Musicker

[Illustration]

About the middle of the forenoon they began to go up a long hill.
By-and-by this hill suddenly dropped down into a pretty valley, where
the travelers saw to their surprise, a small house standing by the
roadside.

It was the first house they had seen, and they hastened into the valley
to discover who lived there. No one was in sight as they approached, but
when they began to get nearer the house they heard queer sounds coming
from it. They could not make these out at first, but as they became
louder our friends thought they heard a sort of music like that made by
a wheezy hand-organ; the music fell upon their ears in this way:

_Tiddle-widdle-iddle, oom pom-pom!_
_Oom, pom-pom! oom, pom-pom!_
_Tiddle-tiddle-tiddle, oom pom-pom!_
_Oom, pom-pom--pah!_

"What is it, a band or a mouth-organ?" asked Dorothy.

"Don't know," said Button-Bright.

"Sounds to me like a played-out phonograph," said the shaggy man,
lifting his enormous ears to listen.

"Oh, there just _couldn't_ be a funnygraf in Fairyland!" cried Dorothy.

"It's rather pretty, isn't it?" asked Polychrome, trying to dance to the
strains.

_Tiddle-widdle-iddle, oom pom-pom,_
_Oom pom-pom; oom pom-pom!_

came the music to their ears, more distinctly as they drew nearer the
house. Presently they saw a little fat man sitting on a bench before the
door. He wore a red, braided jacket that reached to his waist, a blue
waistcoat, and white trousers with gold stripes down the sides. On his
bald head was perched a little, round, red cap held in place by a rubber
elastic underneath his chin. His face was round, his eyes a faded blue,
and he wore white cotton gloves. The man leaned on a stout gold-headed
cane, bending forward on his seat to watch his visitors approach.

[Illustration]

Singularly enough, the musical sounds they had heard seemed to come from
the inside of the fat man himself; for he was playing no instrument nor
was any to be seen near him.

They came up and stood in a row, staring at him, and he stared back
while the queer sounds came from him as before:

_Tiddle-iddle-iddle, oom pom-pom,_
_Oom, pom-pom; oom pom-pom!_
_Tiddle-widdle-iddle, oom pom-pom,_
_Oom, pom-pom--pah!_

"Why, he's a reg'lar musicker!" said Button-Bright.

"What's a musicker?" asked Dorothy.

"Him!" said the boy.

Hearing this the fat man sat up a little stiffer than before, as if he