Gypsy Breynton

“ Gypsy had jumped on all the hay-cocks, and picked all the huckleberries, and eaten all the early Davises, and gone on all the picnics that she could, and was just ready to settle down contentedly to school and study; so the news from Miss Melville was not, on the whole, very agreeable. What to do with herself, for another long month of vacation, was more than she knew.
She wandered about the house and sat out among the clovers and swung on the gate, in a vague, indefinite sort of way, for two weeks; then one morning Mrs. Breynton read her a letter which set her eyes on fire with delight. ”

“ Gypsy never took any trouble very deeply to heart, and the morning sunlight, and the sight of the dear, familiar mountains, drove away, to a great extent, the repentant and anxious thoughts of the night.
As the train shrieked into Yorkbury, she forgot everything but that she was at home,—miles away from Boston, her mother near, and Tom, and the dear old days of paddling about on rafts, and having no dinner-parties to disgrace herself at, and no aunt to be afraid of. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. [Pg 34]
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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 32] 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. ”

“ Breynton, smiling. “I have some work which I cannot leave now, and I have little doubt the woman had some dinner. The poor are almost always [Pg 142] very kind neighbors to each other. I will be there early enough to take her some supper.”
So Gypsy was comforted for Mrs. Littlejohn.
It was nearly dark when Mrs. Breynton came up from the village, with her pleasant smile, and her little basket that half Yorkbury knew so well by sight, for the biscuit and the jellies, the blanc-mange, and the dried beef and the cookies, that it brought to so many sick-beds. ”

“ When the truth came to Gypsy, she sat for a moment like one stunned. The terrible sense of awakening in a desolate place, at midnight, and alone, instead of in a safe and quiet bed, with bolted doors, and friends within the slightest call, might well alarm an older and stouter heart than Gypsy’s. ”

“ Mrs. Breynton took up a copy of “Harper’s Magazine,” and handed it to Gypsy. [Pg 147]
“Tell her I have turned the leaf down at some articles I think will interest her, and ask her if the powder I left her put her to sleep.”
“Who is Peace Maythorne?” asked Gypsy, wondering. “Is she poor?”
“Yes.”
“How funny to send her a ‘Harper’s,’” said Gypsy. “Why don’t you give her some money, or something?”
“Some things are worth more than money to some people,” said Mrs. Breynton, smiling.
“Why! then you had been into that house before I found Mrs. Littlejohn?” said Gypsy, as the thought first struck her. ”

“ 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 [Pg 45] 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 24] 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.” ”

“ Rowe may not be willing Sarah should go, and Mr. Guy Hallam must be asked, Gypsy.” [Pg 174]
“Well, but——,” persisted Gypsy; “if Mrs. Rowe and Mr. Hallam and everybody are willing, may I go?”
“Well,” said Mrs. Breynton, after a few minutes’ thinking, “I guess so; if Tom will take good care of you; and if you will promise to go to Mr. Fisher’s the rainy nights—I mean if it rains hard.”
“Oh, mother, mother Breynton! There never was such a dear little woman in this world!”
“Why, my dear!” said Mr. Breynton, when he heard of it; “how can you let the child do such a thing? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Her mother was out in the kitchen helping Patty about the dinner. She heard such a singing and shouting as no one had made in the house since Gypsy went away, and hurried out into the front entry to see what had happened. Tom ran in from the garden, and Winnie slid down on the banisters, and Mr. Breynton was just coming up the yard, and Patty put her head in at the entry door, wiping her hands on her apron, and everybody must be kissed all round, and for a few minutes there [Pg 256] was such a bustle, that Gypsy could hardly hear herself speak. ”

“ 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 [Pg 33] 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.” ”

“ The two great drops rolled slowly down Gypsy’s cheeks, and into her mouth. She swallowed them with a gulp, and brushed her hand, angrily, across her eyes. Gypsy very seldom cried, but I fancy she came pretty near it on that occasion.
“Miss Melville,” she said, with an earnestness that was comical, in spite of itself; “I wish you’d please to scold me. I should feel a great deal better.”
“Scoldings won’t do you much good,” said Miss Melville, with a sad smile; “you must cure your own faults, Gypsy. ”

“ Breynton, looking troubled and puzzled. “I’m sorry the nymph is gone; but somehow you do seem to be different from other girls. I didn’t know young ladies ever jumped.”
Gypsy was silent. Her father and mother seemed to think differently about these things. To her view, and she felt sure, to her mother’s, the fault lay in the carelessness of not finding out whether the image was in her way. She could not see that she was doing anything wrong in going out alone into an apple-tree, and springing from a low bough, upon the soft grass. ”

“ She changed her boots, tossed on her turban, whisked on her sack, and began to fasten it with a jerk, when off came the button at the throat, and rolled maliciously quite out of sight under the bed.
“There!” said Gypsy.
“Can’t wait!” shouted Tom.
“I mended that sack,” said Gypsy, “only yesterday afternoon. I call it too bad, when a body’s trying to keep their things in order, and do up all their mending, that things have to act so!” ”

“ Hallam made a rule that he or Tom should keep the girls constantly in sight, and that, during the time spent in excursions which they could not join, they should remain in Mr. Fisher’s house. He said it was too wild a place for them to be alone in for any length of time, and he was sorry he left them before.
Gypsy did not resent this strict tutelage. She was very humble and obedient and careful as long as they stayed upon the mountain. Those few moments, when she clung sobbing to Tom’s neck, were a lesson to her. She will not forget them as long as she lives. ”

“ She must know just what Tom had been doing this interminable week, just how many buttons Winnie had lost off from his jacket, and what kind of pies Patty had baked for dinner. She must kiss her mother twenty times an hour, and pull her father’s whiskers, and ride Winnie on her shoulder. Best of all, perhaps, it was to run down to Peace Maythorne’s, and find the sunlight golden in the quiet room, and the pale face smiling on the pillow; to hear the gentle voice, when the door opened, say, “Oh, Gypsy!” ”

“ Gypsy started off, with the Magazine under her arm, wondering if there were a house in town, filled with these wretched poor, in which her mother was not known as a friend.
Her heart sank a little as she climbed the dark stairs to Mrs. Littlejohn’s room. She had begged of her mother a tiny pailful of green [Pg 148] peas, with which she hoped to pacify the old woman, but she was somewhat in dread of hearing her talk, and ashamed to confess her own neglect.
Mrs. Littlejohn was eating the very nice breakfast which Mrs. Rowe had sent over, and groaning dolefully over it, as Gypsy entered. ”

“ Breynton came in, with many apologies for her delay, met Gypsy kindly enough, and sent her up-stairs to take off her things.
“Who trimmed your hat?” asked Joy, suddenly.
“Miss Jones. She’s our milliner.”
“Oh,” said Joy, “mine is a pheasant. Nobody thinks of wearing velvet now—most everybody has a pheasant.”
“I shouldn’t like to wear just what everybody else did,” Gypsy could not help saying. She hung the turban up in the closet, with a little uncomfortable feeling. It was a fine drab straw, trimmed and bound with velvet a shade darker. It was pretty, and she knew it ”

“ I can’t talk to little boys when I’m sewing.”
“Oh, I guess I don’t want anythin’clock, very much,” said Winnie, folding his arms composedly, as if he had seated himself for the day; “I’m five years old.”
Down went Gypsy’s work, and a whole handful of pink and white blossoms came fluttering into Winnie’s eyes.
“How am I going to sew?” said Gypsy, despairingly; “you’re so exactly in the right place to be hit. I don’t believe Mrs. Surly herself could help snowballing you.”
“Mrs. Surly snowball! Why, I never saw her. Wouldn’t it be just funny?”
“Winnie Breynton, will you please to go away?” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ I always go in the fields where there’s nobody round. Then I like to climb the old walls, where you have to jump when the stones roll off from under you.”
Mrs. Breynton elevated her eyebrows with a peculiar expression, and returned to her novel.
Gypsy was one of those happy people who are gifted with the faculty of always having a pleasant time, and the solitaire game was good enough, if it hadn’t been so quiet ”

“ I would rather have you fail a dozen times on the unselfish side, than to have you careless and heartless towards the people God has made poor, and in suffering——there! I have given you a long sermon. Do you think mother is always scolding?”
Mrs. Breynton drew her into her arms, and gave her one of those little soft kisses on the forehead, that Gypsy liked so much. “I will go down and see the old woman after supper,” she said, then.
“Couldn’t you go before?” suggested Gypsy. “She said she hadn’t had any dinner.”
“We can’t do things in too much of a hurry; not even our charities,” said Mrs. ”

“ Accordingly she left the old woman groaning out her thanks, and went down the narrow stairs, and into the street.
She ran all the way home, and rushed into the parlor where her mother was sitting quietly sewing. She looked up as the door burst open, and Gypsy swept in like a little hurricane, her turban hanging down her neck, her hair loose and flying about an eager face [Pg 136] that was all on fire with its warm crimson color and twinkling eyes.
“Why Gypsy!”
“Oh, mother, such an old woman—such a poor old woman! ”