IIGYPSIES!
THE Williams boy, a well-built little man of eleven, was a healthy, riotous animal, keen, fluent and right-minded—but he had not been “promoted.” Blynn had found this out in an accidental meeting with the lad. The result was a regular Wednesday afternoon visit at the boy’s home with a new sort of “lessons,” and many tramps down Cresheim creek and up the Wissahickon—the core of the method—where instruction was part of the game.
Blynn had the teacher’s gift of presenting unknown regions of knowledge with all the allurements of advertisement of seaside estates. He aroused interest, a desire to explore, a proper pride in achievement; and, above all, hope. He never complained of stupidity, nor expressed the least impatience with slowness; so in this way he ever stirred up latent or lost personal faiths. Within a few months the Williams boy was ready to pass into the next grade and do himself credit; unless the well-intentioned but narrow school dames of the Hall should petrify his interest and with daily croakings cut off all communication.
Gorgas was standing in the fine old doorway of her home when he came out of the Williams’ gate. Hewaved to her cheerfully; she saluted gravely in return, one lift of the hand, as the Roman stage-senators do. When he came forward eagerly, his severe face alight with interest, she stood watching him without motion. That was a characteristic of Gorgas which she had possessed as a baby and which she maintained all her life; it gave charming dignity to her later years; active at one moment as the famous imps below, the next moment rigid as a wax-work, yet thunderingly alive, a fawn struck into silence, listening.
Not until he stood beside her did she move. Then abruptly she thrust out a hand.
“How do you do, Mr. Blynn,” she smiled an absurd, artificial smile, the perfect mask of a hostess. “Won’tyou sit down? It’sawfulgood of you to call.”
“Wie geht’s, milady?” he bowed in perfect understanding of the game. “Excuse! I haff been talking zee ChermanSprache mitdot Wilhelm’s poyundI cannot get back to English for severalminutenafter-varts, afterwarts—afterwards—there! My tongue’s free.’Raus mit ihm! Gesundheit!How are you?Schreckliches Wetter—I mean, sticky weather, isn’t it?”
They had reached the living room by this time. A glance about had not revealed Mrs. Levering or the older daughter. No doubt, they would be forthcoming later.
“The weatherisrather depressing,” she drawled. The tone struck him as decidedly familiar; but when she opened her large eyes and blinked deliberately at him twice, and then drew a languid hand across onecheek and fidgeted a moment in her chair, as if to distribute an imaginary “bustle,” it came to him with a rush that she was picturing Mrs. Williams, whom he had just left.
Blynn squeezed down into his chair, thrust his head into his neck, puffed out his cheek, a recognizable portrait of Mr. Williams, and growled.
“I don’t like it! I don’t like it! I don’t like it at all!”
In a moment or two they were caricaturing the neighborhood and making guesses as to the portrait.
He didn’t say, “That isn’t fair,” or “You shouldn’t mimic your elders that way”; nor did he begin any sentence with, “It isn’t nice for young girls to—” Instead, he joined in, became particeps criminis, and at once was initiated into the secretest of fraternities, the brotherhood of children. In a little while he had won the right to ask her any personal question he wished without once being suspected of school-teachering.
He wanted to know what she was reading.
“‘Man and Wife,’” she told him.
Wilkie Collins wrote it, and Professor Blynn did not know that! It was about a Scotch marriage, she explained: two persons had unwittingly acknowledged themselves man and wife before witnesses; that was enough to bind them in irrevocable marriage.
Her explanations were clear—evidently she knew what she was reading—and she talked of marriage and children with extraordinary frankness.
“At the same time I am reading ‘La Peau deChagrin’ par Honoré Balzac,” this with a breathless kind of mystery.
The change oftimbreas the French name floated out musically brought Blynn to sudden attention.
“You speak French?” he inquired incredulously. He knew that she had never gone to school, and that among Mount Airy families it was not then customary to have governesses.
“Assez pour m’ faire comprendre,” she came back quickly. “Et vous, m’sieur? Vous l’parlez aussi?”
“Where on earth did you learn the language?” he showed his admiration for her glib prowess. “I read easily enough. It cost me the hardest kind of grubbing, too. But I couldn’t talk it two minutes.”
She grew suddenly statuesque.
“Who taught you?” he persisted.
“Bardek,” she whispered. “You must not tell. You will not tell?”
He crossed his heart.
“It’s a great secret. Mother must not know. Bardek is Bohemian; he speaks all languages.”
“Who is Bardek?”
She lowered her voice.
“Promise you won’t tell.”
He promised readily.
“Bardek is a gypsy, I think; but he doesn’t travel. He lives in the old mill in Cresheim Valley. I ride in the mornings, you know, very often alone. He talks to me in French and tells me how to say things.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“Three years.”
“Since you were ten?”
“Yes; that’s when I got ‘Gyp.’”
“‘Gyp’ is a horse?”
“Yes.”
“Cresheim Valley in the mornings is a rather lonely spot, eh?”
“Yes; that makes it fine! There’s absolutely not a soul about between seven and eight. If anyone comes, I step into the old mill.”
“Merciful heavens!” said Blynn, but not aloud. Nothing in his manner betrayed the slightest hint of anything but entire acquiescence in the policy of meeting gypsies in an unfrequented valley between seven and eight in the morning.
“He teaches me other things, too,” she went on. “I’ve never told this to anyone but you; not a person. We seem so well acquainted—after yesterday. Perhaps I oughtn’t to tell you. It’s been a terrible thing to keep to myself. They think—” motioning toward the house—“I pick up French out of books, the way I get most things. I do hammered copper and silver inlay, too; Bardek taught me. But I don’t get practice enough. Bardek says one must give a life to it. He makes beautiful things, and sells them to rich people.”
“Do you pay him?”
“Oh, no!” she smiled in a superior way. “Bardek is above money.”
“Ugh!” thought Blynn. He seemed to remembera dirty, fat man, pounding away on something at the mouth of the ruined paper-mill. He had rings in his ears, and a pair of huge mustachios gave him a villainous air.
“I have tried to give him money. But he stopped all that in no time. He took me inside and showed me a cunning box set in a stone in the mill. It was full of gold—oh!”
The “oh” was uttered with quick anguish. Blynn came swiftly to her chair and raised her head. Tears were flooding her eyes, and her face was screwed up into a horrid attempt to suppress the noise of weeping.
“What is the matter, my dear child?” he asked again and again.
Several times she tried to speak. Evidently from her glances toward the door she feared someone would be aware of a break in her voice; so with heroic efforts she shut back the sobs.
“I have—told! I—have—told! I promised not—to tell. I have told—you. It is—all right—I—know. You would keep—it—a—secret. But it hurts—that—I—have told. Bardek has been—so—good to me. It was—wicked.”
It was simply an accident, he assured her. Quietly he soothed her. “We are pals now,” he told her. This would make them into a league of secrecy. She could trust him. All his life he had been a father-confessor to children. He was tested. Keeping a secret like that was hard for her. Now it would be easier.Some things are almost too much to hold. She nodded. One must have outlets. Mothers were made for that purpose. She looked worried at that, so he took a quick turn. Sometimes even mothers couldn’t just understand; then one must have a pal or “bust.” Her eyes showed approval. A pal must know everything. No secrets from pals. That seemed to be agreed. He would go with her to Bardek some day soon—she showed half-frightened wonder at the plan—well, they would talk it over like good comrades later. Someone was coming.
“My name is Mum,” he nodded, “second-cousin to Dumb.”
She gave him a look of wild approval as Mrs. Levering appeared from the rear of the house; she was dressed for travel and hurrying.
“Why, Professor Blynn, I declare!” the good lady was obviously surprised at his presence. “I am particularly pleased to see you. Harold Williams has been praising you to me and telling all about you. You’ve done wonders with that boy—”
“Oh, no! no! God and his good mother are responsible for all the wonders. A fine little fellow, he is. Somebody got on the wrong side of him; that’s all.”
“But why didn’t I know you were here?” She looked mildly at Gorgas.
Blynn hastened to explain.
“I was talking with Gorgas last Saturday afternoon at the tennis-courts—”
“Ah! You came to talk about Gorgas. Good! The very thing I have been thinking of myself. I wish I had known you were coming, for I must be off to our little literary club. We’re fined if we don’t come on time,” she smiled as if the matter were unimportant. “Don’t let me seem abrupt, but I have only a half-minute. So let me come out bluntly. I want you to take Gorgas’ education in charge; look her over; find out where she needs patching and repainting. I declare she has grown up out of babyhood before I am ready. It is almost ungracious of her. I must blame somebody. She is thirteen years old, and doesn’t know anything. My fault, I know; but you’re a wonder—everybody says so. You’ll do it; won’t you?... Oh, yes. I must be practical. Everybody is poor nowadays—the Democrats are in, you know!—I must inquire about prices. What do you charge by the hour? I must ask for wholesale rates, for Mr. Levering’s wholesale, you know, and always gets discounts!”
Generations of Pennsylvania-German thrift beamed coldly from her eyes, although the rest of her ample person actually smiled.
“Absolutely nothing an hour, Mrs. Levering.”
“Oh, no!” she protested, but she looked relieved. “I will not hear of that. The Democrats haven’t brought us that low—yet. Although goodness only knows what’s to happen next. I really believe they caused that blizzard last March! Well! We’ll talk it over later. But you’ll have to charge something. It’s your business, man, and a tough job you’ll have,”twitching Gorgas’ ears affectionately. “Reading novels and riding Gyp—that’s this little girl’s idea of getting an education!”
“All right, Mrs. Levering, we’ll talk it over later. But I make it a rule never to charge for this sort of out-of-school work. I like to do it. It’s my fun. But you may give me a dinner occasionally. We teachers do get hungry for good food—and good company!”
“A bargain!” the lady called out happily. “But I’m off. I’ll be late. You’ve cost me a quarter-dollar fine, young man. Dinners? If you do anything with Gorgas I’ll take you in as a permanent boarder. Day-day, child. Goodby, Mr. Blynn. Sorry I couldn’t stay. Gorgas,” she was at the door now, “get Louisa to make a nice cool drink. And give the Professor something to eat. Don’t ever let him get hungry!” Her laugh carried her down the steps.
As they picnicked on the back-lawn, his instinct told him to keep away from the Bardek story, to act as if it were a thing to be forgotten. Only when he was ready to go, and she seemed to have an unwonted appearance of depression, he repeated his promise to keep the matter secret until she would wish him to tell. This seemed to brighten her tremendously; for she was terribly downcast at the thought of her failure. Now she seemed to be almost her buoyant self.
“You did not tell your mother I was coming,” he remarked.
“No.” But she did not seem troubled.
“Nor your sister?”
“No,” very seriously, “they were both going out. I was afraid if I told them they might stay home.”
Then the comical side of her statement struck her. They both laughed over it as they shook hands.
“Goodby, pupil,” he waved, “see you later.”
“If you don’t forget the date-r,” she rhymed.
“I’ll sure be there, I beg to state-r,” he returned as he moved off.
“Wednesday next at this here gate-r,” she called after him, gleeful to get the last rhyme.
He shook his head and threw up his hands as if she had scored heavily against him. That was an instinctive trick of his, to make children feel the keen joy of a mental victory. It gave her a little glow for hours afterward, as he knew it would, and quite saved her from a far-off conscience which told her she had not been faithful to Bardek.