Then the humour of the situation seemed to strike both, for they burst into peals of laughter.
“What are we to do with the trap?” said Aveline. “We can’t drag it back ourselves. And what about the pony? He’s playing truant!”
“And Mr. Rivers said he was so quiet and well-behaved that a baby in arms could drive him!” declared Raymonde, much aggrieved.
“Well, they shouldn’t patch their harness with 135 bits of string!” said Aveline. “It’s very unsafe. I noticed it before we started out, but I supposed it would be all right. Hallo! Here’s Dandy back! Somebody’s caught him!”
It was the gipsy woman who made her appearance, leading the pony. She looked rather scared, and much relieved when she saw Raymonde and Aveline standing safe and sound in the middle of the road.
“I thought for sure someone was killed!” she remarked when she reached the scene of the accident. Though the girls had been frightened of her before, they were glad to see her now, for they had no notion what to do next. She at once assumed command of the situation, sent one of the children, who had followed her, back to the caravan to fetch her husband, and with his assistance set to work and patched up the harness.
“We’re tinkers by trade, lady, so we know how to put in a rivet or two, enough to take you safely home, at any rate; but they don’t ought to send that harness out again, it’s as rotten as can be. Mr. Rivers’s, did you say? Why, it’s his farm as we’re going to, to pick strawberries, as soon as we can get there, with our horse lying dead!”
A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind, and before the harness was mended the girls had struck up quite a friendship with the gipsies, which was further cemented by the transference of half a crown from Raymonde’s purse to the brown hand of the woman, and the bestowal of the greater part of Aveline’s chocolates into the mouths of the dark-eyed children.
Dandy was placed between the shafts once more, 136 and the parcels were restored to the gig. The girls, being doubtful as to the security of the hastily-mended harness, did not venture to mount inside, but led the pony by the head, lest he should be inspired to race down another hill. It was a slow progress back, and the workers were just returning from the fields as they reached the camp. Naturally there were no potatoes for dinner that day, though Raymonde and Aveline congratulated themselves that the bread was just in time. They were the heroines of the hour when they related their adventures, and even Miss Gibbs did not scold them, though they afterwards heard her remarking to Miss Hoyle that Miss Jones was a poor manager, and ought to make better arrangements about catering.
“Gibbie’s got to let fly at somebody!” chuckled Raymonde. “If it can’t be us, it’s someone else, but she’d better not try criticizing Miss Jones’s methods to her face, or there’ll be fighting in the camp.”