Part 11 (2/2)
The quality of her sober predictions is about the same as that of others in the same profession, but her intoxicated foretellings are deserving of a chapter to themselves, and they shall have it, for from force of peculiar circ.u.mstances, which will be explained hereafter, the Cash Customer made three visits to this celebrated woman. Her first address was 207 3d Avenue, between Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets.
The Gipsy Girl! How romantically suggestive was this feminine phrase to the fancy of an enthusiastic reporter. Was it then, indeed, permitted that he should know Meg Merrilees in private life? His heart danced at the poetic possibility, and his heels would have extemporized a vigorous hornpipe but that his saltatory ardor was quenched by the depressing st.u.r.diness of cow-hide boots. With the most pleasing antic.i.p.ations he perused the subjoined advertis.e.m.e.nt again and again, and looked to the happy future with a joyful hope.
”A Wonder-The Gipsy Girl.-If you wish to know all the secrets of your past and future life, the knowledge of which may save you years of sorrow and care, don't fail to consult the above-named palmist. Charge 50 cents.
The Gipsy has also on hand a secret which will enable any lady or gentleman to win or obtain the affections of the opposite s.e.x. Charge extra. No. 207 3d av., between 18th and 19th sts.”
How the knowledge of all the secrets of his past life was to save him years of sorrow and care at this late day he could not exactly comprehend, and was willing to pay fifty cents for the information. And then wasn't it worth half a dollar to see a live gipsy? Of course it was.
Kettles, camp-fires, white tents under green trees, indigenous brown babies and exotic white ones, with a panorama of empty cradles and mourning mothers in the distance, moonlight nights, midnight foraging excursions, expeditions against impertinent game-keepers, demonstrations against hen-roosts-successful by masterly generals.h.i.+p and pure strategic science-and the midnight forest cookery of contraband game, surrept.i.tious pigs and clandestine chickens-were among the romantic ideas of a delightful vagabond gipsy life that at once suggested themselves to the mind of the Cash Customer. He did not really expect to find the Third-Avenue gipsy camped out under a bed-quilt tent in the lee of the house, or cooking her dinner in an iron pot over an out-door fire in the back yard, but he had a vague undefined hope that there would be some visible indications of gipsy life, if it was nothing more than the p.a.w.n-tickets for stolen spoons.
He thought to find at least one or two beautiful babies knocking about, decorated with coral necklaces and golden clasps, suggestive of rich parents and better days, and had firmly resolved to send the little innocents to the alms-house by way of improving their condition. Full of these romantic notions, the reporter started on his philanthropic mission, taking the preliminary precaution of leaving at home his watch and pocket-book, and carrying with him only small change enough to pay the advertised charges.
In one of those three-story brick houses so abounding in this city, which seem to have been built by the mile and cut off in slices to suit purchasers, in the Third Avenue above Eighteenth Street, dwelt at that time the gay Bohemian. The building in which she lived, though three stories in height, is very short between joints, which style of architecture makes all the rooms low and squat, as if somebody had shut the house into itself like a telescope, and had never pulled it out again.
Out of the chimney, which was the little end of the telescope, issued a sickly smoke; and through a door in the lower story, which was the big end thereof, was the stranger admitted by a little girl. This girl was, probably, a pure article of gipsy herself originally, but had been so much adulterated by partial civilization that she combed her hair daily and submitted to shoes and stockings without a murmur. Ragged indeed was this reclaimed wanderer; saucy and dirty-faced was this sprouting young maiden, but she was sharp-witted, and scented money as quickly as if she had been the oldest hag of her tribe; so she asked her customer to walk up stairs, which he did. She herself went up stairs with a skip and a whirl, showed her visitor into the grand reception room with a gyrating flourish, and disappeared in a ”courtesy” of so many complex and dizzy rotations that she seemed to the eyes of the bewildered traveller to evaporate in a red flannel mist. As soon as she had spun herself out of sight he recovered his presence of mind and looked about him.
The romantic gipsy who sojourned here had tried to furnish her rooms like civilized people, doubtless out of respect to her many patrons. A thread-bare carpet was under foot; a little parlor stove with a little fire in it was standing on a little piece of zinc, and did its little utmost to heat the room; an uncomfortable looking sofa covered with shabby and faded red damask graced one side of the apartment, and a lounge, of curtailed dimensions, partially covered with shreds of turkey red calico, adorned another side.
This latter article of furniture, with its tattered cover, through which suspicious bits of curled hair peeped out, and wide crevices in its rickety frame were plainly visible, looked much too suggestive of c.o.c.kroaches and other insect delicacies of the season to be an inviting place of repose.
Three chairs were dispersed throughout the room, on one of which the reporter bestowed himself, and the rest of the furniture consisted of a table, so exceedingly shaky and sensitive in the joints that it might have been the grim skeleton of some former table, loosely hung together with unseen wires; and a cheap looking-gla.s.s that had suffered so serious a comminuted fracture as to be past all surgery-this was all except some little plaster images of saints, strangers to the Cash Customer, and a black rosary, which article would seem to show that efforts had been put forth to Christianize this nut-brown gipsy maid.
A clinking of gla.s.ses was heard in the adjoining apartment, then the door was opened with an independent flirt, and the gay Bohemian appeared on the scene.
If it were desired to fancy visions of enchanting loveliness it would be necessary to insert therein other ingredients than the gipsy girl of the Third Avenue; alone she would be insufficient; too much would be left to the imagination; and in any event the illusion would be too great to last long.
She is of medium height, her eyes are brown and bright, and her hands are very large and red. She has no hair, but wears a scratch red wig, which gives her head a utilitarian character.
Her face is deeply pitted with the small-pox, more than pitted-gullied, scarred, and seamed, as though some jealous rival had been trying to plough her complexion under; little short light hairs are thinly scattered on her cheek bones and upper lip, and in the shadows of the little ridges that disease had left, irresistibly compelling the mind to make an absurd comparison of her face with a sterile field, and imagine that at some past day it had been spaded up to plant a beard, which had only grown in scanty patches, here and there. Her nails were h.o.r.n.y and ill-shaped, and underneath them and at their roots were large deposits of dirt and other fertilizing compounds, under the stimulating influence of which they had grown lank and long. Her attire was a sort of cross between the picturesque wildness of the gipsy, and the more civilized and unbecoming dress of Third Avenue Christians.
She was apparelled, princ.i.p.ally, in a red flannel jacket, and a check handkerchief, which was pa.s.sed under her chin and tied on the top of her wig, where the knot looked like a blue b.u.t.terfly.
There was a gown, but a series of subsoiling experiments would have been necessary to determine the material and texture; the surface was palpably dirt. Accompanying her there was a strong smell of gin, and from the odor of the liquor the visitor judged that it was a very poor article.
This gay old gipsy drew a chair to the table, and sat down, not in a graceful and composed manner, but more as if she had been dumped from a cart. She soon partially recovered herself, and straightened up slightly from the heap into which she had collapsed, and, turning her head away from her customer, she elaborately remarked: ”Fifty cents and your left 'and.”
The Individual made a careful search for his small change, and fished out the exact amount which he promptly paid over.
This delightful gipsy then took his left hand and looked at it for a minute in an imbecile kind of way, as if she didn't know exactly what to do with it, and was undecided whether it was to be made into soup, or she was to drink it immediately with warm water and a little sugar. This last impression evidently prevailed, for she tried to pour it into her ap.r.o.n, and only recovered from her delusion when the fingers tangled themselves up in the strings. Then a glimmering of the true state of the case seemed to dawn upon her, and she began to have a dim idea that she was expected to say something.
Now the roving gipsy was not by any means intoxicated at this time; that is to say, she may have been partaking of gin, or gin and water, or may have been sucking sugar that had gin on it, or she may have been taking a little gin and peppermint for a stomach-ache, or she may have been bathing her head in gin, or have been otherwise making use of that potent remedy as a medicine, but she was by no means a subject for official interference in case she had wandered into the street, but she was, to tell the truth, not in her most clear-headed condition; although probably she did not see more than one Cash Customer sitting solemnly before her, still that one was quite as many as she could well manage at that time.
After the signal failure of her little demonstration on the hand of her guest, she, by a strong effort, seemed to concentrate her faculties, and after several trials she roused herself and spoke as follows, emphasizing the short words with spiteful vindictiveness, and paying the most particular attention to the improper aspiration of the h's.
”You _are_ a person as _has_ seen a great deal _of_ dif-”
The gay Bohemian here evidently desired to say ”difficulty,” but the word was a sad stumbling-block, a four-syllable rock ahead which was too much for her powers in her then exhausted state of mind; she charged on the unfortunate word boldly, however, and tried to carry it by storm, but each time was repulsed with great loss of breath-”a great deal of dif-dif-dif-diffle”-it was no use, so she tried back and began again.
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