The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-02-18

buy two hot potatoes from the man by the Madeleine"
 ate the unsatisfying morsels rav- enously, Ninette watching me with an approving nod the while. When they were finished the weather was little better, and Ninette said we might go now. She slung the organ over her shoulder-it was a small organ, though heavy for child, but she was used to it, and trudged along under it's weight like woman. With her free hand she caught hold of me and led me along the wet streets, proudly home! Ninette's home Poor little Ninette! It was colder and barer than these rooms of mine now |; it had no grand piano and no thick carpets; and in the place of pictures and bi6elots, it's walls were only wreathed in cobwebs. Still it was dryer than the streets of Paris. and if it had been palace it could not have been more welcome to me than it was that night.
 Poor Ninette, her men0ge was a strange one! There was tumbledown deserted house in the Montparnasse district. It stood apart, in an over grown weedy garden, and has long ago been pulled down. It was uninhab- ited no one but Parisian gamine could have lived in it, and Ninette had long occupied it, unmolested save by the rats. Through the broken palings in the garden she had no difficulty in passing, and as it's back door had I fallen to pieces, there was nothing to bar her further entry. In one of the few rooms which had their windows intact, right at the top of the house, a mere attic, Ninette had installed her self and her scanty goods, and hence- forth this became my home also.
 It has struck me since as strange that the child's presence should not have been resented by the owner. But fancy the house had some story con- nected with it. It was, l believe, the property of an old and infirm miser, who, in his reluctance to part with any of his money in repairs, had over reached himself and let his property become valueless. He could not let it, and he would not pull it down. It remained, therefore, an eyesore to the neighborhood, until his death put it in the possession of less avaricious successor. The proprietor never came near the place, and with the neighbors it had bad repute, and they avoided it as much as possible. It stood, 1 have said, alone and in its own garden ; and Ninette's occupation of it may have passed unnoticed, while even if any one of the poor people living around had known of her, it was, after all, nobody's business to interfere.
 When l was last in Paris, I went to look for the house, but all traces of it had vanished, and over the site, so far as could fix it, narrow street of poor houses tlourished.
 Ninette introduced me to her do- main with proud air of ownership. She had a little store of charcoal, with which she proceeded to light fire in the grate, and by its fitful light pre- pared our common supper-bread and radishes, washed down by penny worth of milk, of which, 1 have no doubt, received the lions share. As a dessert we munched, with much rel ish, the steaming potatoes that Min ette had bought from stall in the street and had kept warm in the pocket of her apron.
 And so, as Ninette said, we made a menage together. How that old or gan brings it all back! My fiddle was useless after the hard usage it received that day. Ninette and I went out on our rounds together, but for the pres ent was sleeping partner in the firm, and all I could do was to grind occasionally when Ninette's arm ached, or pick up the sous that were thrown us. Ninette was, as a rule, fairly successful. Since her mother had died, year before, leaving her the organ as her sole legacy, she had lived mainly by that instrument although she often increased her i'm come in the evenings, when organ grinding was more than ever at dis count, by selling punches of violets and other flowers as button-h holes.
 With her organ she had regular beat, and distinct clientele. Children playing with their 6onnes in the gar dens of the Tuileries and the Luxem- bourg were her most productive pa- irons. Of course we had bad days as we'll as good, and in winter it was es- pecially bad; but as a rule we man. aged fairly to make both ends meet. Sometimes we carried home as much as five francs as the result of the days campaign, but this, of course, was unusual.
 Ninette was not pretty child ex- actly, but she had very bright face and wonderful gray eyes. When she smiled, which was often, her face be- came very taking, and good many people were induced to throw sou C sa