"I shouldn't think it likely he is only pretending," said mamma. "He looks almost too miserable."
"And sometimes there's quite a crowd of children after him," Jack went on; "they seem to think him quite as good to run after as a proper barrel-organ man."
"I hope they don't hoot and jeer at him," said mamma.
"His Pan-pipes are nearly as bad as his organ," said Meta. "Still, Addie, you know now what they're like, though you can't fancy how pretty they sound sometimes."
It did not need her words to remind me of the story. My head was full of it, and I think what Jack said about the crowds of children that sometimes ran after the strange musician, added very much to the feelings and fancies already in my mind. And unfortunately Meta left us the very next morning, so there was no one for me to talk to about it, for my brothers were all day at school and did not know anything about our story-tellings. I do remember saying to Meta that evening, that I hoped we should never meet that ugly man again, and Meta could not think what I meant, till I said something about Pan-pipes. Then she seemed to remember.
"Oh, he didn't play them at all nicely," she said. "One of the boys at home had a set, and he really made them sound lovely. When you come to Germany, Addie," for that was a favourite castle in the air of ours—a castle that never was built—that I should one day pay a long visit to my cousins in their quaint old house, "Fritz will play to you, and you will then understand the story better."
I daresay I should have told her the reason why I so hoped I should never meet the poor man again, if I had had time. But even to her I was rather shy of talking about my own feelings, and it was also not easy to explain them, when they were so mixed up and confused.
It was only a few days after Meta left, that we met the man with the Pan-pipes again. This time I was out walking with our nurse and the baby, as we still called him, though he was three years old. I don't think nurse noticed the man, or perhaps she had seen him before, but I heard the queer squeal of his pipes and the rattle of his broken box some way off, and when I saw him coming in the distance I asked her if we might turn down a side street and go round another way.
She said she did not mind, but though she was kind, she was not very noticing, and did not ask my reason, so for that day it was got over without my needing to explain. But for some time after that, we seemed to be always meeting the poor "silly" organ-man, and every time I saw him, I grew more and more frightened, till at last the fear of seeing him came quite to spoil the pleasure of my walks, even when I was out with mamma herself. Now I dare say all sensible children who read this will say, "Why didn't Addie tell her nurse, or, any way, her mother, all about it?" and if they do say so, they are quite right. Indeed, it is partly to show this very thing—how much better it is to tell some kind wiser person all about any childish fear or fancy, than to go on bearing it out of dread of being laughed at or called babyish—that I am relating this simple little story. I really cannot quite explain why I did not tell about it to mamma—I think it was partly that being the only girl, I had a particularly great fear of being thought cowardly—for she was always very kind; and I think, too, it was partly that from having read so many story-books to myself, I had got into the habit of being too much inside my own thoughts and fancies. I think story-books would often do much more good, and give really much more lasting pleasure if children were more in the habit of reading aloud to each other. And if this calls for some unselfishness, why, what then? is it not all the better?