"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.