The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1902-07-05
GYPSIES In W INTER-.
Bare-Legged and Bare Throatsd
Youngsters Like the Cold.
Nomads Exist Through the Cold Sea-
son in a Manner That Would
Give an Esquimau the SRiv-
ers-An Interview. '-~>5

A bare-legged tot, scarcely more
than three or four years of age, with a
hopelessly tangled mop of hair and big,
blue eyes, toddled out of tent in
Malott park one day in December, made
it's uncertain way toward Fall creek,
and standing on the snow-covered bank
gravely contemplated, the cold water.
Then, with a judicial air, it tottered
back to the tent and disappeared
through the flap, says the indianapolis
News.
There were others in the tent-al-
most enough to populate q small town
Just an ordinary Gypsy family. In
one corner the father was sprawled
with comfortable abandon on pile OF
disreputable bedding, pulling at pipe
that had probably been handed down
through many generations, and he
was apparently without care in the
world. He is an old patron of the camp
ing grounds about the city, Gus Stanley
by name, and as genial and hosPitable
man as one would care to meet. The
mother, a plethoric creature, but with
traces still of certa in type of Gypsy
beauty, was busily engaged in an ap-
parently interminable effort to wash
the dye out of bit of red cloth.
The odd corners of the establish
ment were filled in by Heterogeneous
collection of camp odds and ends and
young Gypsies. No matter where the
eve turned it rested on a member of
the family, and an effort to count them
only ended in bewildernlent. One, a
girl probably eight years of age, was
busy forming circular slabs of dough
by the simple expedient of shaping
them between her hands, which, by
this time, were clean, and then cooking
them in a grease-flled skillet on the
stove.
1t was a glorious stove, a humble
looking affair, made of sheet iron and
with real fire in it-no drivellng little
gas blaze, but general confgration of
wood that threw out heat in joyous
wealth and made the tent>as warm as
any home in the city and far warmer
than the most of them. And yet there
are persons in the city, and many of
them, who have thankfully huddled
about their wretchedly cold stoves,
with the gas playing tag between the
coal and the mixer, and have thought
of those same Gypsies with compass
sion-thought how they must be suf-
fering from the cold, and not under
standing why they did not evade these
cold months by treking to the south.
"Cold?" echoed Stanley, adroitly
balancing a coal on the apex of the
heritage in his pipe. "Well, I guess not.
Sit down and get warm. Not much
danger of getting cold as long as the
wood lasts, and the whole outside is
our woodpile," and he gave compre-
hensive wave of his hand toward the
woods that surround. the camp.
eve tried going south several years
ago, but the women folks got sick, and
we've staid in the north for the last
three winters. No trouble about keep
ing the tent warm, and even if there
was, we're pretty well hardened, so we
wouldn't feel it much. Look at Jim
there" Jim, an urchin, scarcely old
enough to attract the notice of the
truant officers, bashfully followed his
head into the tent and was duly in
spected. Without gloves, overcoat or
lear bobs," with thin shirt open at
the throat, one stocking halfway
down and shoes unlaced-James was
spectacle to give an Eskimo sh7vers,
but he seemed not in the least uncom-
Portable himself. And the rest of the
children seemed equally lightly clad
all with their waists or shirts open at
the throat and some even barefooted.
"Now we spend our winters in the
morrill," continued Stanley, "either in
Ohio, Indiana or Illinois. Indiana is
the best state, though" and a quick
smile from his wife corroborated the
statement, "partly on account of the
better roads in the state and partly
for business reasons" with porteh-
tous look, "cause people in the state
seem to like to have their fortunes
told, and that's where we make most
OF our money, especially in the winter
-nothin' doing in horse Trading then.
How many children have I?'
The question seemed to be some
thing of a poser, for he turned to his
wife with puzzled look, and, after
some conversation in Hungarian, an
swered: 'Twelve and two married
sons. There are five families, each one
with tent, and 26 people altogether
in this crowd. The other people down
there got here about a month ago. two
or three days before we did. There are
three families-one for each tent-and
IL people. All the:girls in the camp are
downtown now telling fortunes, and
most OF the men are out somewhere.
An Auto dollhouse.
An automobile dollhouse is one of
the latest novelties in Paris. Baron
FGrn nd 10 p0%l L