"Yes, sir."
"Of course, now, you hear human people swell and brag and strut round about how they are different from the animals and have something they call a soul that the animals haven"t got, but that"s just the natural conceit of this electricity or something before it has found out much about itself. Not different from the animals, you ain"t. This tree I"m leaning against is your second or third cousin. Only difference, you can walk and talk and see. Understand?"
"Yes, sir," said Wilbur. "Couldn"t we go up to the gypsy camp now?"
Dave refilled the calabash pipe, lighted it, and held the match while it burned out.
"That fire came from the sun," he said. "We"re only burning matches ourselves--burning with a little fire from the sun. Pretty soon it flickers out."
"It"s just over this next hill, and they got circus wagons and a fire where they cook their dinners, right outdoors, and fighting roosters, and tell your fortune."
Dave rose.
"Of course I don"t say I know it all yet. There"s a catch in it I haven"t figured out. But I"m right as far as I"ve gone. You can"t go wrong if you take the facts and stay by "em and don"t read books that leave the facts to one side, like most books do."
"Yes, sir," said Wilbur, "and they sleep inside their wagons and I wish we had a wagon like that and drove round the country and lived in it."
"All right," said his father. "Stir your stumps."
They followed the path that led up over another little hill winding through clumps of hazel brush and a spa.r.s.e growth of oak and beech. From the summit of this they could see the gypsy camp below them, in an open glade by the roadside. It was as the Wilbur twin had said: there were gayly-painted wagons--houses on wheels--and a campfire and tethered horses and the lolling gypsies themselves. About the outskirts loafed a dozen or so of the less socially eligible of Newbern. Above a fire at the camp centre a kettle simmered on its pothook, being stirred at this moment by a brown and aged crone in frivolous-patterned calico, who wore gold hoops in her ears and bangles at her neck and bracelets of silver on her arms--bejewelled, indeed, most unbecomingly for a person of her years.
The Wilbur twin would have lingered on the edge of the glade with other local visitors, a mere silent observer of this delightful life; he had not dreamed of being accepted as a social equal by such exalted beings.
But his father stalked boldly through the outer ring of spectators to the camp"s centre and genially hailed the aged woman, who, on first looking up from her cookery, held out a withered palm for the silver that should buy him secrets of his future.
But Dave Cowan merely preened his beautiful yellow moustache at her and said, "How"s business, Mother?" Whereupon she saw that Dave was not a villager to be wheedled by her patter. She recognized him, indeed, as belonging like herself to the freemasonry of them that know men and cities, and she spoke to him as one human to another.
"Business been pretty rotten here," she said as she stirred the kettle"s contents. "Oh, we made two-three pretty good horse trades--nothing much.
We go on to a bigger town to-morrow."
A male gypsy in corduroy trousers and scarlet sash and calico shirt open on his brown throat came to the fire now, and the Wilbur twin admiringly noted that his father greeted this rare being, too, as an equal. The gypsy held beneath an arm a trim young gamec.o.c.k feathered in rich browns and reds, with a hint of black, and armed with needle-pointed spurs. He stroked the neck of the bird and sat on his haunches with Dave before the fire to discuss affairs of the road; for he, too, divined at a glance that Dave was here but a gypsy transient, even though he spoke a different lingo.
The Wilbur twin sat also on his haunches before the fire, and thrilled with pride as his father spoke easily of distant strange cities that the gypsies also knew; cities of the North where summer found them, and cities of the South to which they fared in winter. He had always been proud of his father, but never so proud as now, when he sat there talking to real gypsies as if they were no greater than any one. He was quite ashamed when the gypsies" dog, a gaunt, hungry-looking beast, narrowly escaped being eaten up by his own dog. But Frank, at the sheer verge of a deplorable offense, implicitly obeyed his master"s command and forbore to destroy the gypsy mongrel. Again he flopped to his back at the interested approach of the other dog, held four limp paws aloft, and simpered at the stranger.
Other gypsies, male and female, came to the group about the fire, and lively chatter ensued, a continuous flashing of white teeth and shaking of golden ear hoops and rattling of silver bracelets. The Wilbur twin fondly noted that his father knew every city the gypsies knew, and even told them the advantages of some to which they had not penetrated. He gathered this much of the talk, though much was beyond him. He kept close to his father"s side when the latter took his leave of these new friends. He wanted these people to realize that he belonged to the important strange gentleman who had for a moment come so knowingly among them.
As they climbed out of the sheltering glade he was alive with a new design. Gypsies notoriously carried off desirable children; this was common knowledge in Newbern Center. So why wouldn"t they carry off him, especially if he were right round there where they could find him easily? He saw himself and his dog forcibly conveyed away with the caravan--though he would not really resist--to a strange and charming life beyond the very farthest hills. He did not confide this to his father, but he looked back often. They followed a path and were soon on a bare ridge above the camp.
Dave Cowan was already talking of other things, seeming not to have been ever so little impressed with his reception by these wondrous people, but he had won a new measure of his son"s respect. Wilbur would have lingered here where they could still observe through the lower trees the group about the campfire, but Dave Cowan seemed to have had enough of gypsies for the moment, and sauntered on up the ridge, across an alder swale and out on a parklike s.p.a.ce to rest against a fence that bounded a pasture belonging to the Whipple New Place. Across this pasture, in which the fat sorrel pony grazed and from which it regarded them from time to time, there was another grove of beech and walnut and hickory, and beyond this dimly loomed the red bulk of the Whipple house and outbuildings. There was a stile through the fence at the point where they reached it, and Dave Cowan idly lolled by this while the Wilbur twin sprawled in the scented gra.s.s at his feet. He well knew he should not be on the ground in his Sunday clothes. On the other hand, if the gypsies stole him they would not be so fussy as Winona about his clothes. None of them seemed to have Sunday clothes.
He again broached the suggestion about a gypsy wagon for himself and his father--and Frank, the dog--in which they could go far away, seeing all those strange cities and cooking their dinner over campfires. His father seemed to consider this not wholly impracticable, but there were certain disadvantages of the life, and there were really better ways. It seems you could be a gypsy in all essentials, and still live in houses like less adventurous people.
"Trouble with them, they got no trade," said the wise Dave, "and out in all kinds of weather, and small-town constables telling them to move on, and all such. You learn a good loose trade, then you can go where you want to." A loose trade seemed to be one that you could work at any place; they always wanted you if you knew a loose trade like the printer"s--or, "Now you take barbering," said Dave. "There"s a good loose trade. A barber never has to look for work; he can go into any new town and always find his job. I don"t know but what I"d just as soon be a barber as a printer. Some ways I might like it better. You don"t have as much time to yourself, of course, but you meet a lot of men you wouldn"t meet otherwise; most of "em fools to be sure, but some of "em wise that you can get new thoughts from. It"s a cleaner trade than typesetting and fussing round a small-town print shop. Maybe you"ll learn to be a good barber; then you can have just as good a time as those gypsies, going about from time to time and seeing the world."
"Yes, sir," said the Wilbur twin, "and cutting people"s hair with clippers like Don Paley clipped mine with."
"New York, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Omaha, Kansas City, Denver, San Antone," murmured Dave, and there was unction in his tone as he recited these advantages of a loose trade--"any place you like the looks of, or places you"ve read about that sound good--just going along with your little kit of razors, and not having to small-town it except when you want a bit of quiet."
They heard voices back of them. Dave turned about and Wilbur rose from the gra.s.s. Across the pasture came the girl, Patricia Whipple, followed at a little distance by Juliana. The latter was no longer in church garb, but in a gray tweed skirt, white blouse, and a soft straw hat with a flopping brim. There was a black ribbon about the hat and her stout shoes were of tan leather. The girl was bare-headed, and Don Paley"s repair of yesterday"s damage was noticeable. She came at a quickening pace, while Juliana followed slowly. Juliana looked severe and formidable. Never had her nose looked more the Whipple nose then when she observed Dave Cowan and his son at the stile. Yet she smiled humorously when she recognized the boy, and allowed the humour to reach his father when she glanced at him. Dave and Miss Juliana had never been formally presented. Dave had seen Juliana, but Juliana had had until this moment no sight of Dave, for though there was in Newbern no social prejudice against a craftsman, and Dave might have moved in its highest circles, he had chosen to consort with the frankly ineligible. He lifted his cap in a flourishing salute as Juliana and Patricia came through the stile.
"And how are you to-day, my young friend?" asked Juliana of Wilbur in her calm, deep voice.
The Wilbur twin said, "Very well, I thank you," striving instinctively to make his own voice as deep as Juliana"s.
The girl winked at him brazenly as they pa.s.sed on.
"Gypsies!" she called, exultantly, and Juliana swept him with a tolerant smile.
Dave Cowan watched them along the path to the ridge above the camp. Here they paused in most intelligible pantomime. Patricia Whipple wished to descend to the very heart of the camp, while Juliana could be seen informing the child that they were near enough. To make this definite she sat upon the bole of a felled oak beside the path while Patricia jiggled up and down in eloquent objection to the untimely halt. Dave read the scene and caressed his thick moustache with practiced thumb and finger. His glance was sympathetic.
"The poor old maid!" he murmured. "All that Whipple money, and she has to be just a small-towner! Say, I bet no one has ever kissed that old girl since her mother died! None of these small-town hicks would ever have the nerve to. Yes, sir; any one"s got a right to be sorry for that dame. If she had a little enterprise she"d branch out from here and meet a few people."
"Yes, sir," said Wilbur. "But that girl wants to go down to the camp."
This was plain. Patricia still danced, while Juliana remained firmly seated.
"I could go take her down," he continued.
"Why don"t you?" said his father, again stroking the golden moustache in sympathy for the unconscious Juliana.
So it befell that the Wilbur twin shyly approached the group by the felled tree, and the watching father saw the two children, after a moment"s hesitancy on the part of Juliana, disappear from view over the crest of the ridge. Dave continued to loll by the stile and to watch the waiting Juliana, thinking of gypsies and the pure joy of wandering. He began to repeat some verses he had lately happened upon, murmuring them to a little ma.s.s of white clouds far off against the blue of the summer sky, where the pale bronze moon lonesomely hung. He liked the words and the moon and gypsies joyously foot-loose, and he again grew sympathetic for Juliana"s small-town plight. He felt a large pagan tolerance for those warped souls pent in small towns.
After twenty minutes of this he faintly heard a call from Juliana, sent after the children below her. He saw her stand to beckon commandingly and watch to see if she were obeyed. Then she turned and came slowly back up the path that would lead to the stile. Again Dave absently murmured his verses. Juliana approached the stile, walking briskly now.
She was halted by surprising speech from this rather cheaply debonair creature who looked so nearly like a gentleman and yet so plainly was not.
"Wanted to be off with "em, didn"t you?" Dave was saying brightly; "off and over the edge of the world, all foot-loose and free as wind, going over strange roads and lying by night under the stars."
"What?" demanded Juliana sharply.
She studied the fellow"s face for the first time. He was preening his yellow moustache and flashing a challenge to her from half-shut eyes.
"Small-towners bound to feel it," he continued, unconscious of any sharpness in Juliana"s "What!" "They want to be off and over the edge of things, but they don"t dare--haven"t the nerve. You"d like to, but you don"t dare. You know you don"t!"
Juliana almost smiled. The fellow"s face, as she paused beside him at the stile, was set with sheer impudence, yet this was not wholly unattractive. And amazingly he now broke into verse:
We, too, shall steal upon the spring With amber sails flown wide; Shall drop, some day, behind the moon, Borne on a star-blue tide.
He indicated the present moon with flourishing grace as he named it.
Juliana did not gasp, but it might have been a gasp in one less than a Whipple. But the troubadour was not to be daunted. Juliana didn"t know Dave Cowan as cities knew him.
Enchanted ports we, too, shall touch; Cadiz or Cameroon; Nor other pilot need beside A magic wisp of moon.
Again he gracefully indicated our lunar satellite, and again Juliana nearly gasped.
"Of course, you felt it all, watching those people. I don"t blame you for feeling wild."
Juliana lifted one of her stout tan boots toward the stile, and Dave with doffed cap extended a hand to a.s.sist her through. Juliana, dazed beyond a Whipple calm for almost the first time in her thirty years, found her own hand perforce upon his.
"You poor thing!" concluded Dave with a swift glance to the ridge where the children had not yet appeared.