“It’s too bad!” said Gypsy. “Let him go, Tom—do.”
“He should have stayed where he was told to,” argued Tom, who, like most boys of his age, had a sufficiently just estimate of the importance of his own authority, and who would sometimes do a very selfish thing under the impression that it was his duty to family and state, as an order-loving individual and citizen.
“I know it isn’t so pleasant to have him,” said Gypsy, “but it does make him so dreadfully happy.”
That was the best of Gypsy;—she was as generous a child as poor, fallen children of Adam are apt to be; as quick to do right as she was to do wrong, and much given to this fancy of seeing people “dreadfully happy.” I have said that people loved Gypsy. I am inclined to think that herein lay the secret of it.
Then Gypsy never “preached.” If she happened to be right, and another person wrong, she never put on superior airs, and tried to patronize them into becoming as good as she was. She made her suggestions in such a straightforward, matter-of-fact way, as if of course you thought so too, and she was only agreeing with you; and was apt to make them so merrily withal, that there was no resisting her.
Therefore Tom, while pretending to carry his point, really yielded to the influence of Gypsy’s kind feeling, in saying,—
“On the whole, Winnie, I’ve come to the conclusion to take you, on condition that you always do as I tell you in future. And if you don’t stop crying this minute, you sha’n’t go.”
This rather ungracious consent was sufficient to dry Winnie’s tears and silence Winnie’s lungs, and the three seated themselves in the little boat, and started off in high spirits. It was a light, pretty boat, painted in bright colors, and christened The Dipper, it being an appropriate and respectful title for a boat on the Kleiner Berg Basin. Moreover, the air was as sweet as a May-flower, and as warm as sunshine; there was a soft, blue sky with clouds of silver like stately ships sailing over it, and such a shimmering, bright photograph of it in the water; then Tom was so pleasant, and rowed so fast, and let Gypsy help, and she could keep time with him, and the spray dashed up like silver-dust about the oars, and the bees were humming among the buds on the trees, and the blue dragon-flies, that skipped from ripple to ripple, seemed to be having such a holiday. Altogether, Gypsy felt like saying, with famous little Prudy,—
“Oh, I’m so glad there happened to be a world, and God made me!”
After a while Tom laid down his oars, and they floated idly back and forth among the lily-stems and the soft, purple shadows of the maple-boughs, from which the perfumed scarlet blossoms dropped like coral into the water. Tom took off his cap, and leaned lazily against the side of the boat; Winnie, interested in making a series of remarkable faces at himself in the water, for a wonder sat still, and Gypsy lay down across two seats, with her face turned up watching the sky. It was very pleasant, and no one seemed inclined to talk.