“Needn’t folks put their hands in, and take some out the barrels?  Then why for did the folks put ’em on’ doors?”

While pondering this grave question, she was jostled by a man carrying a rocking-chair, and very nearly fell down stairs into an oyster-saloon.  A minute more and she was back on Broadway, the very street, where Aunt Madge and Prudy were waiting for her, but so much lower down that she might as well have been in the State of Maine.

“Now, I’ll go find my Hollis,” said she turning another corner, and running the wrong way with all her might.  Past candy-stalls, past toy-shops, past orange-wagons.  Hark, music again!  Not the soft strains of a harp, but the stirring notes of bugle, fife, and drum.  Fly kept time with her feet.

“Here we go marchin’ on,” hummed she.  But the crowd “marchin’ on” with her was a strange one.  Carts full of hammers, pincers, and all sorts of iron tools, and men in gray shirts, with black caps on their heads.  Some of the men had banners, with great black words, such as “Equal Rights,” or something like them, in German; but of course Fly could not tell one letter from another.  She only knew it was all very “homebly,” in spite of the music.  She began to think she had better get away as soon as she could; so she tried to cross the street, but some one held her back; it was a lady, carrying a small dog in her arms, like a baby.

“Don’t go there, child; that’s a strike, you’ll get killed.”

Fly knew but one meaning for the word strike; and, tearing herself from the lady, ran screaming down Broadway, with the thought that every man’s hand was against her.

On she went, and on went the strike, close behind her.  A little while ago she had been following music, and now music was following her.  But the fifes and drums were rather slow, and Flyaway’s feet were very swift; so it was not long before the gray men, with their white banners and clattering carts, were far behind her.  No danger now that any of the wicked creatures would strike her; so she slackened her pace.

She did begin to wonder why she had not found Horace; still, she was not at all alarmed, and there was a dreadful din in the streets, which confused her thoughts.  It seemed as if people were making it on purpose.  Once, at Willowbrook, she had heard boys banging tin pans, grinding coffee mills, and pounding with mortars.  She had liked that,—­they called it the “Calathumpian Band,”—­and she liked this too; it sounded about as uproarious.

While she sauntered along, spying wonders, her eye was attracted by some balancing-toys, which a man was showing off at one of the corners.  What a pleasant man he was, to set them spinning just to amuse little girls!  Fly was delighted with one wee soldier, in a blue coat with brass buttons, who kept dancing and bowing with the greatest politeness.  “Captain Jinks, of the horse-marines,” said the toy-man, introducing him.  “Buy him, miss; he’ll make a nice little husband for you; only fifteen cents.”