The Gypsies Part 19

"Do not hurry away! Come again and see us. I think the Coopers are all out in Ohio."

_Dum_, _dum_, _dum_, _patter_, _dum_!

The cold wind and slight rain seemed refres.h.i.+ng and even welcome, as I went out into the cold air. The captain showed me his stock of fourteen horses and mules, and we interchanged views as to the best method of managing certain maladies in such stock. I had been most kindly entertained; indeed, with the home kindliness which good people in the country show to some hitherto unseen and unknown relative who descends to them from the great world of the city. Not but that my friends did not know cities and men as well as Ulysses, but even Ulysses sometimes met with a marvel. In after days I became quite familiar with the several families who made the camp, and visited them in suns.h.i.+ne. But they always occur to me in memory as in a deep Rembrandt picture, a wonderful picture, and their voices as in vocal chiaroscuro; singing to the wind without and the rain on the tent,--

_Dum_, _dum_, _dum_, _patter_, _dum_!

IV. HOUSE GYPSIES IN PHILADELPHIA

This chapter was written by my niece through marriage, Miss Elizabeth Robins. It is a part of an article which was published in "The Century,"

and it sets forth certain wanderings in seeking old houses in the city of Philadelphia.

All along the lower part of Race Street, saith the lady, are wholesale stores and warehouses of every description. Some carts belonging to one of them had just been unloaded. The stevedores who do this--all negroes--were resting while they waited for the next load. They were great powerful men, selected for their strength, and were of many hues, from _cafe au lait_, or coffee much milked, up to the browned or black-scorched berry itself, while the very _athletae_ were coal-black.

They wore blue overalls, and on their heads they had thrown old coffee-bags, which, resting on their foreheads, pa.s.sed behind their ears and hung loosely down their backs. It was in fact the _haik_ or bag-cloak of the East, and it made a wonderfully effective Arab costume.

One of them was half leaning, half sitting, on a pile of bags; his Herculean arms were folded, and he had unconsciously a.s.sumed an air of dignity and defiance. He might have pa.s.sed for an African chief. When we see such men in Egypt or other sunny countries _outre mer_, we become artistically eloquent; but it rarely occurs to sketchers and word-painters to do much business in the home-market.

The mixture of races in our cities is rapidly increasing, and we hardly notice it. Yet it is coming to pa.s.s that a large part of our population is German and Irish, and that our streets within ten years have become fuller of Italian fruit dealers and organ-grinders, so that _Cives sum Roma.n.u.s_ (I am a Roman citizen), when abroad, now means either "I possess a monkey" or "I sell pea-nuts." Jews from Jerusalem peddle pocket-books on our sidewalks, Chinamen are monoplizing our was.h.i.+ng and ironing, while among laboring cla.s.ses are thousands of Scandinavians, Bohemians, and other Slaves. The prim provincial element which predominated in my younger years is yielding before this influx of foreigners, and Quaker monotony and stern conservatism are vanis.h.i.+ng, while Philadelphia becomes year by year more cosmopolite.

As we left the handsome negroes and continued our walk on Water Street an Italian pa.s.sed us. He was indeed very dirty and dilapidated; his clothes were of the poorest, and he carried a rag-picker's bag over his shoulder; but his face, as he turned it towards us, was really beautiful.

"_Siete Italiano_?" (Are you an Italian?) asked my uncle.

"_Si_, _signore_" (Yes, sir), he answered, showing all his white teeth, and opening his big brown eyes very wide.

"_E come lei piace questo paese_?" (And how do you like this country?)

"Not at all. It is too cold," was his frank answer, and laughing good-humoredly he continued his search through the gutters. He would have made a good model for an artist, for he had what we do not always see in Italians, the real southern beauty of face and expression. Two or three weeks after this encounter, we were astonished at meeting on Chestnut Street a little man, decently dressed, who at once manifested the most extraordinary and extravagant symptoms of delighted recognition.

Never saw I mortal so grin-full, so bowing. As we went on and crossed the street, and looked back, he was waving his hat in the air with one hand, while he made gestures of delight with the other. It was the little Italian rag-picker.

Then along and afar, till we met a woman, decently enough dressed, with jet-black eyes and hair, and looking not unlike a gypsy. "A Romany!" I cried with delight. Her red shawl made me think of gypsies, and when I caught her eye I saw the indescrible flash of the _kalorat_, or black blood. It is very curious that Hindus, Persians, and gypsies have in common an expression of the eye which distinguishes them from all other Oriental races, and chief in this expression is the Romany. Captain Newbold, who first investigated the gypsies of Egypt, declares that, however disguised, he could always detect them by their glance, which is unlike that of any other human being, though something resembling it is often seen in the ruder type of the rural American. I believe myself that there is something in the gypsy eye which is inexplicable, and which enables its possessor to see farther through that strange mill-stone, the human soul, than I can explain. Any one who has ever seen an old fortune-teller of "the people" keeping some simple-minded maiden by the hand, while she holds her by her glittering eye, like the Ancient Mariner, with a basilisk stare, will agree with me. As Scheele de Vere writes, "It must not be forgotten that the human eye has, beyond question, often a power which far transcends the ordinary purposes of sight, and approaches the boundaries of magic."

But one glance, and my companion whispered, "Answer me in Romany when I speak, and don't seem to notice her." And then, in loud tone, he remarked, while looking across the street,--

"_Adovo's a kushto puro rinkeno ker adoi_." (That is a nice old pretty house there.)

"_Avali_, _rya_" (Yes, sir), I replied.

There was a perceptible movement by the woman in the red shawl to keep within ear-shot of us. Mine uncle resumed,--

"_Boro kushto covva se ta rakker a jib te kek Gorgio iinella_." (It's nice to talk a language that no Gentile knows.)

The red shawl was on the trail. "_Je crois que ca mord_," remarked my uncle. We allowed our artist guide to pa.s.s on, when, as I expected, I felt a twitch at my outer garment. I turned, and the witch eyes, distended with awe and amazement, were glaring into mine, while she said, in a hurried whisper,--

"Wasn't it Romanes?"

"_Avah_," I replied, "_mendui rakker sarja adovo jib_. _Butik.u.mi ryeskro lis se denna Gorgines_." (Yes, we always talk that language. Much more genteel it is than English.)

"_Te adovo wavero rye_?" (And that _other_ gentleman?) with a glance of suspicion at our artist friend.

"_Sar tacho_" (He's all right), remarked mine uncle, which I greatly fear meant, when correctly translated in a Christian sense, "He's all wrong."

But there is a natural sympathy and intelligence between Bohemians of every grade, all the world over, and I never knew a gypsy who did not understand an artist. One glance satisfied her that he was quite worthy of our society.

"And where are you _tannin kenna_?" (tenting now), I inquired.

"We are not tenting at this time of year; we're _kairin_," _i.e._, houseing, or home-ing. It is a good verb, and might be introduced into English.

"And where is your house?"

"There, right by Mammy Sauerkraut's Row. Come in and sit down."

I need not give the Romany which was spoken, but will simply translate.

The house was like all the others. We pa.s.sed through a close, dark pa.s.sage, in which lay canvas and poles, a kettle and a _sarshta_, or the iron which is stuck into the ground, and by which a kettle hangs. The old-fas.h.i.+oned tripod, popularly supposed to be used by gypsies, in all probability never existed, since the Roms of India to-day use the _sarshta_, as mine uncle tells me he learned from a _ci-devant_ Indian gypsy Dacoit, or wandering thief, who was one of his intimates in London.

We entered an inner room, and I was at once struck by its general indescribable unlikeness to ordinary rooms. Architects declare that the type of the tent is to be distinctly found in all Chinese and Arab or Turkish architecture; it is also as marked in a gypsy's house--when he gets one. This room, which was evidently the common home of a large family, suggested, in its arrangement of furniture and the manner in which its occupants sat around the tent and the wagon. There was a bed, it is true but there was a roll of sail-cloth, which evidently did duty for sleeping on at night, but which now, rolled up, acted the part described by Goldsmith:--

"A thing contrived a double part to play, A bed by night, a sofa during day."

There was one chair and a saddle, a stove and a chest of drawers. I observed an engraving hanging up which I have several times seen in gypsy tents. It represents a very dark Italian youth. It is a favorite also with Roman Catholics, because the boy has a consecrated medal. The gypsies, however, believe that the boy stole the medal. The Catholics think the picture is that of a Roman boy, because the inscription says so; and the gypsies call it a Romany, so that all are satisfied. There were some eight or nine children in the room, and among them more than one whose resemblance to the dark-skinned saint might have given color enough to the theory that 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."

This I thought worthy of the five cents. Then my uncle began to put questions in Romany.

"Where is Anselo W.? He that was _staruben_ for a _gry_?" (imprisoned for a horse).

"_Staruben apopli_." (Imprisoned again.)

"I am sorry for it, sister Nell. He used to play the fiddle well. I wot he was a canty chiel', and dearly lo'ed the whusky, oh!"

"Yes, he was too fond of that. How well he could play!"