THE GYPSY CAMP
Bessie grew red with indignation for a moment, but before she spoke she
was calm again.
"Don't you think that's a pretty mean trick, Dolly?" she said, gently.
"It seems to me it's a good deal like lying."
"Why, Bessie King! Can't you ever take a joke? I didn't say a single,
solitary thing that wasn't so. I said the signs said this was the way to
Little Bear Lake, and you never asked me if I'd changed them, did you?"
Bessie laughed helplessly.
"Oh, Dolly!" she said. "Of course I didn't; why should I? Who would ever
think of doing such a thing, except you? You don't expect people to
guess what you're going to do next, do you?"
"I suppose not," said Dolly, impenitently, her eyes still twinkling. "I
do manage to surprise people pretty often. My aunt Mabel says that if I
spent half as much time studying as I do thinking up new sorts of
mischief I'd be at the top of every class I'm in at school."
"She's perfectly right. I thought at first you had a hard time with your
aunt, Dolly, but I'm through being sorry for you. She needs all the
sympathy anyone has got for having to try to look after you!"
"Oh, what's the harm? We're here now, and It isn't so very dreadful, is
it? Come on, let's go over to the hotel."
"Indeed we shan't do anything of the sort, Dolly Ransom! We'll turn
around and go right straight back to Long Lake, that's what we'll do."
"I guess not. You don't think I've come this far and that I'm going to
turn around without seeing what the place is like, do you?"
"Why, Dolly, you know we weren't supposed to come here alone. I don't
think much of it; it isn't half as pretty as Long Lake. What's the use
of wasting our time here, anyhow?"
"Why--why--because there are people here! I just love seeing people,
Bessie, they're so interesting, because they're all so different, and
you never know what they're going to say or do. And there may be someone
we know here, too."
"There can't be anyone I know, Dolly."
"Oh, bother! Well, there may be someone I know, and that's the same
thing, isn't it? Come on, be a sport, Bessie."
"That's what you said about going in the car with Mr. Holmes the other
day, too."
"Oh, but this isn't a bit like that, Bessie."
"It might get us into just as much mischief, Dolly. No, I'm not going
over there. It's silly, and it's wrong."
And this time Bessie stood firm. Despite Dolly's pleading, which turned,
presently, to angry threats, she refused absolutely to go any nearer the
hotel, and Dolly was afraid to venture there alone, though there was
very little she _was_ afraid to _do_. In her inmost heart, of course,
Dolly knew that Bessie was right, and that she had had no business to
trick her chum into seeming to break her promise to Miss Eleanor.
"Oh, well," she said, "I might have known that I couldn't always make
you do what you don't want to do, Bessie. You're not mad at me, are
you?"
Bessie, pleased by this sign of surrender, returned the smile.
"I ought to be, but I'm not, Dolly," she answered. "I think that is one
of the reasons you keep on doing these things--but no one ever really
does get angry with you, as they should. If someone you really cared for
got properly angry at you just once for one of your little tricks, I
think it would teach you not to do anything of the sort for a long
time."
"Oh, I don't mean any harm, Bessie, and you know it, and when people
really like you they don't get angry unless they think you're really
trying to be mean. I say, Bessie, if you won't go over to the hotel,
will you walk just a little way over to the other side, and see what
that funny looking place is where those big wagons are all spread out?"
Bessie followed Dolly's pointing finger, and saw, on the side of Loon
Pond opposite the hotel, several wagons, among which smoke was rising.
"It looks like a circus," said Dolly.
"It isn't, though. I know what they are," said Bessie, promptly. "It's a
gypsy encampment. Do you mean you've never seen one, Dolly?"
"No; and oh dear, Bessie, I've always wanted to. Surely we could go a
little nearer, couldn't we? As long as we're here?"
Bessie thought it over for a moment, and, as a matter of fact, really
could see no harm in spending ten minutes or so in walking over toward
the gypsy camp. She herself had seen a few gypsies near Hedgeville in
her time, but in that part of the country those strange wanderers were
not popular.
"All right," she said. "But if I do that will you promise to start for
home as soon as we've had a look at them, and never to play such a trick
on me again?"
"I certainly will. Bessie, you're a darling. And I'll tell you something
else; too; you were so nice about the way I changed those signs that I'm
really sorry I did it. And I just thought it would be a good joke.
Usually I'm glad when people get angry at my jokes, it shows they were
good ones."
Bessie smiled wisely to herself. Gradually she was learning that the way
to rob Dolly's jokes and teasing tricks of their sting, and the best
way, at the same time, to cure Dolly herself of her fondness for them,
was never to let the joker know that they had had the effect she
planned.
Dolly, considerably relieved, as a matter of fact, when she found that
Bessie was really not angry at her for the trick she had played with the
sign post, chatted volubly as they turned to walk over toward the gypsy
camp.
"I don't see why they call this a pond and the one we're on a lake,"
she said. "This is ever so much bigger than Long Lake. Why, it must; be
four or five miles long, don't you think, Bessie?"
"Yes. I guess they call it a pond because it looks just like a big,
overgrown ice pond. See, it's round. I think Long Lake is ever so much
prettier, don't you, even though it's smaller?"
"I certainly do. This place isn't like the woods at all, it's more like,
regular country, that you can find by just taking a trolley car and
riding a few miles out from the city."
"It used to be just as it is now around Long Lake, I suppose," said
Bessie. "But they've cut the trees down, and made room for tennis courts
and all sorts of things like that, and then, I suppose, they needed wood
to build the hotel, too. It's quite a big place, isn't it, Dolly?"
"Yes, and I've heard of it before, too," Dolly. "A friend of mine stayed
up here for a month two or three years ago. She says they advertise
that it's wild and just like living right in the woods, but it isn't at
all. I guess it's for people who like to think they're roughing it when
they're really just as comfortable as they would be if they stayed at
home. Comfortable the same way, I mean."
"Yes, that's better, Dolly. Because I think we're comfortable, though
it's very different from the way we would live in the city, or even from
the way we lived at the farm. But we're really roughing it, I guess."
"Yes, and it's fine, too! Tell me, Bessie, did you ever see any gypsies
like these when you lived in the country!"
"There were gypsies around Hedgeville two or three times, but the
farmers all hated them, and used to try to drive them away, and Maw
Hoover told me not to go near them when they were around. She usually
gave me so many things to do that I couldn't, anyhow. You know, the
farmers say that they'll steal anything, but I think one reason for that
is that the farmers drove them into doing it, in the beginning, I mean.
They wouldn't let them act like other people, and they didn't like to
sell them things. So I think the poor gypsies wanted to get even, and
that's how they began to steal."
"What do you suppose they're doing up here, Bessie?"
"They always go around to the summer places, and in the winter they go
south, to where the people from the north go to get warm when it's
winter at home. They tell fortunes, and they make all sorts of queer
things that people like to buy; lace, and bead things. And I suppose up
here they sell all sorts of souvenirs, too; baskets, and things like
that."
"Don't they have any real homes, Bessie?"
"No; except in their wagons. They live in them all the time, and they
always manage to be where it's warm in the winter. They don't care where
they go, you see. One place is just like another to them. They never
have settled in towns. They've been wanderers for ages and ages, and
they have their own language. They know all sorts of things about the
weather, and they can find their way anywhere."
"How do you know so much about them, Bessie, if you never saw anything
of them when you were in Hedgeville?"
"I read a book about them once. It's called 'Lavengro,' and it's by a
man who's been dead a long time now; his name was Borrow."
"What a funny name! I never heard of that book, but I'll get it and read
it when I get home. It tells about the gypsies, you say?"
"Yes. But I guess not about the gypsies as they are now, but more as
they used to be. We're getting close, now. See all the babies! Aren't
they cute and brown?"
Two or three parties, evidently from the hotel, were looking about the
camp, but they paid little attention to the two Camp Fire Girls,
evidently recognizing that they did not come from the hotel. The
gypsies, however, always on the alert when they see a chance to make
money by selling their wares or by telling fortunes, flocked about
them, particularly the women. Bessie, fair haired and blond, they seemed
disposed to neglect, but Bessie noticed that several of the men looked
admiringly at Dolly, whose dark hair and eyes, though she was, of
course, much fairer than their own women, seemed to appeal to them.
"I'd like to have my fortune told!" Dolly whispered.
"I think we'd better not do that, Dolly, really; and you remember you
said you'd stay just for a minute."
"I don't see what harm it would do," Dolly pouted. But she gave in,
nevertheless. They passed the door of the strangely decorated tent
inside of which the secrets of the future were supposed to be revealed,
and, followed by a curious pack of children, walked on to a wagon where
a pretty girl, who seemed no older than themselves; but was probably,
because the gypsy women grow old so much more quickly than American
girls, actually younger, was sitting. She was sewing beads to a jacket,
and she looked up with a bright smile as they approached.
"You come from the hotel?" she said. "You live there?"
"No," said Dolly. "We come from a long way off. Are you going to wear
that jacket?"
The gypsy girl laughed.
"No. I'm making that for my man, him over there by the tree, smoking,
see? He's my man; he's goin' marry me when I get it done."
Bessie laughed.
"Marry you? Why, you're only a girl like me!" she exclaimed.
"No, no; me woman," protested the gypsy, eagerly. "See, I'm so tall
already!"
And she sprang up to show them how tall she was. But Bessie and Dolly
only laughed the more, until Bessie saw that something like anger was
coming into her black eyes, and checked Dolly's laugh.
"I hope you'll be very happy," she said. "Come on, Dolly, we really must
be going."
Dolly was inclined to resist once more. She hadn't seen half as much as
she wanted to of the strange, exotic life of the gypsy caravan, so
different from the things she was used to, but Bessie was firm, and they
began to make their way back toward the trail. And, as they neared the
spot from which they had had their first view of Loon Pond and the gypsy
camp, Bessie was startled and frightened by the sudden appearance in
their path of the good looking young gypsy for whom the girl they had
been talking to was decorating the jacket.
His keen eyes devoured Dolly as he stood before her, and he put out his
hand, gently enough, to bar their way.
"Will you marry me?" he said, in English much better than that of most
of his tribe.
Dolly laughed, although Bessie looked serious.
"Oh, yes, of course," said Dolly. "I always marry the first man who asks
me, every day; especially if he's a gypsy and I've never seen him
before."
"You're too young now; you think you are, I suppose," said the gypsy,
showing his white teeth. "You come back with me and wait; by and by we
will get married."
"Nonsense," said Bessie, decisively. "He means it, Dolly, he's not
joking. Come, we must hurry."
"Wait, stay," said the gypsy, eagerly. And he put out his hand as if to
hold Dolly. But she screamed before he could touch her, and darted past
him. And in a moment both girls, running hard, were out of sight.