“Feather, feather, when we blow,
    Point the way that we should go,”

sang Phil.  “West!” he exclaimed, as it sailed lazily across the alley and over a high board fence.  “That means that we are to go down toward the cotton-mills.  I don’t know much about that part of town.  Mostly poor people live there, who look as if they hadn’t much money to give away.  But we’ll try it, anyhow.”

Picking up the barrow-handles, he trundled down the alley toward Pine Street, with little Elsie holding fast to the tail of his tattered jacket.  We were off at last, to seek our fortunes in the wide, wide world, and our hearts were light as we followed the feather.

CHAPTER VI.

WHAT DAGO SAID TO THE MIRROR-MONKEY ON SATURDAY.

Such a day as that was!  We enjoyed it at first, for the sun shone and a crowd of dancing children followed us everywhere we went.  We were in a strange part of town, so no one recognised us, but more than one woman looked sharply at little Elsie’s embroidered ruffles, peeping out below the old gingham dress, and at Phil’s squeaky new shoes.

“Have you run away, honey, or did your mammy dress you up that way and send you out to beg?” asked a pleasant-voiced woman, with a baby in her arms, as she leaned over a gate to drop a penny in Elsie’s cup.  Elsie gave a startled glance at Phil, not knowing what to say, and Phil, turning very red, moved away without answering.

The music-box was an old-fashioned affair that wound up noisily with a big key.  It played several jerky little waltzes and four plaintive old songs:  “Ben Bolt,” “The Last Rose of Summer,” “Then You’ll Remember Me,” and “Home, Sweet Home.”  The children had sung them so often that they knew all the words, and their voices rang out lustily at first; but, about the twentieth time the same old round of tunes began, little Elsie drew a deep, tired breath.

[Illustration]

“Oh, Phil,” she said, “I can’t sing those songs all over again.  I’m sick of them.”  She sat down on the curbstone, refusing to join in the melody, clasping her hands around her knees, and rocking back and forth as the shrill voice of the music-box piped on alone.

“I just hate ‘Sweet Alice Ben Bolt,’” she complained.  “Isn’t it most time to go home?” It was noon now.  At the sound of the factory whistles all our followers had deserted us, and gone home to dinner.  Phil sat down on the curbstone beside Elsie, and emptying the pennies out of the little cup she had been carrying, gravely counted them.  “There’s only eleven,” he announced.  “Of course we can’t go home yet.”

The music-box droned out the last notes of “You’ll Remember Me,” gave a click, paused an instant as if to take breath, and then started mournfully on its last number, “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”  At the first sound of the familiar notes, Elsie laid her head down on her knees and began to weep dismally.  “I wish I was back in my home, sweet home,” she cried.  “I’m so tired and cold and hungry.  I’m nearly starved.  Oh, brother, I wisht I hadn’t runned away!  I don’t like to be a beggar,” she wailed.