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The grass and the trees and the birds and the salt breath of the sea did not speak to them in a language they understood. The brass bands and the hand-organs, the street cries and the rush and roar of the city, had made them forget their childhood's tongue. For the children understood, even in the gutter. "It means, I suppose," said Dr.

During the week she saw shabbily-dressed idlers sauntering along the shore, men in broad-brimmed straw hats and flannel shirts, women who sat on the worn grass of the sloping bank, doing nothing, with the dreamy eyes of a cow at pasture. All the peddlers, hand-organs, harpists; travelling jugglers, stopped there as at a quarantine station.

Most of them are Irishwomen, although we now and then see an Italian or German woman. We never saw more than two American women patterers in New York, and have no recollection of ever seeing a Jewess, a Scotch woman, or a Spanish woman. The women and girls sell flowers, newspapers, candy, toothpicks, fruit, various kinds of food, turn hand-organs, sell songs, and beg.

To him Torrini was the crystallization of Italy, or so much of that Italy as Richard had caught a glimpse of at Genoa. To the town-folks Torrini perhaps vaguely suggested hand-organs and eleemosynary pennies; but Richard never looked at the straight-limbed, handsome fellow without recalling the Phrygian-capped sailors of the Mediterranean.

The parks were green with new leaves and buyers for the Western and Southern trade. Flowers and summer-resort agents were blowing; the air and answers to Lawson were growing milder; hand-organs, fountains and pinochle were playing everywhere. The windows of Mrs. Murphy's boarding-house were open. A group of boarders were seated on the high stoop upon round, flat mats like German pancakes.

It was the time of the twittering of sparrows, of the opening of windows, of putting in order the little sentimental spots called "squares," where the poor children get their idea of forests, and the rich renew their faint recollections of innocence and country life; when the hawkers go about the streets, and the hand-organs celebrate the return of spring and the possibility of love.

Then there was no difficulty in finding the office of the company that leases hand-organs to itinerant musicians, and the manager, an Americanized Italian, was most courteous in answering our inquiries. It appeared that this particular aria of "Celeste Aida" was only included in the repertoire of some half-dozen of the older instruments.

It was the time of the twittering of sparrows, of the opening of windows, of putting in order the little sentimental spots called "squares," where the poor children get their idea of forests, and the rich renew their faint recollections of innocence and country life; when the hawkers go about the streets, and the hand-organs celebrate the return of spring and the possibility of love.

"Why don't you pad?" The orchestra played a wailing waltz that Medora had learned from the hand-organs. She followed the air with nodding head in a sweet soprano hum. Madder looked across the table at her, and wondered in what strange waters Binkley had caught her in his seine. She smiled at him, and they raised glasses and drank of the wine that boiled when it was cold.

Each marksman wore the number of hits he had made twisted in a garland round his hat. Here were music and singing of all descriptions: hand-organs, trumpets, shouting, and noise. The houses and bridges were adorned with verses and inscriptions. Flags and banners were waving. Shot after shot was fired, which was the best music to Rudy's ears.