Chapter 19 Summary

The next day, Opal gives Otis a Littmus Lozenge and asks the most pressing question on her mind: why did Otis go to jail?

Otis explains that he was not a dangerous man, and then he decides to tell the story of how he ended up in jail. He was playing his guitar on the sidewalk. Sometimes people would put money in a hat for him. It was during one of these concerts that the police confronted him and told him that he needed to stop playing his guitar in public.

He didn't want to stop. He kept right on playing his music, and when one of the police officers tried to handcuff him, Otis hit him. That's how he ended up in jail. The owner of Gertrude's Pets doesn't mind if Otis plays his guitar and, the pet store is the only...