The record-union., 1894-09-08
PUSHBARROW, PLUNKETT & CO.

copyright, 1894, by Edgar L. Wakeman. All
rights reserved.
'To me-" began the Gypsy Traveller,
'there is no one thing more picturesquely
suggestive of the dying year than the
scurrying towards winter quarters in any
land by innumeraDle bands of pilgrim
ing folk, my tawny friends, the gypsies.
with your own fancy's eyes you may
see the farthest southern flights of song
birds which have deserted your lowering
skies for lands Of endless southern balms,
and feel its certain premonition Of frozen
days to come, or contemplate the myriad
brown leaves tossed along the ways and
fences by advance picket lines of winter 8
resistless hosts, and still possess all the
tender, mournful musings of the change
full time.
''But this Fastening of a whole people
from out the summer heart of the coun-
side; this reluctant, driven, hurried hu-
man scattering from hedge-side homes
beneath the sun and stars to the misera-
BILE makeshifts OF city housing, has in it
lar more impressive revelation of Win
ter's coming than all the autumn flights
of birds aud wInd-whipped beatings OF
bare branches and bedraggled brown
leaves.
'Hus gifts old, doan't hus?"
This from tinker Zeke, one November
morning where L had remained over
night with a gypsy caravan beside a
dreary down on the old stage road to
bath.
Bareheaded and barefooted he had
clambered outside our Tiny roadside hab-
itation TO look DER th' day." could see
peering anXiousIy for omens in the still,
half-darkened sky.
He looked again and again at the sky
and over TO the satfron-tinIed east.
Illus gifts old, doan't hus?" he re-
peated dejectedly.
"How's that, Zeke?'' 1 answered mer-
rily enough, determined to provoke a
continuation of his strain of gypsy phil
osophy ii possible. "Gypsies never get
old. And, besides, you're too brave an
old rascal, Zeke, TO whimper about get
ting along in years little"
Hi tells ye hus all gifts oldp' This We
hementIy. "Hl never quits th' country
'thout mindin' o. hit. Hits like moulian
dying, leastwise for me, to jaw vree tn
drom ito leave the road. Cans sturdie
(the towns PRISON."
Here was genuine exhibition of eypsy
sentiment. Zeke pumped himself down
alongside the moldering campfire with
his elbows upon his knees and his fine
old head in his hands and apparently
gave way to the moodiest reflections.
Catching a gypsy OFT his guard is not a
common thing, and l felt like proddiug
him a little.
Turn gorgio (non-gypsy) then, Zeke.
Enjoy every day of life with happy,
permanent home over your head. Go to
.btaVp ia1f
and finally get to heaven where there
won't be any rough gypsy wintersr'
he looked at me first In blank amaze
ment. a hnea scorn came into his
swarthy face. Then in tone of mingled
reproof, disbelief and almost pathetic
longing, he said, with ridiculous solemn
ity:
"Ay, an HID turn gorgio. an even
kair rajah town or false gypsy fur a. o.
that-made sure!"
All, honest ZelSe, and who would not?
Here were perhaps two-score vans with
all their ramshackle belongings. their
ponies, asses and dogs, their crockery,
cocoanuts and oilcloths, their skewers.
pegs and rush baskets, their dried flow
ers and leaves, and their far more odd
and interesting owners.
Some of the wanderers came from as
far north as Beauty in Scotland, from
away up ia classic Wordsworth by the
quiet English lakes, from Oft southWes
by the shore hooks of Somerset and De-
Won, and even from st. Ives and PEN
zance in Cornwall, but most from dick
ering and dukkering among the midland
and western counties fairs.
AS If through some secret understand
ing they had drifted together for a biz of
roadside reunion at the edge of these
swept-wind moors, where few of the con-
stabulary come with their remorseless
Now
Returning to the great city from a
country tramp in Buckinghamshire, by
right of rank and station as gorgio chal
(non-gypsy gypsies' friend), [ had be-
come one of them in their little royster-
ing, before the final abandonment of the
seasons wanderings by blossoming lane
and road.
The camp was to be broken that very
morning. The dark places of London
would close upon the tawny crew, seat
tered in little groups and families, by
night 1t was absolutely certain they
would never all meet again, even though
separate families or bands should again
know the boundiess JOY OF the springtime
outgoing.
And there is large and ample human
regard, one for another, in this commu-
nifty of roadside interest and compan-
ionship, which we of civilized" thought
and ways can never know.
ZSk6 WAS UOL aiOn6 IN his
mournful regret. The camp was rife
with it, just as the landscape, sky and air
were instinct with the tender sadness of
the dying year.
1t seemed to me, nor was it all of SEEM
ing, that the fires themselves burned with
less crackle and flame. Even the siz-
ziing pots, hanging from the grimy ket-
tlesticks, boiled and blubbered in minor
hearthside tones.
over in the stunted copses of the moor
the tetbered donkeys stood meekly ST.
lent, with bowed heads, or nibbled at
the frosty grass as if in serious rumina-
ton.
AS the morning advanced good wives
sat by the tent mouths, or in the open
van doors, in sober discussion with their
husbands, or still busted themselves with
the morning meal, less spry and chipper
than is the gypsy woman's ways.
Youths bringing water from the stream
or returning to the camp with fodder for
the animals and dead moor brushwood
for the fires, did their work gloomily,
and with none of the summertime whoop
and halloa.
Here and there groups of the elder
gypsy men, seated on upturned buckets,
on vanthills, or leaning their backs against
vanwheels, smoked their pipes with long,
strong, introspective puffs, saying little,
while that little was measured and re-
Elective.