CHAPTER V
TAMING THE HAND ORGAN
I had a cold supper. For Mother was away from home.
“It must be the regular afternoon meeting of the Stitch and Chatter Club,” joked Dad, grinning at me across the table.
Having dirtied only a few dishes, we put these in a pan in the kitchen sink; then I hurried over to Red’s barn with a screw driver and a handful of wrenches.
Scoop didn’t show up for ten or fifteen minutes, having been to the dock where Peg was still on guard.
“Too bad,” I said to Scoop, “that Peg can’t be here.”
“I don’t think it’s worrying him,” the leader grinned. “For I found him with his nose in your ‘Waltzing Hen’ book when I took his supper over to him. He seemed to be perfectly contented.”
“He’s had the soft part of it to-day,” spoke up Red, thinking of our hard work in the junk yard.
“Did I tell you,” Scoop inquired of the freckled one, “that he’s going to take your place to-night?”
“What’s the idea?”
“He thinks he can solve the mystery of the whispering ghost.”
Red shivered.
“I’ll think twice before I ever put in a night on that spooky old boat.”
We pulled the hand organ into the middle of the barn floor and removed its wooden top.
Red squinted inside.
“Phew!” he sniffed. “It smells like an old mouse trap.”
There was a burst of laughter from the house and the clatter of dishes.
“What’s going on in there?” I inquired of Red.
“Oh, Ma’s entertaining the stitchers and chatterers. Hand me the oil can.”
There was a lot of wheels and queer-shaped jiggers inside of the organ. We didn’t know what they were for. But, as they looked kind of rusty, we cleaned them with an old shirt of Red’s and gave them a liberal oiling. There was no squeaking now when we turned the crank. Nor was there, to our disappointment, any music.
Red was in his glory. For he loves to tinker with machinery. About every so often he takes the family clock to pieces. One time he whittled out a repeating rig-a-jig for his mother’s talking machine and ruined ten dollars’ worth of choice records.
His freckled nose deep in the organ’s chamber, he suddenly let out a yip.
“Here’s a clutch, fellows! That’s why it wouldn’t play. It wasn’t in gear. Try it now.”
Scoop grabbed the crank and started winding. There was a lot of wheezes and groans inside of the organ. Then it gave a sudden loud blat.
“Turn faster,” danced Red, the oil can in one hand and the screw driver in the other. “It’s getting ready to play a tune.”
Scoop turned for dear life. And after a bad coughing spell, the organ settled down to business.
“What’d I tell you?” cried Red. “It’s playing a tune.”
“What tune is it?” I grinned.
“Sounds like ‘The Old Oaken Bucket.’ Maybe, though, it’s something else. Anyway, it’s a tune. So why should we worry what it is?”
“I know what tune it is,” I joked. “It’s the one the old cat died on.”
Scoop continued to twist the organ’s tail until he was blue in the face. Red then took a hand at it. The organ waded through the “bucket” tune, or whatever piece it was, and gurgled out the chorus of “A Hot Time in the Old Town To-night.”
“It’s getting more up-to-date every minute,” laughed Scoop. “Step on it, Red. Atta-boy! Here comes ‘After the Ball.’ ”
Red was out of wind.
“It’s your turn,” he panted, beckoning to me.
Under my spirited turning, the organ developed a hemorrhage in its left lung. “B-r-r-r-E-r-r-r-B-r-r-r!” it gurgled.
“It’s dying,” shrieked Red.
As though to prove to us that the freckled one didn’t know what he was talking about, the organ took the bit in its teeth, so to speak, and came out strong with “Sweet Rosie O’Grady.” Our leader knew the words to the old song. But he had to yell, let me tell you, to make himself heard. For that old organ was bellowing like a mad bull.
Red and I joined in, going “Da-da-da,” for we didn’t know the words. We kept getting louder and louder, only I couldn’t yell as loud as the others. The cranking job took a lot of my wind.
All of a sudden Red’s mother bounded into the barn.
“Stop it!” she cried, her fingers in her ears. “Stop it!”
“What’s the matter?” grinned Scoop, when the organ had expired. “Don’t you like music, Mrs. Meyers?”
“Yes, I like music. I thought it was Donald screaming for help.” She pressed a hand to her heart and drew a deep breath. “Such a scare as I had.” She came closer and gave the organ a puzzled glance. “What in the world is it?—a hand organ?”
“It’s an orchestrelle,” I grinned, remembering the organ’s fancy name.
“It’s a part of our show,” Red spoke up, glowing with pride. Then he told his mother about the merry-go-round in Mr. Solbeam’s shed.
“It’s a wonder to me,” she said stiffly, “that you didn’t lug the whole merry-go-round home, while you were about it.”
Mother came into sight in the barn door.
“See what our sons and heirs have dragged home from somebody’s ash pile,” pointed Mrs. Meyers. “A hand organ,” she added, and from the way she said it you could have imagined that our fine organ was a cross-eyed flea on a shunned alley cat.
I didn’t blame Red for stiffening.
“How do you get that way?” he cried, scowling. “We paid two dollars for it. It’s a good organ, too. I like it better than our old piano.”
Some more curious-eyed members of the Stitch and Chatter Club came into sight.
“Was Donald hurt, Mrs. Meyers?”
“Aw!…” scowled Red. “We aren’t giving a party.”
“I am,” his mother said quickly. “And I want you to stop this horrible racket. We can’t hear ourselves think. And people are stopping in the street and staring at the house.”
Red angrily jerked Mr. Solbeam’s bow-legged wheelbarrow into sight.
“A fellow can’t have any fun around here at all. No, he can’t. Take hold of it,” he growled at Scoop, “and help me put it on the wheelbarrow. We’ll take it down to our boat, where we can play it without being jawed at. Huh!”