”
The organ-grinder started a lively tune.
Bobby and Betty forgot to go back home.
They followed the organ-grinder.
On they went from house to house after the organ-grinder.
Sometimes they skipped and danced when the organ man played.
“This is fun,” said Bobby.
“It’s just like being grown up,” said Betty.
So Bobby and Betty had a fine time as long as the organ man played his tunes.
When he stopped playing, they began to feel tired.
“Let’s go home,” said Betty.
So Bobby and Betty turned back, but they did not know the way home.
For study and play:
I knock at the knocker,
I ring the little bell,
Please give me a penny
For singing this so well.
Driddlety-drum, driddlety-drum,
There you see the drummers are come.
Some are here and some are there,
And some are gone to the county fair.
A buckskin fiddle and a shoestring bow
Make the very best music you know.
Fiddle-de-dee, fiddle-de-dee,
The fly shall marry the bumble bee.
TOM, TOM, THE PIPER’S SON
Tom, Tom, the piper’s son,
He learned to play when he was young,
But all the tune that he could play,
Was “Over the hills and far away.”
Now Tom with his pipe did make such a noise,
That he surely pleased both the girls and the boys,
And they all stopped still, for to hear him play,
“Over the hills and far away.”
Tom with his pipe did play with such skill
That those who heard him could never keep still;
Whenever they heard him, they’d all begin to dance,
Even pigs on their hind legs would after him prance.