Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
GYPSY BREYNTON
By
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS
New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by
GRAVES & YOUNG,
in the Clerk's Office for the District Court of Massachusetts
Copyright, 1894, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward.
PREFACE.
Having been asked to write a preface to the new edition of the Gypsy
books, I am not a little perplexed. I was hardly more than a girl myself,
when I recorded the history of this young person; and I find it hard, at
this distance, to photograph her as she looks, or ought to look to-day.
She does not sit still long enough to be "taken." I see a lively girl in
pretty short dresses and very long stockings,--quite a Tom-boy, if I
remember rightly. She paddles a raft, she climbs a tree, she skates and
tramps and coasts, she is usually very muddy, and a little torn. There is
apt to be a pin in her gathers; but there is sure to be a laugh in her
eyes. Wherever there is mischief, there is Gypsy. Yet, wherever there is
fun, and health, and hope, and happiness,--and I think, wherever there is
truthfulness and generosity,--there is Gypsy, too.
And now, the publishers tell me that Gypsy is thirty years old, and that
girls who were not so much as born when I knew the little lady, are her
readers and her friends to-day.
Thirty years old? Indeed, it is more than that! For is it not thirty years
since the publication of her memoirs? And was she, at that time, possibly
sixteen? Forty-six years? Incredible! How in the world did Gypsy "grow
up?" For that was before toboggans and telephones, before bicycles and
electric cars, before bangs and puffed sleeves, before girls studied
Greek, and golf-capes came in. Did she go to college? For the Annex, and
Smith, and Wellesley were not. Did she have a career? Or take a husband?
Did she edit a Quarterly Review, or sing a baby to sleep? Did she write
poetry, or make pies? Did she practice medicine, or matrimony? Who knows?
Not even the author of her being.
Only one thing I do know: Gypsy never grew up to be "timid," or silly, or
mean, or lazy; but a sensible woman, true and strong; asking little help
of other people, but giving much; an honor to her brave and loving sex,
and a safe comrade to the girls who kept step with her into middle life;
and I trust that I may bespeak from their daughters and their scholars a
kindly welcome to an old story, told again.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
Newton Centre, Mass.,
_April, 1895._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I WHICH INTRODUCES HER 7
CHAPTER II A SPASM OF ORDER 21
CHAPTER III MISS MELVILLE'S VISITOR 42
CHAPTER IV GYPSY HAS A DREAM 69
CHAPTER V WHAT SHE SAW 89
CHAPTER VI UP IN THE APPLE TREE 105
CHAPTER VII JUST LIKE GYPSY 126
CHAPTER VIII PEACE MAYTHORNE 146
CHAPTER IX CAMPING OUT 167
CHAPTER X THE END OF THE WEEK 202
CHAPTER XI GYPSY'S OPINION OF BOSTON 213
CHAPTER XII NO PLACE LIKE HOME 242
GYPSY BREYNTON
CHAPTER I
WHICH INTRODUCES HER
"Gypsy Breynton. Hon. Gypsy Breynton, Esq., M. A., D. D., LL. D., &c., &c.
Gypsy Breynton, R. R."
Tom was very proud of his handwriting. It was black and business-like,
round and rolling and readable, and drowned in a deluge of hair-line
flourishes, with little black curves in the middle of them. It had been
acquired in the book-keeping class of Yorkbury high school, and had taken
a prize at the end of the summer term. And therefore did Tom lean back in
his chair, and survey, with intense satisfaction, the great sheet of
sermon-paper which was covered with his scrawlings.
Tom was a handsome fellow, if he did look very well pleased with himself
at that particular moment. His curly hair was black and bright, and
brushed off from a full forehead, and what with that faint, dark line of
moustache just visible above his lips, and that irresistible twinkle to
his great merry eyes, it was no wonder Gypsy was proud of him, as indeed
she certainly was, nor did she hesitate to tell him so twenty times a day.
This was a treatment of which Tom decidedly approved. Exactly how
beneficial it was to the growth within him of modesty, self-forgetfulness,
and the passive virtues generally, is another question.
The room in which Tom was sitting might have been exhibited with profit by
Mr. Barnum, as a legitimate relic of that chaos and Old Night, which the
poets tell us was dispelled by the light of this order-loving creation.
It had a bed in it, as well as several chairs and a carpet, but it
required considerable search to discover them, for the billows of feminine
drapery that were piled upon them. Three dresses,--Tom counted, to make
sure,--one on the bedpost, one rolled up in a heap on the floor where it
had fallen, and one spread out on the counterpane, with benzine on it.
What with kerosene oil, candle drippings, and mugs of milk, Gypsy managed
to keep one dress under the benzine treatment all the time; it was an
established institution, and had long ago ceased to arouse remark, even
from Tom. There was also a cloak upon one chair, and a crocheted cape tied
by the tassels on another. There was a white tippet hanging on the
stovepipe. There was a bandbox up in one corner with a pretty hat lying on
the outside, its long, light feather catching the dust; it was three days
now since Sunday. There were also two pairs of shoes, one pair of rubbers,
and one slipper under the bed; the other slipper lay directly in the
middle of the room. Then the wardrobe door was wide open,--it was too full
to stay shut,--upon a sight which, I think, even Gypsy would hardly want
put into print. White skirts and dressing-sacks; winter hoods that ought
to have been put up in camphor long ago; aprons hung up by the trimming; a
calico dress that yawned mournfully out of a twelve-inch tear in the
skirt; a pile of stockings that had waited long, and were likely to wait
longer, for darning; some rubber-boots and a hatchet.
The bureau drawers, Tom observed, were tightly shut,--probably for very
good reasons. The table, at which he sat, was a curiosity to the
speculative mind. The cloth was two-thirds off, and slipping, by a very
gradual process, to the floor. On the remaining third stood an inkstand
and a bottle of mucilage, as well as a huge pile of books, a glass
tumbler, a Parian vase, a jack-knife, a pair of scissors, a thimble, two
spools of thread, a small kite, and a riding-whip. The rest of the table
had been left free to draw a map on, and was covered with pencils and
rubber, compasses, paper, and torn geography leaves.
There were several pretty pictures on the walls, but they were all hung
crookedly; the curtain at the window was unlooped, and you could write
your name anywhere in the dust that covered mantel, stove, and furniture.
And this was Gypsy's room.
Tom had spent a longer time in looking at it than I have taken to tell
about it, and when he was through looking he did one of those things that
big brothers of sixteen long years' experience in this life, who are
always teasing you and making fun of you and "preaching" at you, are
afflicted with a chronic and incurable tendency to do. It is very
fortunate that Gypsy deserved it, for it was really a horrible thing,
girls, and if I were you I wouldn't let my brothers read about it, as you
value your peace of mind, lace collars, clean clothes, good tempers, and
private property generally. I'd put a pin through these leaves, or fasten
them together with sealing-wax, or cut them out, before I'd run the risk.
And what did he do? Why, he put a chair in the middle of the room, tied a
broom to it (he found it in the corner with a little heap of dust behind
it, as Gypsy had left it when her mother sent her up to sweep the room
that morning), and dressed it up in the three dresses, the cloaks and the
cape, one above another, the chair serving as crinoline. Upon the top of
the broom-handle he tied the torn apron, stuffed out with the
rubber-boots, and pinned on slips of the geography leaves for features;
Massachusetts and Vermont giving the graceful effect of one pink eye and
one yellow eye, Australia making a very blue nose, and Japan a small green
mouth. The hatchet and the riding-whip served as arms, and the whole
figure was surmounted by the Sunday hat that had the dust on its feather.
From under the hem of the lowest dress, peeped the toes of all the pairs
of shoes and rubbers, and the entire contents of the sliding table-cloth,
down to every solitary pencil, needle, and crumb of cake, were ranged in a
line on the carpet. To crown the whole, he pinned upon the image that
paper placard upon which he had been scribbling.
When his laudable work was completed, this ingenious and remorseless boy
had to stand and laugh at it for five minutes. If Gypsy had only seen him
then! And Gypsy was nearer than he thought--in the front door, and coming
up the stairs with a great banging and singing and laughing, as nobody but
Gypsy could come up stairs. Tom just put his hand on the window-sill, and
gave one leap out on the kitchen roof, and Gypsy burst in, and stopped
short.
Tom crouched down against the side of the house, and held his breath. For
about half a minute it was perfectly still. Then a soft, merry laugh broke
out all at once on the air, something as a little brook would splash down
in a sudden cascade on the rocks.
"O--oh! Did you ever? I never _saw_ anything so funny! Oh, dear _me!_"
Then it was still again, and then the merry laugh began to spell out the
placard.
"Gypsy Breynton. Hon.--Hon. Gypsy Breynton,--what? Oh, Esq., M. A., D. D.,
LL. D.--what a creature he is! Gypsy Breynton, R. R. _R. R.?_ I'm sure I
don't know what that means--Tom! Thom--as!"
Just then she caught sight of him out on the ridge-pole, whittling away as
coolly as if he had sat there all his life.
"Good afternoon," said Gypsy, politely.
"Good afternoon," said Tom.
"Been whittling out there ever since dinner, I suppose?"
"Certainly."
"I thought so. Come here a minute."
"Come out here," said Tom. Gypsy climbed out of the window without the
slightest hesitation, and walked along the ridge-pole with the ease and
fearlessness of a boy. She had on a pretty blue delaine dress, which was
wet and torn, and all stuck together with burs; her boots were covered
with mud to the ankle; her white stockings spattered and brown; her turban
was hanging round her neck by its elastic; her net had come off, and the
wind was blowing her hair all over her eyes; she had her sack thrown over
one arm, and a basket filled to overflowing, with flowers and green moss,
upon the other.
"Well, you're a pretty sight!" said Tom, leisurely regarding her. Indeed,
he was not far from right. In spite of the mud and the burs and the tears,
and the general dropping-to-pieces look about her, Gypsy managed, somehow
or other, to look as pretty as a picture, with her cheeks as red as a
coral, and the soft brown hair that was tossing about her eyes. Gypsy's
eyes were the best part of her. They were very large and brown, and had
that same irresistible twinkle that was in Tom's eyes, only a great deal
more of it; and then it was always there. They twinkled when she was happy
and when she was cross; they twinkled over her school-books; they
twinkled, in spite of themselves, at church and Sabbath school; and, when
she was at play, they shone like a whole galaxy of stars. If ever Gypsy's
eyes ceased twinkling, people knew she was going to be sick. Her hair, I
am sorry to say, was _not_ curly.
This was Gypsy's one unalleviated affliction in life. That a girl could
possibly be pretty with straight hair, had never once entered her mind.
All the little girls in story-books had curls. Who ever heard of the
straight-haired maiden that made wreaths of the rosebuds, or saw the
fairies, or married the Prince? And Gypsy's hair was not only straight, it
was absolutely uncurlable. A week's penance "done up in paper" made no
more impression than if you were to pinch it.
However, that did not interfere with her making a bit of a picture,
perched up there on the roof beside Tom, among her burs and her flowers
and her moss, her face all dimples from forehead to chin.
"Where have you been?" said Tom, trying to look severe, and making a most
remarkable failure.
"Oh, only over to the three-mile swamp after white violets. Sarah Rowe,
she got her two hands full, and then she just fell splash into the water,
full length, and lost 'em--Oh, dear me, how I laughed! She did look so
funny."
"Your boots are all mud," said Tom.
"Who cares?" said Gypsy, with a merry laugh, tipping all the wet, earthy
moss out on her lap, as she spoke. "See! isn't there a quantity? I like
moss 'cause it fills up. Violets are pretty enough, only you _do_ have to
pick 'em one at a time. Innocence comes up by the handful,--only mine's
most all roots."
"I don't know what's going to become of you," said Tom, drawing down the
corner of his mouth.
"Neither do I," said Gypsy, demurely; "I wish I did."
"You won't learn to apply yourself to anything," persisted Tom. "Work or
play, there's no system to you. You're like a----" Tom paused for a
simile--"Well, like a toad that's always on the jump."
"Ow!" said Gypsy, with a little scream, "there's a horrid old snail
crawled out my moss!" and over went moss, flowers, basket, and all, down
the roof and upon the stone steps below. "There! Good enough for it!"
Tom coughed and whittled. Gypsy pulled her net out of her basket, and put
up her hair. There was a little silence. Nothing had yet been said about
the image in Gypsy's room, and both were determined not to be the first to
speak of it. Gypsy could have patience enough where a joke was in
question, and as is very apt to be the case, the boy found himself
outwitted. For not a word said Gypsy of the matter, and half an hour
passed and the supper-bell rang.
"There!" said Gypsy, jumping up, "I do declare if it isn't supper, and
I've got these burs to get off and my dress to mend and my shoes and
stockings to change, and--Oh, dear! I wish people didn't ever have to do
things, anyway!"
With this very wise remark, she walked back across the ridge-pole and
climbed in the window. There was nothing for Tom to do but follow; which
he did slowly and reluctantly. Something would have to be said now, at any
rate. But not a syllable said Gypsy. She went to the looking-glass, and
began to brush her hair as unconcernedly as if everything were just as she
left it and precisely as she wanted it.
Tom passed through the room and out of the door; then he stopped. Gypsy's
eyes began to twinkle as if somebody had dropped two little diamonds in
them.
"I say," said Tom.
"What do you say?" replied Gypsy.
"What do you suppose mother would have to say to you about this _looking_
room?"
"I don't know what she'd say to you, I'm sure," said Gypsy, gravely.
"And you, a great girl, twelve years old!"
"I should like to know why I'm a railroad, anyway," said Gypsy.
"Who said you were a railroad?"
"Whoever wrote Gypsy Breynton, R. R., with my red ink."
"That doesn't stand for railroad."
"Doesn't? Well, what?"
"Regular Romp."
"Oh!"