The at Long Lake Part 3 (1/2)

”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 pa.s.sed 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.

CHAPTER VI.

A SERIOUS JOKE.

Bessie, seriously alarmed, led the race through the woods and they had gone for nearly a quarter of a mile before she would even stop to listen. When she felt that if the gypsy were going to overtake them he would have done it, she stopped, and, breathing hard, listened eagerly for some sign that he was still behind them. But only the noises of the forest came to their ears, the rustling of the leaves in the trees, the call of a bird, the sudden sharp chattering of a squirrel or a chipmunk, and, of course, their own breathing.

”I guess we got away from him all right,” she said. ”Oh, Dolly, I was frightened!”