A HARD YANKEE GRIND.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1670, 26 April 1884, Page 2

A HARD YANKEE GRIND.

• A hand-organ man was making his "way up.a suburban street, "when a boy met/him and asked: " How many tunes-do you play f " Zixteen shunes nice,. shweet shunes," replied the man. "My father is fond of .music, but he is a little deaf," continued tne boy. ' ;. ,'fO, dat makes no.difference,. I can make him hear" ' ' '■"••' ; The boy led the way up the street to where a plaster bust of Sir Isaac Newton had been arranged in a- bay window to look like a living man, and tho Italian spit on his hand and began on the crank. He ground out all the tunes in rotation, and then began at the bottom and ground back on tho scale till hogot all■ the garreb ; of the box again,. The man in the bay dow didn't movo a hair, and tho Italian drew a long breath and sighed. "Play nioar inuseek—make a him hear soon." Ho Vang out eight tunes and then . threw some gravel at the window. The bust didn't even work its ears, and the Italian leaned the organ on the fence and loudly sang: "O, who will dinks of mo somo raoar, when I am far a-w-a-y:" The soven other tunes were rattled off at a lively pace, while tho man coughed, whistled, kicked on the fence and encouraged a dog fight in order to attract tho dead man's attention. "Sing louder, harder" called the boy from the next street corner. ' Tho grinder secured a brace for his feet, unbuttoned his vest, and the way he roared brought out the neighbors by the score. He kept his oyes on the bust and gavo no heed to the crowd, and the organ kx was smoking hot when he let up on the grind. Resting the music on the ground, he leaped oyer the fence, and got a square look at his victim. His quiet grin faded into a look of woe and misery and murder, and getting his eyes on the boy with a red uecktie, he ran him four blocks and under a carpenter's shop before a still small voice whispered that ho had better hold on.