long spit of sand and pebbles
ran out from it into the brawling stream. Probably they were not a very
good kind of gypsy, although the story was that the men drank and beat
the women. John didn't know much about drinking; his experience of it
was confined to sweet cider; yet he had already set himself up as a
reformer, and joined the Cold Water Band. The object of this Band was to
walk in a procession under a banner that declared,

"So here we pledge perpetual hate
To all that can intoxicate;"

and wear a badge with this legend, and above it the device of a
well-curb with a long sweep. It kept John and all the little boys and
girls from being drunkards till they were ten or eleven years of age;
though perhaps a few of them died meantime from eating loaf-cake and pie
and drinking ice-cold water at the celebrations of the Band.

The gypsy camp had a strange fascination for John, mingled of curiosity
and fear. Nothing more alien could come into the New England life than
this tatterdemalion band. It was hardly credible that here were actually
people who lived out-doors, who slept in their covered wagon or under
their tent, and cooked in the open air; it was a visible romance
transferred from foreign lands and the remote times of the story-books;
and John took these city thieves, who were on their annual foray into
the country, trading and stealing horses and robbing hen-roosts and
cornfields, for the mysterious race who for thousands of years have done
these same things in all lands, by right of their pure blood and ancient
lineage. John was afraid to approach the camp when any of the scowling
and villainous men were lounging about, pipes in mouth; but he took
more courage when only women and children were visible. The swarthy,
black-haired women in dirty calico frocks were anything but attractive,
but they spoke softly to the boy, and told his fortune, and wheedled him
into bringing them any amount of cucumbers and green corn in the course
of the season. In front of the tent were planted in the ground three
poles that met together at the top, whence depended a kettle. This
was the kitchen, and it was sufficient. The fuel for the fire was the
driftwood of the stream. John noted that it did not require to be
sawed into stove-lengths; and, in short, that the "chores" about this
establishment were reduced to the minimum. And an older person than John
might envy the free life of these wanderers, who paid neither r