Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley

"You'd orter," she replied with a sigh.

"I kin run a laundry," he declared.

"That would be a fine business."

Happy in the hope of this new horoscope, Bud resumed his seat in the

amphitheatre, and in a voice of clarion clearness ecstatically rendered

one of the hymns he had learned at St. Mark's. Ever since he had become

a member of the choir, Clothes-line Park had rung with echoes of the

Jubilate and Venite instead of the popular old-time school airs. The

wringer was turned to the tune of a Te Deum, the clothes were rubbed to

the rhythm of a Benedictus, and the floor mopped to the melody of a

Magnificat.

On the happy, by-gone Thursdays, cloistered by snow-white surplices,

with the little chorister enthroned in the midst, Clothes-line Park had

seemed a veritable White Chapel.

Bud was snatched from his carols by the arrival of Amarilly, who was far

too practical to hearken to hymns when there was work to be performed.

"I got the money Miss Ormsby's owed us so long," she announced in a tone

of satisfaction, "and that jest makes up the money to git back the

surplus. I'll give you carfare one way, Bud, and you must go to the

bishop's and git it. I'm too beat to go. I've walked most five miles

sence dinner."

Bud was scoured and brushed, the pocket of his blouse tagged with a

five-dollar bill carefully secured by a safety pin, and he started on

his way for the address Amarilly had given him. He stopped at the corner

drug store to spend his car-fare for an ice-cream soda.

When the lad's quest was repeated to the bishop by his housekeeper, he

instructed her to send Bud up to the library, being kindly-disposed

towards all boy-kind. While he was questioning his young visitor, the

organ of Grace Church, which was next to the bishop's house, pealed

forth, and a man's voice began to chant a selection from an oratorio Bud

had learned at St. Mark's. A high, childish soprano voice was essaying

to carry the sustained note an octave above the man's voice; once it

sharped.

"Oh!" shuddered Bud in dismay. "He can't keep the tune."

"He isn't our regular soloist," explained the bishop apologetically. "He

is ill, and this boy is trying to learn the part for an organ recital to

be given next week."

Again the choirmaster's voice, patient and wearied, began the refrain.

Instinctively Bud's little chest swelled, and involuntarily his clear,

high treble took the note and sustained it without break through the

measures, and then triumphantly broke into the solo. The bishop's eyes

shone.