Gypsy Breynton Part 3

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 cras.h.i.+ng 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 gla.s.ses 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 pa.s.sed, 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 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 pa.s.sing 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, pus.h.i.+ng 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 ash.o.r.e."

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 splas.h.i.+ng 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 ash.o.r.e. She wrung him out a little, and set him down on the gra.s.s, 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.

"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 cla.s.s. 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.