Gypsy Breynton | Page 4

a toad that's always on the jump."
"Ow!" said Gypsy, with a little scream, "there's a horrid old snail crawled out my moss!" and over went moss, flowers, basket, and all, down the roof and upon the stone steps below. "There! Good enough for it!"
Tom coughed and whittled. Gypsy pulled her net out of her basket, and put up her hair. There was a little silence. Nothing had yet been said about the image in Gypsy's room, and both were determined not to be the first to speak of it. Gypsy could have patience enough where a joke was in question, and as is very apt to be the case, the boy found himself outwitted. For not a word said Gypsy of the matter, and half an hour passed and the supper-bell rang.
"There!" said Gypsy, jumping up, "I do declare if it isn't supper, and I've got these burs to get off and my dress to mend and my shoes and stockings to change, and--Oh, dear! I wish people didn't ever have to do things, anyway!"
With this very wise remark, she walked back across the ridge-pole and climbed in the window. There was nothing for Tom to do but follow; which he did slowly and reluctantly. Something would have to be said now, at any rate. But not a syllable said Gypsy. She went to the looking-glass, and began to brush her hair as unconcernedly as if everything were just as she left it and precisely as she wanted it.
Tom passed through the room and out of the door; then he stopped. Gypsy's eyes began to twinkle as if somebody had dropped two little diamonds in them.
"I say," said Tom.
"What do you say?" replied Gypsy.
"What do you suppose mother would have to say to you about this looking room?"
"I don't know what she'd say to you, I'm sure," said Gypsy, gravely.
"And you, a great girl, twelve years old!"
"I should like to know why I'm a railroad, anyway," said Gypsy.
"Who said you were a railroad?"
"Whoever wrote Gypsy Breynton, R. R., with my red ink."
"That doesn't stand for railroad."
"Doesn't? Well, what?"
"Regular Romp."
"Oh!"
CHAPTER II
A SPASM OF ORDER
"I can't help it," said Gypsy, after supper; "I can't possibly help it, and it's no use for me to try."
"If you cannot help it," replied Mrs. Breynton, quietly, "then it is no fault of yours, but in every way a suitable and praiseworthy condition of things that you should keep your room looking as I would be ashamed to have a servant's room look, in my house. People are never to blame for what they can't help."
"Oh, there it is again!" said Gypsy, with the least bit of a blush, "you always stop me right off with that, on every subject, from saying my prayers down to threading a needle."
"Your mother was trained in the new-school theology, and she applies her principles to things terrestrial as well as things celestial," observed her father, with an amused smile.
"Yes, sir," said Gypsy, without the least idea what he was talking about.
"Besides," added Mrs. Breynton, finishing, as she spoke, the long darn in Gypsy's dress, "I think people who give right up at little difficulties, on the theory that they can't help it, are----"
"Oh, I know that too!"
"What?"
"Cowards."
"Exactly."
"I hate cowards," said Gypsy, in a little flash, and then stood with her back half turned, her eyes fixed on the carpet, as if she were puzzling out a proposition in Euclid, somewhere hidden in its brown oak-leaves.
"Take a chair, and sit by the window and think of it," remarked Tom, in his most aggravating tone.
"That's precisely what I intend to do, sir," said Gypsy; and was as good as her word. She went up-stairs and shut her door, and, what was remarkable, nobody saw anything more of her. What was still more remarkable, nobody heard anything of her. For a little while it was perfectly still overhead.
"I hope she isn't crying," said Mr. Breynton, who was always afraid Gypsy was doing something she ought not to do, and who was in about such a state of continual astonishment over the little nut-brown romp that had been making such commotion in his quiet home for twelve years, as a respectable middle-aged and kind-hearted oyster might be, if a lively young toad were shut up in his shell.
"Catch her!" said the more appreciative Tom; "I don't believe she cries four times a year. That's the best part of Gyp.; with all her faults, there's none of your girl's nonsense about her."
Another person in the room, who had listened to the conversation, went off at this period into a sudden fit of curiosity concerning Gypsy, and started up-stairs to find her. This was Master Winthrop Breynton, familiarly and disrespectfully known as Winnie. A word must be said as to this young person; for, whatever