"Who taught you to sing that solo?" he demanded.
"My school teacher. She is studying fer an opery singer, and she helps me with my Sunday singing."
"I thought the style was a little florid for the organist of St. Mark's," said the choirmaster whimsically. "My boy, if you will sing it for us at the recital as well as you did just now, you shall have ten dollars."
The laundry now loomed as a fixed star in Bud's firmament. When he went home and told his mother the good news she moved joyfully among her mops and tubs. The turn of the wringer never seemed so easy, and she frequently paused in the rubbing of a soaped garment to wring the suds from her swollen hands and listen anew to the recital of Bud's call upon the bishop and the choirmaster of Grace Church.
CHAPTER XIV
The next day the flood-tide of the Jenkins's fortunes bid fair to flow to fullness. Word came to the little home that Mr. Meredith had returned to the city and desired the laundry work to be resumed. Bud was summoned to choir practice the following Friday, and Miss King sent her chauffeur with a fair-sized washing.
"Everything comes so to onct, it takes your breath away," said Amarilly, quite overcome by this renewal of commercial activity, "and next thing I know,"—there her heart gave a deer-like leap—"Mr. Derry'll be hum, and sendin' fer me. Then we'll all be earnin' excep' Gus."
At the end of the week Amarilly eagerly went to deliver the washings at the rectory and Miss King's, but in both instances she was doomed to disappointment, as her friends were not in.
"I'll go to church and see 'em," she resolved.
This time her raiment was very simple, but more effective than upon the occasion of her previous attendance.