me to which they had not penetrated. He
gathered this much of the talk, though much was beyond him. He kept
close to his father's side when the latter took his leave of these new
friends. He wanted these people to realize that he belonged to the
important strange gentleman who had for a moment come so knowingly among
them.

As they climbed out of the sheltering glade he was alive with a new
design. Gypsies notoriously carried off desirable children; this was
common knowledge in Newbern Center. So why wouldn't they carry off him,
especially if he were right round there where they could find him
easily? He saw himself and his dog forcibly conveyed away with the
caravan--though he would not really resist--to a strange and charming
life beyond the very farthest hills. He did not confide this to his
father, but he looked back often. They followed a path and were soon on
a bare ridge above the camp.

Dave Cowan was already talking of other things, seeming not to have been
ever so little impressed with his reception by these wondrous people,
but he had won a new measure of his son's respect. Wilbur would have
lingered here where they could still observe through the lower trees the
group about the campfire, but Dave Cowan seemed to have had enough of
gypsies for the moment, and sauntered on up the ridge, across an alder
swale and out on a parklike space to rest against a fence that bounded a
pasture belonging to the Whipple New Place. Across this pasture, in
which the fat sorrel pony grazed and from which it regarded them from
time to time, there was another grove of beech and walnut and hickory,
and beyond this dimly loomed the red bulk of the Whipple house and
outbuildings. There was a stile through the fence at the point where
they reached it, and Dave Cowan idly lolled by this while the Wilbur
twin sprawled in the scented grass at his feet. He well knew he should
not be on the ground in his Sunday clothes. On the other hand, if the
gypsies stole him they would not be so fussy as Winona about his
clothes. None of them seemed to have Sunday clothes.

He again broached the suggestion about a gypsy wagon for himself and his
father--and Frank, the dog--in which they could go far away, seeing all
those strange cities and cooking their dinner over campfires. His father
seemed to consider this not wholly impracticable, but there were certain
disadvantages of the life, and there were really better ways. It seems
you could be a gy