“Buy a broom? A nice useful basket? Well, a good comb cheap, lady?”
These questions were asked over and over again by a dark-featured woman in nondescript clothing as she went from house to house. They evidently failed to cause sales, judging from her well-filled basket on one arm and a couple of hard brooms on the other, which she surveyed with a scowl.
“It ain’t any use nowadays trying to sell ’em,” she muttered. “Folks won’t buy as they used to.”
She joined a man, strolling slowly along by the side of their caravan — a horse-drawn wagon that was their house on wheels. An untidy, hard-featured girl with unkempt hair leaned out of the window in front of the wagon, which was hung all over with household items of every description.
Challenging the man, she said in a hoarse voice, “Ain’t no good, Jim; these ’ere ’ouses, the people don’t so much as look at yer.”
“Well, we’ll ’ave to sell ’em some’ow. Try the back doors of them ’ouses yonder. They be larger; maybe the sarvants ’ill buy somethin’,” growled the man addressed as Jim.
The woman turned in the direction suggested, but it was the same tale: “Not today.” With a few exceptions, there was no opportunity given her to describe the virtues of the goods she carried. It was a bad day’s work, with only half-a-dozen articles disposed of, and those of not much value.
The day was closing in, a damp autumn evening, as the caravan drew up to a vacant piece of ground a mile from Wandsworth Park.
A youth of thirteen or fourteen joined the party, composed of the man, known as Jim Smith, his wife, and the untidy and dirty looking girl who, with a most discontented look on her face, had been leaning over the doorway for the last mile or two. Her age would be difficult to guess. Some might guess as young as twelve and others as old as eighteen. The short stature and loose hair suggested the former, but the old expression gave one the opinion she would be nearer eighteen. It is doubtful whether, if questioned, she would have given the right age, as “Sal,” the name she was known by, preferred to pose as a child rather than a woman. It suited her purpose better, but her mother regretted the fact that her girl would “come eighteen” next spring. The boy was less ragged than the rest, but there was an evil look on his face that spoke ill for anyone who annoyed him.
This motley group gathered on the long grass, and set about preparing an evening meal. They were “vagrants” — people with no fixed place to live who wandered idly from place to place often without lawful or visible means of earning a living. Sometimes people called them “gypsies.”
The four always seemed to be arguing about something. Yet they were not more quarrelsome than others in the gypsy community. Besides the four who occupied the caravan, there were two dogs, as dilapidated as their owners. They now joined in the discussion by sundry barks and snarls.
The food they sat down to eat offered little to tempt man or dog. It consisted of some thick slices of bread, which the boy had begged from a house within a stone’s-throw or two of where they camped, a little dry cheese, and an apology for tea made by boiling some water and pouring it on some tea leaves that had been thrown away in the garbage. Poor indeed it was. At times they fared far more sumptuously, when the hungry dogs would bring in a rabbit or a fowl, quite contented with the bones they received as their share. That usually happened when in the country far away from London or during harvest time, when they all worked from early morning to late in the day. Such times were not so hard. Obviously the man did not relish the meager meal that they had to subsist on this evening, though it was not by any means a rare occurrence.
“I say, Meg,” the husband complained to his wife, “what be the reason times is so changed? Ain’t we got more to feed now than when Sal and Jack were little uns, and yet the takings is smaller than in them days.”
“I guess it’s ’cos there’s no young uns to catch the ladies’ eyes. Why, bless you, when ye’ve got a baby with you, they buys from yer, ’cos o’ the child. I can’t get ’em to look at me goods now,” said the woman disconsolately.
Her husband gave a growl as he tossed down the cup of colored water.
“We’ll ’ave to do better afore long; there’s plenty o’ young uns about,” muttered the man and, casting a sidelong glance at the girl, he whispered a few words to his wife. They exchanged a knowing glance. Very little more was said that night, for, whatever the woman thought about his words, she kept her thoughts to herself.
The next morning began bright and warm, one of those days so often met with in September.
“Guess there’d be better luck today,” the woman said to herself. “It ain’t my fault if there isn’t.”
The night before the man and woman agreed that Sal should go out, and it was only by a threat from her father that she sullenly yielded. The woman, the girl and the boy each started out in different directions with well-filled baskets, the lad having brooms. The man, as he usually did, spent the day smoking a dirty pipe beside the van.
“Mind ye get back early, for we ain’t agoing to stay here forever,” were his parting words. Mrs. Smith was used to similar farewells. Considering the lazy way he planned to spend the day, his careless words produced no feelings of regret, as would certainly have been the case in a more regulated household. She would have stood up for her husband at any time. “He ain’t no wuss than others, and a deal better than most of them,” she would argue, when her daughter sometimes denounced his attitude and actions in anything but favorable terms.
It certainly was give and take with the couple. When the man was morose, his wife would retaliate. There was not much good in either to make one choose one over the other.
From door to door the same words were repeated, “Buy a basket or a nice comb, or just a pretty ornament, lady?” Meg found better success this day. Possibly the bright sunshine had something to do with it. People were not quite so ready to close the door with a sharp retort when their hearts were warmed by the brightness of the morning, which was such a contrast to yesterday’s gloom. It was more like a July day than the end of September.
After trudging along, the basket feeling heavier in spite of the diminishing of its contents, Meg was very thankful to take a seat in a seldom-used part of the park. Looking around to be sure no one was watching, she took out her money to count her sales for the day. It was getting late in the afternoon; there was nothing more to be done that day. Sitting there, her thoughts turned back to the conversation of last night and the whispered remark of her husband.
Don’t see any harm can come out, she thought to herself, we shall be moving on in a couple of hours, maybe sooner.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a clear childish voice, “May I go, Tel? I won’t lose my way.” And the response of an older voice, “I don’t think so, dear; Mamma would not approve.”
“But you can see me all the way if you look, cause it’s not crooked,” said the pleading voice.
“Then you are not the crooked man who went a crooked mile and found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile,” said the young lady, who was unmistakably his sister.
There was a burst of childish laughter, and Mrs. Smith, gazing in the direction of the sound, saw a young lady about seventeen leading by the hand a little five-year-old boy. Meg took it all in at a glance.
The child’s face was one that would attract attention even by those uninterested in the charms of childhood. Short golden curls surrounded a face of unusual sweetness, yet full of merriment, cheeks glowing with the ruddy hue of perfect health, and eyes blue as violets, shaded by long silken lashes. The boy was certainly as pretty a picture as one could wish to see, but it was not the face alone that caught the woman’s eye. She mentally took note of the dark-blue velvet coat, with the large pearl buttons, and the high tan boots the child wore, and turned over in her mind what they would cost.
A pretty penny, I’ll be bound. Them things ain’t got for nothing, she mused to herself.
Evidently the pair did not see her, for they were both looking intently for someone they expected to see. As they passed, she continued to gaze after them for some seconds. Then taking up the heavy basket, which seemed considerably lighter now, she began to walk across the park, in the opposite direction to that which the young lady and little boy had taken.
She turned around more than once to gaze after the picturesque pair as they strolled leisurely toward the more frequented part of the park. The child chatted away in his naive manner, so characteristic of an intelligent little boy of five years who has so many questions to ask and objects to point out.
While three years had passed since his fall, little Tan, though now bigger and taller, was still easy to recognize. But was the young lady Ethel? Only a close observer could have detected the impetuous school girl in the tall, handsome young lady now talking so happily to the boy beside her. In disposition it was the same Ethel, but the long-flowing dark hair, neatly coiled up, and a long dress had converted her into what the children call a “grown-up.”
She was her mother’s good helper at home now, for Mrs. Clarke, never very strong, had most gladly given up the innumerable duties of housekeeping to her elder daughter. The doctor had imperatively ordered her to rest more, and she felt it could be done now that Ethel was at home.
Jessie was still attending Miss Bland’s Academy. She was going to be a nursery governess. Slow, methodical, little Jessie had wonderfully developed. Her quiet perseverance had enabled her to overcome many an obstacle at school and at home. All could now see that she had the aptitude to be a teacher.
The highlight of Tan’s afternoon, whenever Ethel would take him to the park, was to go and meet Jessie on her way home from school. Occasionally, Ethel would allow him to run on before her. That afternoon, as usual, he begged to run ahead.
“Well, darling,” said his sister, in reply to his oft-repeated query as to whether he might not “just run a little way?” “I will sit here with my book, and you must not go beyond the bend of the road. I can keep you in view then.”
“Oh, I am glad,” said the little fellow, and giving his sister a kiss, ran down the road skirting the park. Ethel watched him for a moment. It was just the time that Jessie always came along, and she would be at the corner before he reached the bend. Opening a book she carried, she soon became so absorbed in its contents that everything else was forgotten until the church clock, chiming five, aroused her.
Why, it is a quarter of an hour since little Tan ran off. It does not seem possible, thought Ethel as she looked at her watch. He has evidently gone with Jessie. Taking the opposite direction, she leisurely walked home.
It never once occurred to Ethel that he might not have met his sister. She just concluded that it must have been so, and consequently did not give the matter another thought.
Having a few things to order at the grocer’s, it was half-past five by the time she reached home. Her mother had gone to bed with a headache and her father was detained at business, so Ethel had her tea alone with the book for company. At eight o’clock Jessie came home.
“You shouldn’t have kept Tan quite so late, dear,” were Ethel’s first words to Jessie, and the answer drove all the color from Ethel’s face.
“He has not been with me. I haven’t seen him.”
“Not — seen — him,” stammered Ethel. “He went to meet you while I was reading three hours ago by the park. How could you not have seen him?”
“No, I didn’t see him, Ethel. I was busy at school and just left a little while ago.”
“Oh, Jessie, what shall we do? We must find Papa at once. He will know what to do.”
“Don’t worry, dear,” said her sister. “I daresay he has gone by himself to Miss Thornton’s. She will bring him home any minute. Listen, there’s the doorbell now.”
Ethel rushed downstairs, only to find her father and not Tan at the door.
“Why, my dear child, what is the matter?” said Mr. Clarke, kindly.
Ethel burst into tears, and sobbed out, “Tan’s lost.”