The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gypsy Breynton, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Gypsy Breynton Author: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Release Date: June 14, 2006 [EBook #18582] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GYPSY BREYNTON *** Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Gypsy Breynton By ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS New York Dodd, Mead and Company Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by GRAVES & YOUNG, in the Clerk’s Office for the District Court of Massachusetts Copyright, 1894, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. PREFACE. Having been asked to write a preface to the new edition of the Gypsy books, I am not a little perplexed. I was hardly more than a girl myself, when I recorded the history of this young person; and I find it hard, at this distance, to photograph her as she looks, or ought to look to-day. She does not sit still long enough to be “taken.” I see a lively girl in pretty short dresses and very long stockings,—quite a Tom-boy, if I remember rightly. She paddles a raft, she climbs a tree, she skates and tramps and coasts, she is usually very muddy, and a little torn. There is apt to be a pin in her gathers; but there is sure to be a laugh in her eyes. Wherever there is mischief, there is Gypsy. Yet, wherever there is fun, and health, and hope, and happiness,—and I think, wherever there is truthfulness and generosity,—there is Gypsy, too. And now, the publishers tell me that Gypsy is thirty years old, and that girls who were not so much as born when I knew the little lady, are her readers and her friends to-day. Thirty years old? Indeed, it is more than that! For is it not thirty years since the publication of her memoirs? And was she, at that time, possibly sixteen? Forty-six years? Incredible! How in the world did Gypsy “grow up?” For that was before toboggans and telephones, before bicycles and electric cars, before bangs and puffed sleeves, before girls studied Greek, and golf-capes came in. Did she go to college? For the Annex, and Smith, and Wellesley were not. Did she have a career? Or take a husband? Did she edit a Quarterly Review, or sing a baby to sleep? Did she write poetry, or make pies? Did she practice medicine, or matrimony? Who knows? Not even the author of her being. Only one thing I do know: Gypsy never grew up to be “timid,” or silly, or mean, or lazy; but a sensible woman, true and strong; asking little help of other people, but giving much; an honor to her brave and loving sex, and a safe comrade to the girls who kept step with her into middle life; and I trust that I may bespeak from their daughters and their scholars a kindly welcome to an old story, told again. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Newton Centre, Mass., April, 1895. Contents CHAPTER I WHICH INTRODUCES HER 7 CHAPTER II A SPASM OF ORDER 21 CHAPTER III MISS MELVILLE’S VISITOR 42 CHAPTER IV GYPSY HAS A DREAM 69 CHAPTER V WHAT SHE SAW 89 CHAPTER VI UP IN THE APPLE TREE 105 CHAPTER VII JUST LIKE GYPSY 126 CHAPTER VIII PEACE MAYTHORNE 146 CHAPTER IX CAMPING OUT 167 CHAPTER X THE END OF THE WEEK 202 CHAPTER XI GYPSY’S OPINION OF BOSTON 213 CHAPTER XII NO PLACE LIKE HOME 242 GYPSY BREYNTON Chapter I WHICH INTRODUCES HER “Gypsy Breynton. Hon. Gypsy Breynton, Esq., M. A., D. D., LL. D., &c., &c. Gypsy Breynton, R. R.” Tom was very proud of his handwriting. It was black and business-like, round and rolling and readable, and drowned in a deluge of hair-line flourishes, with little black curves in the middle of them. It had been acquired in the book-keeping class of Yorkbury high school, and had taken a prize at the end of the summer term. And therefore did Tom lean back in his chair, and survey, with intense satisfaction, the great sheet of sermon-paper which was covered with his scrawlings. Tom was a handsome fellow, if he did look very well pleased with himself at that particular moment. His curly hair was black and bright, and brushed off from a full forehead, and what with that faint, dark line of moustache just visible above his lips, and that irresistible twinkle to his great merry eyes, it was no wonder Gypsy was proud of him, as indeed she certainly was, nor did she hesitate to tell him so twenty times a day. This was a treatment of which Tom decidedly approved. Exactly how beneficial it was to the growth within him of modesty, self-forgetfulness, and the passive virtues generally, is another question. The room in which Tom was sitting might have been exhibited with profit by Mr. Barnum, as a legitimate relic of that chaos and Old Night, which the poets tell us was dispelled by the light of this order-loving creation. It had a bed in it, as well as several chairs and a carpet, but it required considerable search to discover them, for the billows of feminine drapery that were piled upon them. Three dresses,—Tom counted, to make sure,—one on the bedpost, one rolled up in a heap on the floor where it had fallen, and one spread out on the counterpane, with benzine on it. What with kerosene oil, candle drippings, and mugs of milk, Gypsy managed to keep one dress under the benzine treatment all the time; it was an established institution, and had long ago ceased to arouse remark, even from Tom. There was also a cloak upon one chair, and a crocheted cape tied by the tassels on another. There was a white tippet hanging on the stovepipe. There was a bandbox up in one corner with a pretty hat lying on the outside, its long, light feather catching the dust; it was three days now since Sunday. There were also two pairs of shoes, one pair of rubbers, and one slipper under the bed; the other slipper lay directly in the middle of the room. Then the wardrobe door was wide open,—it was too full to stay shut,—upon a sight which, I think, even Gypsy would hardly want put into print. White skirts and dressing-sacks; winter hoods that ought to have been put up in camphor long ago; aprons hung up by the trimming; a calico dress that yawned mournfully out of a twelve-inch tear in the skirt; a pile of stockings that had waited long, and were likely to wait longer, for darning; some rubber-boots and a hatchet. The bureau drawers, Tom observed, were tightly shut,—probably for very good reasons. The table, at which he sat, was a curiosity to the speculative mind. The cloth was two-thirds off, and slipping, by a very gradual process, to the floor. On the remaining third stood an inkstand and a bottle of mucilage, as well as a huge pile of books, a glass tumbler, a Parian vase, a jack-knife, a pair of scissors, a thimble, two spools of thread, a small kite, and a riding-whip. The rest of the table had been left free to draw a map on, and was covered with pencils and rubber, compasses, paper, and torn geography leaves. There were several pretty pictures on the walls, but they were all hung crookedly; the curtain at the window was unlooped, and you could write your name anywhere in the dust that covered mantel, stove, and furniture. And this was Gypsy’s room. Tom had spent a longer time in looking at it than I have taken to tell about it, and when he was through looking he did [Pg 7] [Pg 8] [Pg 9] [Pg 10] [Pg 11] one of those things that big brothers of sixteen long years’ experience in this life, who are always teasing you and making fun of you and “preaching” at you, are afflicted with a chronic and incurable tendency to do. It is very fortunate that Gypsy deserved it, for it was really a horrible thing, girls, and if I were you I wouldn’t let my brothers read about it, as you value your peace of mind, lace collars, clean clothes, good tempers, and private property generally. I’d put a pin through these leaves, or fasten them together with sealing-wax, or cut them out, before I’d run the risk. And what did he do? Why, he put a chair in the middle of the room, tied a broom to it (he found it in the corner with a little heap of dust behind it, as Gypsy had left it when her mother sent her up to sweep the room that morning), and dressed it up in the three dresses, the cloaks and the cape, one above another, the chair serving as crinoline. Upon the top of the broom-handle he tied the torn apron, stuffed out with the rubber-boots, and pinned on slips of the geography leaves for features; Massachusetts and Vermont giving the graceful effect of one pink eye and one yellow eye, Australia making a very blue nose, and Japan a small green mouth. The hatchet and the riding-whip served as arms, and the whole figure was surmounted by the Sunday hat that had the dust on its feather. From under the hem of the lowest dress, peeped the toes of all the pairs of shoes and rubbers, and the entire contents of the sliding table-cloth, down to every solitary pencil, needle, and crumb of cake, were ranged in a line on the carpet. To crown the whole, he pinned upon the image that paper placard upon which he had been scribbling. When his laudable work was completed, this ingenious and remorseless boy had to stand and laugh at it for five minutes. If Gypsy had only seen him then! And Gypsy was nearer than he thought—in the front door, and coming up the stairs with a great banging and singing and laughing, as nobody but Gypsy could come up stairs. Tom just put his hand on the window-sill, and gave one leap out on the kitchen roof, and Gypsy burst in, and stopped short. Tom crouched down against the side of the house, and held his breath. For about half a minute it was perfectly still. Then a soft, merry laugh broke out all at once on the air, something as a little brook would splash down in a sudden cascade on the rocks. “O—oh! Did you ever? I never saw anything so funny! Oh, dear me!” Then it was still again, and then the merry laugh began to spell out the placard. “Gypsy Breynton. Hon.—Hon. Gypsy Breynton,—what? Oh, Esq., M. A., D. D., LL. D.—what a creature he is! Gypsy Breynton, R. R. R. R.? I’m sure I don’t know what that means—Tom! Thom—as!” Just then she caught sight of him out on the ridge-pole, whittling away as coolly as if he had sat there all his life. “Good afternoon,” said Gypsy, politely. “Good afternoon,” said Tom. “Been whittling out there ever since dinner, I suppose?” “Certainly.” “I thought so. Come here a minute.” “Come out here,” said Tom. Gypsy climbed out of the window without the slightest hesitation, and walked along the ridge-pole with the ease and fearlessness of a boy. She had on a pretty blue delaine dress, which was wet and torn, and all stuck together with burs; her boots were covered with mud to the ankle; her white stockings spattered and brown; her turban was hanging round her neck by its elastic; her net had come off, and the wind was blowing her hair all over her eyes; she had her sack thrown over one arm, and a basket filled to overflowing, with flowers and green moss, upon the other. “Well, you’re a pretty sight!” said Tom, leisurely regarding her. Indeed, he was not far from right. In spite of the mud and the burs and the tears, and the general dropping-to-pieces look about her, Gypsy managed, somehow or other, to look as pretty as a picture, with her cheeks as red as a coral, and the soft brown hair that was tossing about her eyes. Gypsy’s eyes were the best part of her. They were very large and brown, and had that same irresistible twinkle that was in Tom’s eyes, only a great deal more of it; and then it was always there. They twinkled when she was happy and when she was cross; they twinkled over her school-books; they twinkled, in spite of themselves, at church and Sabbath school; and, when she was at play, they shone like a whole galaxy of stars. If ever Gypsy’s eyes ceased twinkling, people knew she was going to be sick. Her hair, I am sorry to say, was not curly. This was Gypsy’s one unalleviated affliction in life. That a girl could possibly be pretty with straight hair, had never once entered her mind. All the little girls in story-books had curls. Who ever heard of the straight-haired maiden that made wreaths of the rosebuds, or saw the fairies, or married the Prince? And Gypsy’s hair was not only straight, it was absolutely uncurlable. A week’s penance “done up in paper” made no more impression than if you were to pinch it. However, that did not interfere with her making a bit of a picture, perched up there on the roof beside Tom, among her burs and her flowers and her moss, her face all dimples from forehead to chin. “Where have you been?” said Tom, trying to look severe, and making a most remarkable failure. “Oh, only over to the three-mile swamp after white violets. Sarah Rowe, she got her two hands full, and then she just [Pg 12] [Pg 13] [Pg 14] [Pg 15] [Pg 16] [Pg 17] fell splash into the water, full length, and lost ’em—Oh, dear me, how I laughed! She did look so funny.” “Your boots are all mud,” said Tom. “Who cares?” said Gypsy, with a merry laugh, tipping all the wet, earthy moss out on her lap, as she spoke. “See! isn’t there a quantity? I like moss ’cause it fills up. Violets are pretty enough, only you do have to pick ’em one at a time. Innocence comes up by the handful,—only mine’s most all roots.” “I don’t know what’s going to become of you,” said Tom, drawing down the corner of his mouth. “Neither do I,” said Gypsy, demurely; “I wish I did.” “You won’t learn to apply yourself to anything,” persisted Tom. “Work or play, there’s no system to you. You’re like a ——” Tom paused for a simile—“Well, like a toad that’s always on the jump.” “Ow!” said Gypsy, with a little scream, “there’s a horrid old snail crawled out my moss!” and over went moss, flowers, basket, and all, down the roof and upon the stone steps below. “There! Good enough for it!” Tom coughed and whittled. Gypsy pulled her net out of her basket, and put up her hair. There was a little silence. Nothing had yet been said about the image in Gypsy’s room, and both were determined not to be the first to speak of it. Gypsy could have patience enough where a joke was in question, and as is very apt to be the case, the boy found himself outwitted. For not a word said Gypsy of the matter, and half an hour passed and the supper-bell rang. “There!” said Gypsy, jumping up, “I do declare if it isn’t supper, and I’ve got these burs to get off and my dress to mend and my shoes and stockings to change, and—Oh, dear! I wish people didn’t ever have to do things, anyway!” With this very wise remark, she walked back across the ridge-pole and climbed in the window. There was nothing for Tom to do but follow; which he did slowly and reluctantly. Something would have to be said now, at any rate. But not a syllable said Gypsy. She went to the looking-glass, and began to brush her hair as unconcernedly as if everything were just as she left it and precisely as she wanted it. Tom passed through the room and out of the door; then he stopped. Gypsy’s eyes began to twinkle as if somebody had dropped two little diamonds in them. “I say,” said Tom. “What do you say?” replied Gypsy. “What do you suppose mother would have to say to you about this looking room?” “I don’t know what she’d say to you, I’m sure,” said Gypsy, gravely. “And you, a great girl, twelve years old!” “I should like to know why I’m a railroad, anyway,” said Gypsy. “Who said you were a railroad?” “Whoever wrote Gypsy Breynton, R. R., with my red ink.” “That doesn’t stand for railroad.” “Doesn’t? Well, what?” “Regular Romp.” “Oh!” [Pg 18] [Pg 19] [Pg 20] Chapter II A SPASM OF ORDER “I can’t help it,” said Gypsy, after supper; “I can’t possibly help it, and it’s no use for me to try.” “If you cannot help it,” replied Mrs. Breynton, quietly, “then it is no fault of yours, but in every way a suitable and praiseworthy condition of things that you should keep your room looking as I would be ashamed to have a servant’s room look, in my house. People are never to blame for what they can’t help.” “Oh, there it is again!” said Gypsy, with the least bit of a blush, “you always stop me right off with that, on every subject, from saying my prayers down to threading a needle.” “Your mother was trained in the new-school theology, and she applies her principles to things terrestrial as well as things celestial,” observed her father, with an amused smile. “Yes, sir,” said Gypsy, without the least idea what he was talking about. “Besides,” added Mrs. Breynton, finishing, as she spoke, the long darn in Gypsy’s dress, “I think people who give right up at little difficulties, on the theory that they can’t help it, are——” “Oh, I know that too!” “What?” “Cowards.” “Exactly.” “I hate cowards,” said Gypsy, in a little flash, and then stood with her back half turned, her eyes fixed on the carpet, as if she were puzzling out a proposition in Euclid, somewhere hidden in its brown oak-leaves. “Take a chair, and sit by the window and think of it,” remarked Tom, in his most aggravating tone. “That’s precisely what I intend to do, sir,” said Gypsy; and was as good as her word. She went up-stairs and shut her door, and, what was remarkable, nobody saw anything more of her. What was still more remarkable, nobody heard anything of her. For a little while it was perfectly still overhead. “I hope she isn’t crying,” said Mr. Breynton, who was always afraid Gypsy was doing something she ought not to do, and who was in about such a state of continual astonishment over the little nut-brown romp that had been making such commotion in his quiet home for twelve years, as a respectable middle-aged and kind-hearted oyster might be, if a lively young toad were shut up in his shell. “Catch her!” said the more appreciative Tom; “I don’t believe she cries four times a year. That’s the best part of Gyp.; with all her faults, there’s none of your girl’s nonsense about her.” Another person in the room, who had listened to the conversation, went off at this period into a sudden fit of curiosity concerning Gypsy, and started up-stairs to find her. This was Master Winthrop Breynton, familiarly and disrespectfully known as Winnie. A word must be said as to this young person; for, whatever he may be in the eyes of other people, he was of considerable importance in his own. He had several distinguishing characteristics, as is apt to be the case with gentlemen of his age and experience. One was that he was five lengthy and important years of age; of which impressive [Pg 21] [Pg 22] [Pg 23] [Pg 24] [Pg 25] fact his friends, relatives, and chance acquaintances, were informed at every possible and impossible opportunity. Another was, that there were always, at least, half a dozen buttons off from his jacket, at all times and places, though his long-suffering mother lived in her work-basket. A third, lay in the fact that he never walked. He trotted, he cantered, he galloped; he progressed in jerks, in jumps, in somersets; he crawled up-stairs like a little Scotch plaid spider, on “all fours;” he came down stairs on the banisters, the balance of power lying between his steel buttons and the smooth varnish of the mahogany. On several memorable occasions, he has narrowly escaped pitching head first into the hall lamp. His favorite method of locomotion, however, consisted in a series of thumps, beginning with a gentle tread, and increasing in impetus by mathematical progression till it ended in a thunder-clap. A long hall to him was bliss unalloyed; the bare garret floor a dream of delight, and the plank walk in the woodshed an ecstasy. Still a fourth peculiarity was a pleasing habit when matters went contrary to his expressed wishes, of throwing himself full length upon the floor without any warning whatsoever, squirming around in his clothes, and crying at the top of his lungs. Added to this is the fact that, for some unaccountable reason, Winnie’s eyes were so blue, and Winnie’s laugh so funny, and Winnie’s hands were so pink and little, that somehow or other Winnie didn’t get half the scoldings he deserved. But who is there of us that does, for that matter? Well, Winnie it was who stamped across the hall, and crawled up-stairs hand over hand, and stamped across the upper entry, and pounded on Gypsy’s door, and burst it open, and slammed in with one of Winnie’s inimitable shouts. “Oh Winnie!” “I say, father wants to know if——” “Just see what you’ve done!” Winnie stopped short, in considerable astonishment. Gypsy was sitting on the floor beside one of her bureau drawers which she had pulled out of its place. That drawer was a sight well worth seeing, by the way; but of that presently. Gypsy had taken out of it a little box (without a cover, like all Gypsy’s boxes) filled with beadwork,—collars, cuffs, nets, and bracelets, all tumbled in together, and as much as a handful of loose beads of every size, color, and description, thrown down on the bottom. Gypsy was sorting these beads, and this was what had kept her so still. Now Winnie, in slamming into the room after his usual style, had stepped directly into the box, crushed its pasteboard flat, and scattered the unlucky beads to all four points of the compass. Gypsy sat for about half a minute watching the stream of crimson and blue and black and silver and gold, that was rolling away under the bed and the chair and the table, her face a perfect little thunder-cloud. Then she took hold of Winnie’s shoulder, without any remarks, and—shook him. It was a little shake, and, if it had been given in good temper, would not have struck Winnie as anything but a pleasant joke. But he knew, from Gypsy’s face, it was no joke; and, feeling his dignity insulted, down he went flat upon the floor with a scream and a jerk that sent two fresh buttons flying off from his jacket. Mrs. Breynton ran up-stairs in a great hurry. “What’s the matter, Gypsy?” “She sh—sh—shooked me—the old thing!” sobbed Winnie. “He broke my box and lost all my beads, and I’ve got them all to pick up just as I was trying to put my room in order, and so I was mad,” said Gypsy, frankly. “Winnie, you may go down stairs,” said Mrs. Breynton, “you must learn to be more careful with Gypsy’s things.” Winnie slid down on the banisters, and Mrs. Breynton shut the door. “What are you trying to do, Gypsy?” “Pick up my room,” said Gypsy. “But what had that to do with stringing the beads?” “Why, I—don’t know exactly. I took out my drawer to fix it up, and my beads were all in a muss, and so I thought I’d sort them, and then I forgot.” “I see several things in the room that want putting in order before a little box of beads,” said Mrs. Breynton, with a smile that was half amused, half sorrowful. Gypsy cast a deprecating glance around the room, and into her mother’s face. “Oh, I did mean to shut the wardrobe door, and I thought I’d taken the broom down stairs as much as could be, but that everlasting Tom had to go and—— Oh dear! did you ever see anything so funny in all your life?” And Gypsy looked at the image, and broke into one of her rippling laughs. “It is really a serious matter, Gypsy,” said Mrs. Breynton, looking somewhat troubled at the laugh. [Pg 26] [Pg 27] [Pg 28] [Pg 29] [Pg 30] “I know it,” said Gypsy, sobering down, “and I came up-stairs on purpose to put everything to rights, and then I was going to live like other people, and keep my stockings darned, and—then I had to go head first into a box of beads, and that was the end of me. It’s always so.” “You know, Gypsy, it is one of the signs of a lady to keep one’s room in order; I’ve told you so many times.” “I know it,” said Gypsy, forlornly; “don’t you remember when I was a little bit of a thing, my telling you that I guessed God made a mistake when he made me, and put in some ginger-beer somehow, that was always going off? It’s pretty much so; the cork’s always coming out at the wrong time.” “Well,” said Mrs. Breynton, with a smile, “I’m glad you’re trying afresh to hammer it in. Pick up the beads, and tear down the image, and go to work with a little system. You’ll be surprised to find how fast the room will come to order.” “I think,” she added, as she shut the door, “that it was hardly worth while to——” “To shake Winnie?” interrupted Gypsy, demurely. “No, not at all; I ought to have known better.” Mrs. Breynton did not offer to help Gypsy in the task which bade fair to be no easy one, of putting her room in order; but, with a few encouraging words, she went down stairs and left her. It would have been far easier for her to have gone to work and done the thing herself, than to see Gypsy’s face so clouded and discouraged. But she knew it would be the ruin of Gypsy. Her only chance of overcoming her natural thoughtlessness, and acquiring the habits of a lady, lay in the persistent doing over and over again, by her own unaided patience, these very things that came so hard to her. Gypsy understood this perfectly, and had the good sense to think her mother was just right about it. It was not want of training, that gave Gypsy her careless fashion of looking after things. Mrs. Breynton was a wise, as well as a loving mother, and had done everything in the way of punishment, reproof, warning, persuasion, and argument, that mothers can do for the faults of children. Nor was it for want of a good example, Mrs. Breynton was the very pink of neatness. It was a natural kink in Gypsy, that was as hard to get out as a knot in an apple-tree, and which depended entirely on the child’s own will for its eradication. This disorder in her room and about her toilet was only one development of it, and by no means a fixed or continued one. Gypsy could be, and half the time she was, as orderly and lady-like as anybody. She did everything by fits and starts. As Tom said, she was “always on the jump.” If her dress didn’t happen to be torn and her room dusty, why, she had a turn of forgetting everything. If she didn’t forget, she was always getting hurt. If it wasn’t that, she lost her temper every five minutes. Or else she was making terrible blunders, and hurting people’s feelings; something was always the matter; and some one was always on the qui vive, wondering what Gypsy was going to do next. Yet, in spite of it all, the person who did not love Gypsy Breynton (provided he knew her) was not to be found in Yorkbury. Whether there was any reason for this, you can judge for yourself as the story goes on. After her mother had gone down, Gypsy went to work in earnest. She picked up the beads, and put them back into the drawer which she left upon the floor. Then she attacked Tom’s image. It took her fully fifteen minutes merely to get the thing to pieces, for the true boy-fashion in which it was tied, pinned, sewed, and nailed together, would have been a puzzle to any feminine mind. She would have called Tom up to help her, but she was just a little bit too proud. The broom she put out in the entry the first thing; then, remembering that that was not systematic, she carried it down stairs and hung it on its nail. The shoes and the dresses, the cape and the cloak, the tippet and the hat, she put in their places; the torn apron and the unmended stockings she tumbled into her basket, then went back and folded them up neatly; she also made a journey into the woodshed expressly to put the hatchet where it belonged, on the chopping- block. By this time it was quite dark, but she lighted a lamp, and went at it afresh. Winnie came up to the entry door, and, at a respectful distance, told her they were “popping” corn down stairs; but she shook her head, and proceeded with her dusting like a hero. Tom whistled for her up the chimney-flue; but she only gave a little thump on the floor, and said she was busy. It was like walking into a labyrinth to dispose of the contents of that table-cloth. How to put away the pencils and the rubber, when the drawing-box was lost; how to collect all the cookey-crumbs and wandering needles, that slipped out of your finger as fast as you took hold of them; where on earth to put those torn geography leaves, that wouldn’t stay in the book, and couldn’t be thrown away; where was the cork to the inkstand? and how should she hang up the riding- whip, with the string gone? These were questions that might well puzzle a more systematic mind than Gypsy’s. However, in due time, the room was restored to an order that was delightful to see,—for, if Gypsy made up her mind to a thing, she could do it thoroughly and skilfully,—and she returned to the bureau drawer. This drawer was a fair specimen of the rest of Gypsy’s drawers, shelves, and cupboards, and their name was Legion. Moreover, it was an “upper drawer,” and where is the girl that does not know what a delicate science is involved in the rearranging of these upper drawers? So many laces, and half-worn collars that don’t belong there, are always getting in; loose coppers have such a way of accumulating in the crevices; all your wandering pins and hair-pins make it a rendezvous by a species of free-masonry utterly inexplicable; then your little boxes fit in so tightly, and never have room to open, and are always getting their covers caught when you shut the drawer, and, when you try to keep them down, you pinch your fingers so. Please to imagine, O orderly readers! who keep every pin in its proper place, the worst looking upper drawer that your horrified eyes ever beheld, and you will have some idea of this drawer of Gypsy’s. There were boxes large, and boxes small, boxes round, square, and oblong; boxes with covers (only two), and boxes [Pg 31] [Pg 32] [Pg 33] [Pg 34] [Pg 35] [Pg 36] [Pg 37] without; handkerchiefs, under-sleeves, collars,—both clean and soiled,—laces and ribbons, and bows and nets; purses and old gloves, a piece of soap, a pile of letters, scratched and scattering jewelry, a piece of dried cake, several fans all covered with dust, and nobody knew what not, in the lower strata, out of sight. Gypsy sat and looked at it for about two minutes in utter despair. Then she just turned the whole thing bottom upwards in a great heap on the floor, and began to investigate matters, with her cheeks very red. Presently, the family down stairs heard a little scream. Winnie stamped up to see what was the matter. “Why, I’ve found my grammar!” said Gypsy. “It’s the one in marble covers I lost ever—ever so long ago, and had to get a new one. It was right down at the bottom of the drawer!” Pretty soon there was another little scream, and Gypsy called down the chimney: “Tom Breynton! What do you think? I’ve found that dollar bill of yours you thought I’d burnt up.” After awhile there came still another scream, a pretty loud one this time. Mrs. Breynton came up to see what had happened. “I’ve cut my hand,” said Gypsy, faintly; “there was a great heap of broken glass in my drawer!” “Broken glass!” “Yes, I’m sure I don’t know how it came there; I guess I was going to frame a picture.” Mrs. Breynton bound up her finger, and went down again. She was no more than fairly seated before there came from up-stairs, not a scream, but one of the merriest laughs that ever was heard. “What is to pay, now?” called Tom, from the entry. “Oh, dear!” gasped Gypsy; “it’s too funny for anything! If here isn’t the carving-knife we scolded Patty for losing last winter, and—Oh, Tom, just look here!—my stick of peanut candy, that I thought I’d eaten up, all stuck on to my lace under-sleeves!” It was past Gypsy’s bed-time when the upper drawer was fairly in order and put back in its place. Three others remained to go through the same process, as well as wardrobe shelves innumerable. Gypsy, with her characteristic impulsiveness, would have sat up till twelve o’clock to complete the work, but her mother said “No” very decidedly, and so it must wait till to-morrow. Tom came in just as everything was done, and Gypsy had drawn a long breath and stood up to look, with great satisfaction, all around her pleasant, orderly room. “Well done! I say, Gypsy, what a jewel you are when you’re a mind to be.” “Of course, I am. Have you just found it out?” “Well, you know you’re a diamond, decidedly in the rough, as a general thing. You need cutting down and polishing.” “And you to polish me? Well, I like the looks of this room, anyhow. It is nice to have things somewhere where you won’t trip over them when you walk across the room—only if somebody else would pick ’em up for me.” “How long do you suppose it will last?” asked Tom, with an air of great superiority. “Tom,” said Gypsy, solemnly; “that’s a serious question.” “It might last forever if you have a mind to have it,—come now, Gyp., why not?” “That’s a long time,” said Gypsy, shaking her head; “I wouldn’t trust myself two inches. To-morrow I shall be in a hurry to go to school; then I shall be in a hurry to go to dinner; then I shall be in a terrible hurry to get off with Sarah Rowe, and so it goes. However, I’ll see. I feel, to-night, precisely as if I should never want to take a single pin out of those little black squares I’ve put them into on the cushion.” Gypsy found herself in a hurry the next day and the next, and is likely to, to the end of her life, I am afraid. But she seemed to have taken a little gasp of order, and for a long time no one had any complaint to make of Gypsy’s room or Gypsy’s toilet. [Pg 38] [Pg 39] [Pg 40] [Pg 41] Chapter III MISS MELVILLE’S VISITOR As will be readily supposed, Gypsy’s name was not her original one; though it might have been, for there have been actual Billys and Sallys, who began and ended Billys and Sallys only. Gypsy’s real name was an uncouth one—Jemima. It was partly for this reason, partly for its singular appropriateness, that her nickname had entirely transplanted the lawful and ugly one. This subject of nicknames is a curiosity. All rules of euphony, fitness, and common sense, that apply to other things, are utterly at fault here. A baby who cannot talk plainly, dubs himself “Tuty,” or “Dess,” or “Pet,” or “Honey,” and forthwith becomes Tuty, Dess, Pet, or Honey, the rest of his mortal life. All the particularly cross and disagreeable girls are Birdies and Sunbeams. All the brunettes with loud voices and red hands, who are growing up into the “strong- minded women,” are Lilies and Effies and Angelinas, and other etherial creatures; while the little shallow, pink-and- white young ladies who cry very often and “get nervous,” are quite as likely to be royal Constance, or Elizabeth, without any nickname at all. But Gypsy’s name had undoubtedly been foreordained, so perfectly was it suited to Gypsy. For never a wild rover led a more untamed and happy life. Summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, found Gypsy out in the open air, as many hours out of the twenty-four as were not absolutely bolted and barred down into the school-room and dreamland. A fear of the weather never entered into Gypsy’s creed; drenchings and freezings were so many soap-bubbles,—great fun while they lasted, and blown right away by dry stockings and mother’s warm fire; so where was the harm? A good brisk thunderstorm out in the woods, with the lightning quivering all about her and the thunder crashing over her, was simple delight. A day of snow and sleet, with drifts knee-deep, and winds like so many little knives, was a festival. If you don’t know the supreme bliss of a two-mile walk on such a day, when you have to shut your eyes, and wade your way, then Gypsy would pity you. Not a patch of woods, a pond, a brook, a river, a mountain, in the region (and there, in Vermont, there were plenty of them), but Gypsy knew it by heart. There was not a trout-brook for miles where she had not fished. There was hardly a tree she had not climbed, or a fence or stone-wall—provided, of course, that it was away from the main road and people’s eyes—that she had not walked. Gypsy could row and skate and swim, and play ball and make kites, and coast and race, and drive, and chop wood. Altogether Gypsy seemed like a very pretty, piquant mistake; as if a mischievous boy had somehow stolen the plaid dresses, red cheeks, quick wit, and little indescribable graces of a girl, and was playing off a continual joke on the world. Old Mrs. Surly, who lived opposite, and wore green spectacles, used to roll up her eyes, and say What would become of that child? A whit cared Gypsy for Mrs. Surly! As long as her mother thought the sport and exercise in the open air a fine thing for her, and did not complain of the torn dresses oftener than twice a week, she would roll her hoop and toss her ball under Mrs. Surly’s very windows, and laugh merrily to see the green glasses pushed up and taken off in horror at what Mrs. Surly termed an “impropriety.” Therefore it created no surprise in the family one morning, when school-time came and passed, and Gypsy did not make her appearance, that she was reported to be “making a raft” down in the orchard swamp. “Run and call her, Winnie,” said Mrs. Breynton. “Tell her it is very late, and I want her to come right up,—remember.” “Yes mum,” said Winnie, with unusual alacrity, and started off down the lane as fast as his copper-toed feet could carry him. It was quite a long lane, and a very pleasant one in summer. There was a row of hazel-nut bushes, always green and sweet, on one side, and a stone-wall on the other, with the broad leaves and tiny blossoms of a grape-vine trailing [Pg 42] [Pg 43] [Pg 44] [Pg 45] [Pg 46] over it. The lane opened into a wide field which had an apple-orchard at one end of it, and sloped down over quite a little hill into a piece of marshy ground, where ferns and white violets, anemones, and sweet-flag grew in abundance. In the summer, the water was apt to dry up. In the spring, it was sometimes four feet deep. It was a pleasant spot, for the mountains lay all around it, and shut it in with their great forest-arms, and the sharp peaks that were purple and crimson and gold, under passing shadows and fading sunsets. And, then, is there any better fun than to paddle in the water? Gypsy looked as if she thought not, when Winnie suddenly turned the corner, and ran down the slope. She had finished her raft, and launched it off from the root of an old oak-tree that grew half in the water, and, with a long pole, had pushed herself a third of the way across the swamp. Her dress was tucked up over her bright balmoral, and the ribbons of her hat were streaming in the wind. She had no mittens or gloves on her hands, which were very pink and plump, and her feet were incased in high rubber boots. “Hullo!” said Winnie, walking out on the root of the oak. “Hilloa!” said Gypsy. “I say—that’s a bully raft.” “To be sure it is.” “I haven’t had a ride on a raft since—why since ’leven or six years ago when I was a little boy. I shouldn’t wonder if it was twenty-three years, either.” “Oh, I can’t bear people that hint. Why don’t you say right out, if you want a ride?” “I want a ride,” said Winnie, without any hesitation. “Wait till I turn her round. I’ll bring her up on the larboard side,” replied Gypsy, in the tone of an old salt of fifty years’ experience. So she paddled up to the oak-tree, and Winnie jumped on board. “I guess we’ll have time to row across and back before school,” said Gypsy, pushing off. Winnie maintained a discreet silence. “I don’t suppose it’s very late,” said Gypsy. “Oh, just look at that toad with a green head, down in the water!” observed Winnie. They paddled on a little ways in silence. “What makes your cheeks so red?” asked Gypsy. “I guess it’s scarlet fever, or maybe it’s appleplexy, you know.” “Oh!” Just then Winnie gave a little scream. “Look here—Gyp.! The boat’s goin’clock down. I don’t want to go very much. I saw another toad down there.” “I declare!” said Gypsy, “we’re going to be swamped, as true as you live! It isn’t strong enough to bear two,—sit still, Winnie. Perhaps we’ll get ashore.” But no sooner had she spoken the words than the water washed up about her ankles, and Winnie’s end of the raft went under. The next she knew, they were both floundering in the water. It chanced to be about three feet and a half deep, very cold, and somewhat slimy. Gypsy had a strong impression that a frog jumped into her neck when she plunged, head first, into the deep mud at the bottom. After a little splashing and gasping, she regained her feet, and stood up to her elbows in the water. But what she could do, Winnie could not. He had sunk in the soft mud, and even if he had had the courage to stand up straight, the water would have been above his head. But it had never occurred to him to do otherwise than lie gasping and flat on the bottom, where he was drowning as fast as he possibly could. Gypsy pulled him out and carried him ashore. She wrung him out a little, and set him down on the grass, and then, by way of doing something, she took her dripping handkerchief out of her dripping pocket and wiped her hands on it. “O—o—oh!” gasped Winnie; “I never did—you’d ought to know—you’ve just gone’n drownded me!” “What a story!” said Gypsy; “you’re no more drowned than I am. To be sure you are rather wet,” she added, with a disconsolate attempt at a laugh. [Pg 47] [Pg 48] [Pg 49] [Pg 50] [Pg 51] “You oughtn’t to have tooken me out on that old raft,” glared Winnie, through the shower of water-drops that rained down from his forehead, “you know you hadn’t! I’ll just tell mother. I’ll get sick and be died after it, you see if I don’t.” “Very well,” said Gypsy, giving herself a little shake, very much as a pretty brown spaniel would do, who had been in swimming. “You may do as you like. Who teased to go on the raft, I’d like to know?” “Besides,” resumed Winnie, with an impressive cough; “you’re late to school, ’cause mother, she said you was to come right up when she sent me down, only I—well I guess, I b’lieve I forgot to tell you,—I rather think I did. Anyways, you’re late,—so!” Gypsy looked at Winnie, and Winnie looked at Gypsy. There was an awful silence. “Winnie Breynton,” said Gypsy, solemnly, “if you don’t get one whipping!” “I don’t care to hear folks talk,” interrupted Winnie, with dignity, “I am five years old.” Gypsy’s reply is not recorded. I have heard it said that when Tom espied the two children coming up the lane, he went to his mother with the information that the fishman was somewhere around, only he had sent his fishes on ahead of him. They appeared to have been freshly caught, and would, he thought, make several dinners; but I cannot take the responsibility of the statement. It was very late, much nearer ten o’clock than nine, when Gypsy was fairly metamorphosed into a clean, dry, very penitent-looking child. She hurried off to school, leaving Winnie and his mother in close conference. Exactly what happened on the occasion of that interview, has never been made known to an inquiring public. On the way to school Gypsy had as many as six sober thoughts; a larger number than she was usually capable of in forty-eight hours. One was, that it was too bad she had got so wet. Another was, that she really supposed it was her business to know when school-time came, no matter where she was or what she was doing. Another, that she had made her mother a great deal of trouble. A fourth was, that she was sorry to be so late at school—it always made Miss Melville look so; and then a bad mark was not, on the whole, a desirable thing. Still a fifth was, that she would never do such a thing again as long as she lived—never. The sixth lay in a valiant determination to behave herself the rest of this particular day. She would study hard. She would get to the head of the class. She wouldn’t put a single pin in the girls’ chairs, nor tickle anybody, nor make up funny faces, nor whisper, nor make one of the girls laugh, not one, not even that silly Delia Guest, who laughed at nothing,—why, you couldn’t so much as make a doll out of your handkerchief and gloves, and hang it on your pen-handle, but what she had to go into a spasm over it. No, she wouldn’t do a single funny thing all day. She would just sit still and look sober and sorry, and not trouble Miss Melville in the least. Her mind was quite made up. Just as she had arrived at this conclusion she came to the school-house door. Gypsy and a number of other girls, both her own age and younger, who either were not prepared to enter the high school, or whose parents preferred the select school system, composed Miss Melville’s charge. They were most of them pleasant girls, and Miss Melville was an unusually successful teacher, and as dearly loved as a judicious teacher can be. The school-house was a bit of a brown building tucked away under some apple-trees on a quiet by-road. It had been built for a district school, but had fallen into disuse years ago, and Miss Melville had taken possession of it. Gypsy slackened her pace as she passed under the apple-boughs, where the tiny, budding leaves filled all the air with faint fragrance. It was nearly recess time; she knew, because she could hear, through the windows, the third geography class reciting. It was really too bad to be so late. She went up the steps slowly, the corners of her mouth drawn down as penitently as Gypsy’s mouth could well be. Just inside the door she stopped. A quick color ran all over her face, her eyes began to twinkle like sparks from a great fire of hickory, and, in an instant, every one of those six sober thoughts was gone away somewhere—nobody could have told where; and the funniest little laugh broke the silence of the entry. The most interested observer could not have told what Gypsy saw that was so very amusing. The entry was quite deserted. Nothing was to be seen but a long row of girls’ “things,” hanging up on the nails—hats and bonnets, tippets, sacks, rubbers, and baskets; apparently as demure and respectable as hats, bonnets, tippets, sacks, rubbers, and baskets could be. Yet there Gypsy stood for as much as a minute laughing away quietly to herself, as if she had come across some remarkable joke. About ten minutes after, some one knocked at the school-room door. Miss Melville laid down her geography. “Cape Ann, Cape Hatteras, Cape—may I go to the door?” piped little Cely Hunt, holding up her hand. Miss Melville nodded and Cely went. She opened the door—and jumped. “What’s the matter, Cely?—Oh!” For there stood the funniest old woman that Cely or Miss Melville had ever seen. [Pg 52] [Pg 53] [Pg 54] [Pg 55] [Pg 56] [Pg 57] She had on a black dress, very long and very scant, that looked as if it were made out of an old waterproof cloak. Over that, she wore a curious drab-silk sack, somewhat faded and patched, with all the edges of the seams outside. Over that, was a plaid red-and-green shawl, tied about her waist. There was a little black shawl over that, and a green tippet wound twice around her throat with the ends tucked in under the shawl. She had a pair of black mitts on her hands, and she carried a basket. Her face no one could see, for it was covered with a thick green veil, tied closely about her bonnet. Cely gave a little scream, and ran behind the door. Miss Melville stepped down from the platform, and went to meet the visitor. “Good arternoon,” said the old woman, in a very shrill voice. “Good afternoon,” said Miss Melville, politely. “I come to see the young uns,” piped the old woman. “I ben deown teown fur some eggs, an’clock I heerd the little creaturs a sayin’clock of their lessons as I come by, an’clock thinks says I to myself, says I, bless their dear hearts, I’ll go in an’clock see ’em, says I, an’clock I’ll thank ye kindly for a seat, for I’m pretty nigh beat out.” The scholars all began to laugh. Miss Melville, somewhat reluctantly, handed her visitor a chair by the door, but did not ask her upon the platform, as the visitor seemed to expect. “There’s a drefful draught here on my neck,” she muttered, discontentedly; “an’clock I’m terribly afflicted with rheumatiz mostly. Can’t see much of the young uns here, nuther.” “I doubt if there is much here that will interest you,” observed Miss Melville, looking at her keenly. “You may rest yourself, and then I think you had better go. Visitors always disturb the children.” “Bless their dear hearts!” cried the old woman, shrilly. “They needn’t be afraid of me—I wouldn’t hurt ’em. Had a little angel boy once myself; he’s gone to Californy now, an’clock I’m a lone, lorn widdy. I say—little gal!” and the stranger pointed her finger (it trembled a little) at Sarah Rowe, who had grown quite red in the face with her polite efforts not to laugh. “Little gal, whar’s yer manners?—laughin’clock at a poor ole creetur like me! Come out here, and le’s hear ye say that beautiful psalm of Dr. Watts—now!” “How doth the little busy bee!” But just then something happened for which the old woman and the scholars were equally unprepared. Miss Melville looked through the green veil straight into the old woman’s eyes, and said just one word. She said it very quietly, and she said it without a smile. It was “Gypsy!” There was a great hush. Sarah Rowe was the first to break it. “Why, that’s my sack turned wrong side out!” “And those are my mitts!” said Agnes Gaylord. “If you please, Miss Melville, that’s my black shawl,—I know it by the border,” piped a very little girl in mourning. “I do believe that’s my waterproof, and Lucy’s plaid shawl,” giggled Delia Guest. “Did you ever?” “And my green veil,” put in somebody else, faintly. Miss Melville quietly removed the veil, and Gypsy looked up with her mischief bright all over her face....