Chapter VIII: The Gipsies on the Common

Tom stared at Una in surprise.

"Well, you are a funny girl," he said, rather gruffly. "I thought you'd be pleased; it's not often you catch me telling a _girl_ a secret."

Una bent down and began to pick up some of the fallen parcels. She was sorry that she had offended Tom, for it was not often that he condescended to play with or talk to her, and she had felt rather proud when he had asked her to help him that afternoon.

"I thought _all_ girls liked secrets," went on the boy. "You're not a bit like Norah. Why, she'd give anything to know my secret this afternoon."

"Would she? How funny!" said Una, genuinely surprised. "I think secrets are horrid."

"Secrets horrid? Why, they're lovely!" said Tom. "When Barnes--he's our gardener, you know--says he has got a secret to tell me, I know that Bruno has puppies, or that the peaches are ripe and he's going to give me a basketful to take to mother; or he's found a wild bees' nest in the wood and he wants me to help him to dig the honeycomb out; or--or--oh, I can't think of any more now, but secrets are always jolly."

"No, they are not--not quite always," said Una gravely. "But is yours a jolly one, Tom?"

"Yes," said Tom, "awfully!"

"Oh, then, I _do_ want to hear it," said Una eagerly. "Please, Tom, tell me."

"Well," said Tom, "it's just like this: there are some gipsies camping on the common now, and they've got four tiny children, and one's only a baby; and the father broke his leg, some weeks ago, and he's in a hospital at Lawton--the woman told mother all about it when she came to sell chairs and things this morning. She makes dear little chairs, Una, out of oak-apples and chestnuts and things like that; and little picture-frames with grey lichen and acorns and bits of twigs stuck all round; and mother bought a chair for Norah's doll, because, she says, it's much better for them to try and make things like that and try to sell them than just to come round begging, as so many of them do."

Una nodded, as Tom paused for breath.

"Yes, Tom," she said; "go on."

"Well," said the boy, "mother sent Barnes round this morning to see if it was all true; and it is true, quite true, Barnes says. And so mother said I might take them some bread and a pot of marmalade, and butter, and a packet of tea, and sixpence to buy milk with, and then just as I was starting father gave me the six-pence he said he would for weeding the big bed beside the lawn; and so I spent it on biscuits and sugar for the children, because tea is horrid without sugar, isn't it? And that's the secret, Una," said Tom, getting rather red in the face, "and I haven't told anyone but you, because, because, oh--I don't know! But I don't want anybody to know, so you won't tell, will you?"

"No, I promise I won't tell," said Una. "And I think it is an awfully nice secret, Tom dear, and thank you very much for telling me."

"You see," went on Tom, feeling that Una was rather a nice little girl to tell things to, "you know what father said in his sermon last Sunday about not letting your right hand know what your left hand does? Oh, no; I forgot you weren't there. Well, it means if you go and do anything for anyone, or give anything away, or anything like that, don't go and tell everyone what you're doing, just for them to say what a jolly good sort you are."

"Oh, yes, I see!" said Una; "that _would_ be a horrid way of giving things, wouldn't it, Tom? Yours is an ever so much nicer kind of way."

Tom grunted, feeling all of a sudden rather bashful; for it was not often that he talked about himself or his own doings. He was rather the odd one of the family--Norah and Dan being such very great friends, and having so many little plays and fancies together in which he had no share; and Philip and the elder girls being rather inclined to class him with Norah and Dan--as one of the "little ones"--when they came home for the holidays.

"There they are!" he said suddenly. "Look, Una, you can see their wigwam through the trees--that funny sort of hut-place with a rounded roof."

"The gipsies?" said Una. "Oh, Tom, do they live in that funny little house?"

"Yes," said Tom, "and when they want to go somewhere else they just pack up their hut--it all comes to piece somehow--and then go off in that cart. It must be awfully jolly to live like that."

"Yes, in the summer," Una agreed, "but not in the winter, Tom. Oh, no!--not in the cold, cold winter, when the snow is on the ground," and Una gave a little shiver at the thought.

"No," said Tom, "not in the winter, perhaps, and not when they haven't enough to eat, like these now. The woman said she'd only had half a loaf of bread to give her children all yesterday, and that is why mother sent them a great can of soup by Barnes this morning, and I'm taking them these things now, because they're going on to-morrow towards the hospital where the children's father is. Now, what are you going to do, Una? Are you coming too, or going to stay here?"

"I'll stay here," said Una, "if you can carry all the parcels."

"Yes, I can," said Tom. "I carried them all the way from the shop to where I met you in the wood."

Una piled the parcels carefully one on the top of the other in Tom's arms, then sat down on the mossy root of a tree, and watched him as he crossed the common towards the little brown hut among the gorse bushes.

A thin wreath of smoke curled upwards from a small fire in front of the hut; and as Tom drew nearer two children began to throw twigs and branches on the fire, making it crackle and blaze while they danced wildly round the flames, giving little squeals of delight and hitting at each other with the sticks they held in their hands.

It was all fun, however. Una could tell that by the peals of laughter which reached her ears, and she laughed, too, when a little thin black dog sprang out of the hut, joining madly in the dance, and barking furiously when he caught sight of Tom coming towards them.

The children stopped dancing and looked at Tom gravely; then they disappeared inside the hut, calling to someone within, and the next moment a woman came out with a baby in her arms, and another little one clinging to her skirts.

She bobbed a curtsey to Tom, and presently began to take the parcels one by one out of his arms, bobbing lots of little curtseys as she did so; but Una was too far off to hear what Tom and the woman were saying to each other, and she was disappointed when they all went behind the hut and she could not see them any more.

She could still see the parcels where the woman had laid them in a little white heap beside the fire; and by-and-by one of the children came round from the back of the hut and began to open each of the packages in turn, giving little hops and skips of joy as he saw the nice things inside.

Then the other children appeared again, followed by Tom and the gipsy-woman; and they all bobbed curtseys to Tom once more before he left them and came across the heather towards Una, carrying something very carefully in a red pocket-handkerchief.

Una went to meet him through the trees.

"What have you got there, Tom?" she asked.

"Another secret!" he cried, waving the handkerchief to and fro before her eyes.