Treasures from Grandma's Attic (6 page)

11

Gypsies!

“Whew! I don’t think it’s ever been this hot before!” Sarah Jane exclaimed.

“You say that every summer,” I replied. “I try to think about something cool and not pay attention to the heat.”

“It doesn’t do you much good,” Sarah Jane retorted. “Your face looks like a pickled beet.”

We sat under the big tree at the end of our lane, facing the dry and dusty road. The heat seemed to rise from it in waves.

Suddenly an unusual contraption appeared around the curve. It looked like a house on wheels. The sides of the wagon bed were built up, and a canvas was stretched over the top for a roof. A dark-haired man walked beside the horse, and a woman with a shawl over her head sat in the doorway of the back of the wagon. Two little boys ran along behind.

We watched silently until the strange apparition disappeared from sight.

“Did you see that, Mabel?” Sarah Jane asked. I nodded. “Good,” she said. “I thought maybe the heat was getting to me the way they say it does in the desert, when you start seeing things.”

“A mirage,” I said.

“A what?”

“A mirage. That’s what you see in a desert. Only I don’t think it looks like a wagon. Who do you suppose they are?”

“I don’t know,” Sarah Jane answered. “I’ve never seen them before. Do you imagine they live in that wagon?”

“There’s not room enough in there to live,” I replied. “Where would they cook and eat and do the washing?”

“It looked to me like they had all they owned on there. I saw cooking pots and clothes and everything.”

“Maybe they’re moving from one farm to another,” I suggested.

“I don’t think so,” she disagreed. “There wasn’t room for furniture in there. I think they live in it.”

“Gypsies,” Pa said when we told him what we had seen. “They’re a group of wandering people. They stay awhile in one place, and then they move on.”

“They’ll steal you blind, too,” Roy chimed in.

Pa looked at him sternly. “That’s not fair to say. Not all Gypsies are thieves, just because an occasional one takes something. There are dishonest people in every walk of life.”

Reuben returned from town with the announcement that the Gypsies were camped in the Gibbses’ back pasture, next to the creek.

“Is it just one wagon?” Pa asked. “Usually they travel in caravans.”

“Just one,” Reuben replied. “It doesn’t look like a very large family. I only saw two children.”

“What do they do for a living?” I asked Pa. “How can they work if they don’t live in one place very long?”

“Some of the men are silversmiths,” Pa told me.

“And I’ve seen beautiful handwork the women do,” Ma said. “I don’t think I’d want to be on the go all the time, though. I feel more comfortable on a piece of land that belongs to me and in a house that stands still.”

“I’d like it,” I said. “Think of all the places you’d see.”

“If you’ve seen one back road, you’ve seen them all,” Roy said. “And besides, Gypsies aren’t very well liked. You’d get pretty lonesome.”

Sarah Jane agreed when I discussed it with her the next morning. “You couldn’t live in a wagon, Mabel. There wouldn’t be room enough for all your stuff. You’ve still got the wood chips we used for dishes when we played house.”

“They are memorabilia,” I told her loftily. “I wouldn’t take everything I owned with me. Just the necessities.”

“You’d have to stop off here once a month to leave the memorabilia you’d collected along the road.”

We talked about walking down to the Gibbses’ to see if the Gypsies were still there but decided against it.

“It’s not that we’re afraid of them,” I said to Ma as we did the dinner dishes. “But we didn’t want them to think we were spying on them.”

“That was sensible,” Ma said. “I think they like to keep pretty much to themselves.”

We were in for a surprise the next morning. When Ma opened the back door to call Pa and the boys to breakfast, she just missed hitting a little Gypsy boy who was standing on the porch. “Oh, mercy!” Ma exclaimed. “You startled me! Have you been here long?”

The boy shook his head and said, “Baby sick. You come?”

“Of course,” Ma replied promptly. Quickly she turned, and as she buttered some biscuits and put ham on them, she instructed me to go ahead with breakfast. Before Pa got to the house, she was sailing down the lane with the little boy running to keep up with her.

“Do you think Ma should have gone over there by herself?” Reuben worried.

“Ma can take care of herself,” Pa replied. “When someone is sick, you know she’ll go.”

“But Gypsies, Pa,” Roy said. “They aren’t—”

“Gypsies are people, Roy. They live differently, but they have the same needs everyone else has. God loves them as much as He does us. You know your ma doesn’t ask people for their pedigree if they need help.”

That closed the matter, but even Pa was surprised a little later to see the Gypsy wagon turning down our lane. I watched openmouthed as Ma jumped down from the back of the wagon and then reached up to take a shawl-wrapped bundle from the Gypsy woman.

“Mabel, fill the small tub with water, please. Put in just enough hot to take off the chill.”

I scurried to do as Ma requested, and Pa went out to the wagon.

“This is Mr. Romani,” Ma told him. “They were on the way to Canada when the baby took sick. Come, Mrs. Romani. We’ll take care of her.”

Ma soon had the baby unwrapped from the shawl and many layers of clothing. She sponged the feverish little body with tepid water. Mrs. Romani looked frightened, but she allowed Ma to do whatever she wanted to with the baby.

“I’ll fix some warm water with sugar and just a drop of peppermint,” Ma told her. “Then I think you should both lie down and get some sleep.”

“I’d have a fever too if I had all that wrapped around me in this weather,” I spoke to Ma after the Romanis had been settled in the spare room.

Ma nodded. “I know. They think babies should be wrapped up tightly to keep the evil spirits away. I don’t think it’s any more than summer colic, but she was so worried. It will be easier to look after them here than to run back and forth to the Gibbses’ pasture.”

The next couple of days were interesting to say the least. The Romanis did not want to come into the house to eat, so we ate outside. Pa set up one of the tables we used when threshers were here, and Ma made it plain that our guests were to eat with us. They listened quietly while Pa read the Bible and we prayed. We couldn’t tell whether they understood or not, but Pa assured us that God’s Word would not return to Him without accomplishing what it set out to do.

Mrs. Romani timidly offered to help, and Ma gave her tasks that she could do while she watched the baby. The little boys picked raspberries, and Pa reported that Mr. Romani was mending harnesses and sharpening tools in the barn.

“Are you going to ask the Romanis to go to church with us?” I asked Ma on Sunday morning.

Ma considered that for a moment. “No,” she said finally. “I don’t think they would be comfortable in an unfamiliar place. I don’t know how they worship God, but they don’t need curious people staring at them.”

Pa told Mr. Romani that we would return shortly after noon, and we left for the service.

Ma had no sooner alighted from the buggy than she was surrounded by neighboring ladies.

“Maryanne, do you mean to say that you’ve had those Gypsies in your yard all week?”

“Weren’t you afraid to go to sleep at night?”

“Could you understand what they said?”

“Did you leave them there alone while you came to church today?”

Ma answered each question pleasantly, but it was plain to see that she was not saying all she felt. I was glad when Pa returned from staking Nellie and we went into the church.

Ma’s face was pretty grim as we turned toward home. “I declare, I don’t understand people,” she said. “Anyone should be willing to take in a needy family if they have the means. Why would we be afraid of a nice young couple like that?”

“Gypsies have a poor reputation,” Pa replied. “No one wants to trust someone who has no roots and no hometown. People feel better about a person if they know his grandfather.”

“Humph,” Ma sniffed. “I’ve known some respectable people whose grandfathers were horse thieves.”

We had only to turn into our lane to see that the Romanis’ wagon was gone. The dire predictions of our neighbors were in our thoughts as we approached the house, but no one had the bad judgment to voice them to Ma. We didn’t have to.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said to us, “and you’re wrong. The Romanis would not take anything from us. And even if they did, it doesn’t change the fact that people are more important than things. They needed help, and we gave it. We’ll do it again when the opportunity arises.”

The house was quiet as we entered, and everything was in its accustomed place. It was as though there had never been a Gypsy family there. Ma took the pot roast from the oven, and I went to change my dress. The door of the spare room was open, and I glanced in as I walked by.

“Ma!” I called. “Come and see!”

Ma and Pa both joined me, and the boys were close behind.

“Why, did you ever?” Ma breathed.

On the bed lay three gold coins, two silver belt buckles, a bolt of cloth, and a beautiful white lace shawl.

“They needn’t have done that,” Ma said. “They might have used the money these things would bring.”

“I think they figured they got more than money,” Reuben said. “They knew you loved them, Ma. That’s more important than things too, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” Ma said, brushing tears from her eyes. “It certainly is.”

12

The Expensive Bookcase

“Come on home with me, Mabel. I want you to see what I got for my birthday.” Sarah Jane and I had been gathering berries in the woods and were on our way home.

“I hope it isn’t a locket.” I laughed. “Remember when you cut off my hair to put in your birthday locket?”

“Of course I do,” she replied. “I still have it; though I need a longer chain before I can wear it. But I assure you that I’ll never hang this birthday present around my neck!”

We went directly to Sarah Jane’s bedroom. There in the corner stood a beautiful bookcase, painted to match the rest of her furniture.

“Ooh,” I said. “Aren’t you lucky? What are you going to put in it?”

“I had thought maybe books,” she answered. “What else do you put in a bookcase?”

“You don’t have that many books.”

“I’m not dead yet. I might collect a few more volumes over the years. Besides, those shelves are nice for anything you want to display. I can put my doll there and some other things I’ve kept from my childhood.”

“Oh, I’d love to have a bookcase like that,” I said. “I have lots of things I could display.”

“I’ll say you have,” Sarah Jane replied. “You’d need shelves from the floor to the ceiling on three walls to hold all you’ve saved. Do you ever throw anything away?”

“Of course I do,” I responded indignantly. “I can’t think right now what, but I’m sure I must.”

“I’m not.” Sarah Jane laughed. “Why don’t you ask your pa to build you a bookcase? Reuben or Roy could paint it for you. It’s not long until your birthday.”

That night at the table, I brought up the subject. “Would you like to know what I want for my birthday?” I asked.

“We hadn’t been worrying about it,” Pa teased. “But if you’d care to tell us, we’ll listen.”

“I’d like a bookcase for my room. Sarah Jane’s pa made one for her, and Josiah painted it. You’d be surprised how much neater I could keep my things if I had shelves.”

“I think we might arrange that,” Pa said.

“I’m in favor of anything that contributes to neatness,” Ma put in. “That sounds like a fine present to me.”

“I’ll measure the space after supper,” Pa decided, “and work on it whenever I can.”

The bookcase was done by my birthday. It was painted a pale blue—my favorite color.

“Thank you, Pa,” I said, hugging him. “It’s the nicest thing I own. Doesn’t it look pretty there?”

Pa agreed that it did. I spent the rest of the morning deciding what to put on the shelves. I didn’t have many books either, but the ones I had went on the top. There were McGuffey Readers from the primer on up, a speller for each year, and several other schoolbooks. I also had two books I had won at school and the volume of “Snow-Bound.” I added my Bible and was pleased with the results.

“Come and look,” I called to Ma. “What do you think?”

“It looks very nice,” she told me. “What are you going to put on the other shelves?”

“I think Emily can sit in one corner,” I replied, “and Charlotte in the other.”

As I placed the dolls on the shelf, Ma eyed Charlotte and shook her head. “Do you know how many years you’ve had that rag?” she asked me.

“Charlotte’s not a rag!” I protested. “She’s not as pretty as Emily, but you don’t just throw away a doll that depends on you!”

“You have a heavy load of responsibility if everything you save depends on you.” Ma laughed. “But this is your room. You keep whatever you like.”

I arranged all the things I could find. The shelves weren’t full by any means, but they looked very nice to me. I stood in the doorway and surveyed the rest of my room critically. The new bookcase certainly made my curtains look shabby.

“Ma, do you think we have a little material left from something that I could use to make new curtains for my room?”

Ma thought for a moment. “I’m not sure we have any scraps that are suitable or even big enough. Perhaps you could persuade Pa to let you go to town.”

I was sure I could, so I enlisted Sarah Jane’s help to pick out the fabric. “I’d like nice white curtains with ruffles and blue tiebacks to match the bookcase,” I said. “Maybe dotted swiss.”

“I hope you’re going to let your ma make them for you,” Sarah Jane said. “I don’t know what you could do to a straight piece of cloth, but I’m sure you’d think of something.”

“You’re jealous,” I retorted. “All you have is a new bookcase, and I’m getting a bookcase and curtains.”

“I was just teasing.” Sarah Jane smiled. “They’ll look nice.”

And they did. When Ma finished them, I washed the windows, and together we hung the new curtains.

“There. It looks perfect. Except …”

Ma paused at the door and looked back. “Except?”

“Well, the walls look a little drab, don’t they? I mean, the windows are sparkling and the bookcase and curtains look so fresh and new. It does show up the old paint.”

Ma sighed and went back to the kitchen. I wandered out to the barn to look for Pa.

“Would you happen to have any more of the paint you used for the bookcase?” I asked him.

“There’s a little left, I guess,” Pa replied. “What do you need it for?”

“Could I paint my bedroom walls?”

“Not enough for that, I’m afraid.”

My face fell, and Pa looked sympathetic. “I could pick up another pail of it when I go to town. I’m not sure that you should paint it, though. Better let Reuben do it.”

I stayed overnight with Sarah Jane while my room was being painted.

“What are you going to do next?” she asked me. “Won’t your bedspread and rug look pretty old in that new room?”

“I suppose they will, but I haven’t had them long enough to replace them. Maybe I could dye them to match the ribbons on the curtains. I wonder how much that would cost.”

“Mabel! For goodness’ sake! I didn’t mean it. If you fix up that room any more,
you’ll
look too plain to live in it!”

The idea stayed with me, though, and the paint was scarcely dry before I approached Ma about the bedspread and rug.

“That would be an enormous job,” she told me. “They’d have to be boiled, and it would take the washtub to do it. It would have to be done outside, too. I’ll not have my kitchen dyed bright blue.” She looked at me. “On second thought, that’s not a job you could manage at all. Those things would be much too heavy for you to lift when they were wet.”

“I don’t imagine you’d want to help me,” I offered.

“You imagine right,” Ma replied. “I don’t have the time or the want-to. Your room looks lovely now the way it is.”

I had to be content with that until I could find another solution. One afternoon an idea came to me. I was taking some cold lemonade to Pa and the boys, and I sat down under a tree with Roy.

“If I do something for you, will you do something for me?” I asked.

“What kind of something?” he answered suspiciously. “Who’s going to get the short end of the stick?”

“No one,” I said. “I’ll do whatever you want me to if you’ll dye my bedspread and rug. Ma won’t let me try because the work will be too heavy.”

“Anything I want you to, huh?” Roy thought about that. “It would be nice not to have to milk cows …”

“I’ll do it!” I said eagerly. “I’ll milk for you.”

“… for the rest of the summer,” he finished.

“The rest of the summer!” I yelped. “That’s another month! It won’t take you that long to do what I want done.”

“This isn’t a matter of time spent, Mabel,” Roy argued. “I’ll be doing something you can’t do. That should be worth a little more.”

“I might have known a bargain with you would turn into a life sentence.”

Roy got up to go back to work. “Take it or leave it,” he said. “You’re the one who brought it up.”

I thought it over as I trudged back to the house. I could visualize how beautiful my room would look with just that one more thing done. But a month was a long time to face three cows morning and night. If I could get Reuben to take four cows while I milked two … but Pa wouldn’t allow that. Everyone did his or her share around our place.

After supper I told Roy that I would begin the next morning. Ma raised her eyebrows when she heard what I had promised, but she didn’t forbid it.

“A month?” Pa said. “Isn’t that a pretty long time?”

“She agreed to it,” Roy said with a shrug. “If she wants a blue bedspread that much, who am I to complain?”

I sleepily followed Reuben to the barn before daylight. I had milked before, but only to help out, not as a regular job. Reuben was back at the house a good half hour before I finished.

“I can only carry one bucket at a time,” I complained when I came in and found everyone ready for breakfast. “That means three trips from the barn. You’ll be ready for dinner before I get all this milk strained.”

“I’ll carry two in for you, Mabel,” Pa offered. “I don’t want you to miss your breakfast.”

“You’d better start at least a half hour before Reuben does,” Roy snickered.

Ma gave him a warning look, and he didn’t make any more remarks. My new job didn’t mean that I could slight any of my own chores. Long after Roy had fulfilled his end of the bargain, I continued to put in an extra three hours a day in the barn.

After a couple of weeks, I was heartily sick of our agreement. “I really like my bedspread and rug, Ma,” I said to her, “but it seems to me I’m paying an awfully big price for them.”

“I was sure you’d feel that way,” Ma replied. “That has to be the most expensive bookcase ever built.”

“Bookcase? I’m working for the bedspread.”

“That’s true,” Ma said. “But think back. Because of the bookcase, you needed curtains. Then the walls had to be painted. Now the rug and spread have been dyed. That’s often the way, Mabel. The more we have, the more we think we need.”

Ma was right. “Isn’t there something in the Bible about being content with what you have?” I asked her.

“Yes, Saint Paul said it: ‘I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.’ That’s not a bad thing to learn.”

“I’m not likely to forget,” I told her. “Every time I’m tempted to want more than I need, I’m going to see three cows looking at me. I’m going to be so content you’ll think I’m one of them!”