Echo

Frankie sees a window display for the Philadelphia Harmonica Band, and Mr. Howard buys both boys harmonicas. Mike’s Harmonica has a painted “M”; after playing it, he hears “all the instruments in the shop [strike] a long, echoing chord” (289). He wonders if it his imagination, or magic.

Mr. Potter shows Frankie and Mike how to play the blues on the harmonica. As Mike practices on his new harmonica, which makes him feel “different,” when he plays it, Eunice avoids her new wards (295). Every night, Frankie asks the same question: “Do you think tomorrow she will spend time with us?” (299)

Mike overhears Eunice telling Mr. Howard that she plans to see her lawyer, Mr. Golding, to “undo what’s been done” (303). In their conversation, Mr. Howard tells Eunice that he only wanted to help her fulfill her late father’s wishes: to create a house “filled with children and music” once again, in order to re-open her heart to love (303). She complains that everyone has always left her, and Mr. Howard becomes tearful reminding her that he himself has not. It is implied that her son, Henry, is dead.