Organ Grinders
On page 115, the narrator describes street performers (also known as buskers) that come to town. Francie enjoys watching them and drags Neeley along with her as she follows them to all of their stops, even though she never has any money to give them. Katie warned Francie to stay away from the organ grinders.
An organ grinder is the operator of a street organ, which typically looks like this:
The street organ is played when the organ grinder cranks it and music plays. A White-headed Capuchin monkey was often brought along to do tricks and attract attention. The monkey would collect the money from the audience and sometimes collect other shiny objects that attracted his attention. Other attractions might be parrots, dogs, dancing bears and members of the organ grinder's family who would dance and singThey moved from place to place after collecting a few coins in order to avoid being arrested. The authorities often encouraged policemen to treat the grinders as beggars or public nuisances. Music lovers usually hated the organ grinders because most were tone deaf and lacking any sense of rythm. In New York City there were as many as 1500 organ grinders on the streets at a time - one on almost every block.
I actually had this term down on a post-it to ask Alex if he caught it for word watcher, or you, if you caught it to research! Thanks for researching it! I now understand that the organ grinder cranks the street organ and plays music. The monkey situation is so unusual! I find it interesting that music lovers hated the organ, because of their lack of rythm! Lastly, I was surprised to read that New York had as many as 1500 organ grinders on the streets at once! Once again, this sparks a "compare/contrast past v. present" in my mind!
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