The Gypsy Lad of Roumania
By Zelia Margaret Walters
CHAPTER ONE.
Michael, the gypsy chief, came out of his hut, his black eyes gleaming with anger.
“Where is that boy Peter?” he shouted. “I will beat him until he knows who is chief here.”
The gypsy children quickly crept into hiding places as they saw the big stick in the chief’s hand. The women, cooking the noonday meal before the doors of their huts or tents, looked down, and stood motionless as he passed. Even the men who were in sight, slipped back into the doorways, or hid behind a tent, until the chief was gone. No one wanted to cross him in his wrath. Up and down the rows of tents he went, without finding the unlucky boy who had aroused so much anger. At length he turned back into his own tent, muttering fiercely about what would happen when he caught Peter.
Meanwhile, the boy himself lay snugly hidden in some bushes at the farther end of the camp. He had no notion of intruding himself upon anyone’s notice just then. He would have plunged into the wood, and gone farther away, but for a reason most important to a healthy, growing boy. It was dinner time, and the smell from those kettles, bubbling out in the open air, was so tempting that he could not summon courage enough to go. He had no mother in the camp to save something for him, or to seek him out with some food. There was just one person who might be kindly disposed in the face of the chief’s wrath. Peter waited until everyone else was busy with dinner, and then creeping near the tent of the old woman who befriended him, he called softly from his shelter, “Taka! Taka!”
The old woman looked toward the bushes and then as he called a second time, she came nearer, and said, “Hush Peter! Come not in sight.”
“I’m not going to, Taka,” replied the boy. “But I am hungry; can you not give me food?”
“Yes, yes,” she said. “Let me look first if any observe me. Then go into the wood, Peter, and come not back to-day nor to-morrow. Perhaps by the next day, his anger will have cooled.”
Finding that everyone else was too busy to notice her, she carried a big wooden bowl of the stew into the bushes where Peter was crouching. Then while he was eating, she came again with a large piece of black bread, such as the gypsies baked before their open fires, a piece of dried meat, and some cheese.
“Put these in your wallet,” she said. “They will keep you from starvation until you can come back. What did you do to anger him this time, foolish Peter?”
“He left me to watch a hare while it roasted before the fire. But I heard my pet dove calling in fright. I
“Hush, Peter. Come not in sight.”
ran out and was just in time, for a hawk was pursuing it. When I came back the hare was burned on one side, and he beat me, and said as soon as he could lay hands on my dove he would kill it and eat it. And you know, Taka, it comes flying to my shoulder whenever it sees me, so he can easily catch it if I stay in his tent. So I have decided to run away. I will not come back unless he will let my dove alone.”
Old Taka shook her head wonderingly. “You cannot be a true gypsy,” she said. “Never before have I heard of a gypsy boy who tried to make terms with the chief. The chief does as he will, and it is for us to obey him.”
At this moment, there was a stir in the camp. Taka forgot all else in her fondness for her foster child.
“Get thee away, Peter, and hide till I give thee some sign,” she whispered.
The boy stole noiselessly through the bushes, pausing only to take a white dove that perched on a branch close at hand. He did not come back that day, though the angry chief watched for him. When nightfall came he was far away in the forest, sleeping snugly on a bed of dry leaves. He did not venture near the camp the next day. The third day, hunger drove him back. But where he expected to find the busy gypsy village, was a quiet forest glade. There were the trodden places where the tents had stood, the stakes to which the animals had been tethered, the heaps of ashes where kettles had boiled.
The knowledge that he had been left behind was paralyzing for a few minutes. Then, suddenly cheered by a hope, he turned toward the spot where Taka’s hut had stood. He was not disappointed. Taka had remembered him. In a hollow stump, carefully covered, and weighted with stones to keep it from animals, he found bread, cheese and dried meat. He sat down to eat, putting off the disagreeable task of planning some course of action. He ate as much as he could hold, and then scattered crumbs for the dove which flew about him.
For three days, he idled in the forest, eating and sleeping when he would. Then, the food being gone, hunger drove him from the place of the encampment. He traveled all of the next day, and saw but a single house. From that, he was driven away. Weary, hungry and miserable, he lay under a tree that night. The next day he went on. Toward noon he saw a number of burrow-like structures on the hillside. These were the underground homes of the poorest of the peasants. Very timidly he approached the first one, and asked for food.
“Surely child, come in and eat!” said the tall, stately peasant woman who heard him. Like a royal princess, she led the way over the rough earth floor. She seated him on a couch covered with sheepskins, and gave him bread and meat in his hand. He ate ravenously. But even in the midst of his meal, he paused to give crumbs to Beauty. The woman’s grave face lightened.
“Thou art a kind boy,” she said.
“Nay,” said Peter, in some wonder, “but I love Beauty. I would not have him go hungry.”
When Peter had eaten, she bade him lie down and rest. He fell asleep almost immediately on the sheepskins. He was awakened by voices, and sitting up, he thought the low room seemed full of men. But it was only the farmer and his three sons, home from the fields. A smoky oil lamp burned on the table, and the wife was setting out an abundant supply of black bread and meat.
As the men ate the meal, Peter sat rather forlornly among the sheepskins, wondering what they would do with him.
