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8. The Musicker
About the middle of the forenoon they began to go up a long hill. By-and-by
this hill suddenly dropped down into a pretty valley, where the travelers saw,
to their surprise, a small house standing by the road-side.
It was the first house they had seen, and they hastened into the valley to
discover who lived there. No one was in sight as they approached, but when
they began to get nearer the house they heard queer sounds coming from it.
They could not make these out at first, but as they became louder our friends
thought they heard a sort of music like that made by a wheezy hand-organ;
the music fell upon their ears in this way:
Tiddle-widdle-iddle oom pom-pom!
Tiddle-tiddle-tiddle oom pom-pom!
Oom, pom-pom! oom, pom-pom!
Oom, pom-pom--pah!
"
What is it, a band or a mouth-organ?" asked Dorothy.
Don't know," said Button-Bright.
Sounds to me like a played-out phonograph," said the shaggy man, lifting his
"
"
enormous ears to listen.
"
"
Oh, there just COULDN'T be a funnygraf in Fairyland!" cried Dorothy.
It's rather pretty, isn't it?" asked Polychrome, trying to dance to the strains.
Tiddle-widdle-iddle, oom pom-pom,
Oom pom-pom; oom pom-pom!
came the music to their ears, more distinctly as they drew nearer the house.
Presently, they saw a little fat man sitting on a bench before the door. He
wore a red, braided jacket that reached to his waist, a blue waistcoat, and
white trousers with gold stripes down the sides. On his bald head was perched
a little, round, red cap held in place by a rubber elastic underneath his chin.
His face was round, his eyes a faded blue, and he wore white cotton gloves.
The man leaned on a stout gold-headed cane, bending forward on his seat to
watch his visitors approach.
Singularly enough, the musical sounds they had heard seemed to come from
the inside of the fat man himself; for he was playing no instrument nor was
any to be seen near him.
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