A GROUP OF VAGABONDS
The two cars rolled along smartly, for the various happenings of the day
had put the Motor Girls behind the schedule they had hoped to make. But
despite their best efforts, dusk was settling down and the stars
beginning to peep out when they drove up to the Kimball's Aunt Margaret's
door.
She greeted them affectionately, and after they had washed off the dust
of travel they were seated at the sumptuous meal she had had prepared in
anticipation of their coming. After dinner was over, a number of young
people in the neighborhood who had been invited to meet the tourists
dropped in, and there was music and dancing. But Aunt Margaret's
watchfulness over her charges prevented this from being prolonged to an
unseasonable hour, and by eleven o'clock all the tired travelers were
sleeping the dreamless sleep of vigorous, healthy youth.
They needed a good sleep, for the longest lap of their journey still lay
before them. And it was at an early hour the next morning that, after a
hearty breakfast and cordial thanks and good-byes to their gracious
hostess, they climbed into their cars and drove off.
"Off at last for the Adirondacks!" cried Jack gaily, as he drew in great
draughts of the fresh morning air.
"And for Camp Kill Kare!" added Paul.
The girls had started off a little ahead of them, but the boys soon drew
alongside and Jack signaled for Cora to stop.
"I would have speech with thee, fair maiden," he remarked, as his sister
obeyed.
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Cora in pretended vexation. "Here are those rude
boys interrupting us just when we were having the loveliest talk."
"I guess you weren't talking about anything very important," replied
Jack.
"No," said Bess, dimpling, "we were talking about you boys."
"And saying what a lovely thing it was to be all by ourselves for a
little while," put in Belle.
"Girls," exhorted Walter solemnly, "remember that if there was an Ananias
there was also a Sapphira."
"We're not so keen on having a stag party ourselves," explained Jack,
"and we thought it would be a dandy thing if one of you girls would come
into our car and one of us fellows go to yours. That would make life one
grand sweet song."
"It all comes from what Cora said yesterday about the refining influence
of feminine society," said Walter. "I feel the need of that. In fact, I
have a consuming desire to become refined. And I can't be, as long as I
associate with these two low-brows. So you'd better let me ride in your
car."
"And leave us in our native coarseness?" queried Paul. "Not on your life,
old man! I need refinement just as much as you do."
"Peace, brethren," interposed Jack. "We'll do this thing on the level. My
claims to coarseness are just as strong as either of yours, but do you
see me engaging in unseemly brawls? Nay and again nay. We'll pull straws
for it and may the coarsest man win."
"I don't know that we want any of you," said Cora. "We don't take
incurable cases."
"Don't be too harsh, Cora," said Belle. "You know they say there's a
spark of good in the very lowest."
"While the lamp holds out to burn
The vilest sinner may return,"
hummed Bess.
There were no straws at hand, but some matches served as well, and Walter
proved to be the lucky one. Belle agreed to go to Jack's car, and Walter
took her place alongside of Bess.
"Hurrah!" cried Walter, as he availed himself of his good fortune. "I'm
saved. I'm doomed to refinement."
"Doomed?" laughed Cora.
"Did I say doomed?" Walter answered. "How careless of me! Of course I
meant destined to refinement."
"I suppose you'll be eating lotus blossoms and water lilies before long,"
called out Jack, as the cars started up again.
"Watch me when lunch time comes," grinned Walter. "But I don't mind what
you fellows say. I've got two refining influences while you have only
one."
"You need all you can get," was Jack's parting shot.
With merry chaff and banter, the time flew by as though on wings. They
had lunch at a quaint little inn by the roadside, and Walter proved that
the charms of feminine society had not yet begun to affect his appetite.
But then, as he explained, the cure would be all the more effective if it
were gradual, and he had plenty of time yet to climb to higher planes.
In the early afternoon they were turning a bend in the road, when Cora
gave a sudden exclamation.
"Look!" she cried, pointing to a little glade at the right of the road.
"There's a camp of some kind. I do believe it's gypsies!"
"Guessed it right the first time," declared Walter.
"That's what it is," agreed Bess. "Oh, Cora, don't you think we might
stop a few minutes? I'd dearly love to have a look at them, if you think
we can spare the time."
"I'm not so very keen about it myself," said Cora dubiously, for as those
familiar with her previous adventures will remember, her experiences with
these picturesque vagabonds had not been devoid of unpleasantness and
danger. "But I'll see what Jack says about it, and if he thinks we have
time, I won't mind stopping."
She hailed Jack, and, after consulting his watch, the latter agreed that
they could easily spare a half-hour or so for a visit to the gypsy camp.
They drew their cars to the side of the road and picked their way through
the woods to the little dell where the gypsy encampment lay.
It was a typical camp of those strange nomads in whose blood runs the
"call of the wild," and who in their mode of life are almost as far
removed from other human beings as though they lived upon another planet.
There were perhaps a dozen vans, from which came strange smells of
cooking, amid which onion and garlic predominated. Unkempt children in
tattered clothing played with dogs that seemed to be legion, while
wrinkled and slatternly women sat on the steps of the vans or made their
way through the grounds, whining their requests to visitors to cross
their palms with silver and learn in return all that pertained to their
present and future. Swarthy men, some of them with huge ear-rings and
with sashes and turbans that reminded one of the pirates of tradition,
lay sprawled out on the grass watching the throng with eyes that were
sometimes indifferent and again sullen and smoldering.
There were just two elements that redeemed the camp from its general
aspect of squalor and forlornness. One was the fine horses that were
scattered here and there, for the gypsy has the keenest eye for a good
animal of any trader on earth. The other was the presence of several
gypsy girls of a wild barbaric type of beauty, whose flashing eyes and
gaudy trinkets contrasted with the prevailing ugliness of their
surroundings.
There were a large number of visitors present, due to the proximity of a
large town a mile or so away, through which the automobiles had passed
just before reaching the camp.
"Here's the place to have your future told," said Jack.
"Lucky they can't tell our past," remarked Walter. "What a give-away that
would be for some of us."
"I hope you haven't any deep dark secret that would 'chill the young
blood, harrow up our souls' if it were told," laughed Cora.
"Walter just wants to make himself interesting," gibed Bess.
"Well, whatever I may have been, I'm all right now that you girls have
undertaken to refine me," replied Walter.
"I'm realizing more and more what a tremendous contract it is," Cora came
back at him. "But look at that girl over there? Isn't she a beauty?"
"She isn't hard to look at, for a fact," said Jack judicially, as his
eyes fell on the gypsy girl his sister had indicated. "I think I'll get
her to tell my fortune. I want to know whether I'm born to be hanged or
drowned."
"It's safe to say that you're booked for a long life anyway," remarked
Paul. "Only the good die young."
The girl had seen that the party were regarding her with interest, and
she came over to them.
"Do you ladies want to have your fortunes told?" she asked with a winning
smile that showed two rows of beautiful white teeth.
The girls hesitated.
"Go ahead, girls, and show the sporting spirit," urged Jack. "You can get
the promise of a perfectly good husband for fifty cents. And that's cheap
in these days of high prices."
"It's more than some of them are worth," laughed Belle.
"I hope that isn't a shot at us," said Paul. "I'd be a bargain at a
dollar."
"She must have been thinking of that Higby fellow over at Roxbury," said
Bess. "Why, what's the matter?" she asked, as the gypsy girl started
violently and turned deadly pale.
Cora sprang to the girl's side and put her arm around her to steady her.