t he was

"One whose blood
Had rolled through gypsies ever since the flood."

There was also a girl, of the pantherine type, and one damsel of about
ten, who had light hair and fair complexion, but whose air was gypsy and
whose youthful countenance suggested not the golden, but the brazenest,
age of life. Scarcely was I seated in the only chair, when this little
maiden, after keenly scrutinizing my appearance, and apparently taking in
the situation, came up to me and said,--

"Yer come here to have yer fortune told. I'll tell it to yer for five
cents."

"_Can tute pen dukkerin aja_?" (Can you tell fortunes already?) I
inquired. And if that damsel had been lifted at that instant by the hair
into the infinite glory of the seventh sphere, her countenance could not
have manifested more amazement. She stood _bouche beante_, stock still
staring, open-mouthed wide. I believe one might have put a brandy ball
into it, or a "bull's eye," without her jaws closing on the dainty. It
was a stare of twenty-four carats, and fourth proof.

"This here _rye_" remarked mine uncle, affably, in middle English, "is a
hartist. He puts 'is heart into all he does; _that's_ why. He ain't
Romanes, but he may be trusted. He's come here, that wot he has, to draw
this 'ere Mammy Sauerkraut's Row, because it's interestin'. He ain't a
tax-gatherer. _We_ don't approve o' payin' taxes, none of hus. We
practices heconomy, and dislike the po-lice. Who was Mammy Sauerkraut?"

"I know!" cried the youthful would-be fortune-teller. "She was a witch."

"_Tool yer chib_!" (Hold your tongue!) cried the parent. "Don't bother
the lady with stories about _chovihanis_" (witches).

"But that's just what I want to hear!" I cried. "Go on, my little dear,
about Mammy Sauerkraut, and you will get your five cents yet, if you only
give me enough of it."

"Well, then, Mammy Sauerkraut was a witch, and a little black girl who
lives next door told me so. And Mammy Sauerkraut used to change herself
into a pig of nights, and that's why they called her Sauerkraut. This
was because they had pig ketchers going about in those times, and once
they ketched a pig that belonged to her, and to be revenged on them she
used to look like a pig, and they would follow her clear out of town way
up the river, and she'd run, and they'd run after her, till by and by
fire would begin to fly out of her bristles, and she jumped into the
river and sizzed