Up Featherbed Lane bounced the van, and there on the porch stood Grandmother and Miss Liza, both with white cheeks and anxious faces, while Grandfather came hurrying from the barn where he had been harnessing old Nero with a speed that quite upset the dignity of that staid Roman-nosed beast.
“Where were you, children?” cried Miss Liza in greeting, twisting the corner of her apron as she spoke. “I ran up here in all that downpour, and I didn’t see a sign of you on the way.”
“My berries are gone,” called Phil. “The big boy ate them. And I was afraid. And we were inside a tent.”
“They are gypsies,” said Susan in a low voice to Grandmother, who was carefully feeling her all over. “They live in a tent. And, inside, that van is just like a doll’s house. Their name is Lee. I wish I lived in a van; it’s better than a tent, I think. And they have the nicest little girl you ever saw. Her name is Gentilla Lee. She likes me, I know she does, Grandmother. I want to go see her again.”
“You are wet in spots, child, and damp all over,” was all Grandmother replied. “Come straight in the house and let me put dry clothes on you.”
Grandfather and the gypsy had been talking together all this time, and now Grandfather put something into Mr. James Lee’s hand that made his white teeth gleam in a smile, and caused him to drive first to the store in the village before returning to his hungry family in their tent in the woods.
Then Phil was escorted home; Miss Liza was driven back to Miss Lunette, who might be worried sick by her absence, Miss Liza thought, but who proved to have slept soundly through the storm; and Susan, her tongue wagging, was put into a hot bath and dressed in dry clothes from head to foot before Grandfather returned.
“I want to go back and see the gypsies,” Susan teased the next day. “I want to see Gentilla. Please, Grandfather, take me to see the gypsies.”
So Grandmother baked a cake in her largest tin, and at the village store Grandfather and Susan purchased several yards of bright red hair-ribbon. With these offerings they made their way to the gypsy tent, and received a hospitable welcome.
The van, with all its conveniences, was willingly displayed, and Grandfather was invited to test with his hand the softness of the beds, the like of which, Mrs. Lee declared, was not to be found in kings’ palaces. Privately, Grandfather believed this to be true, but, of course, he didn’t say it aloud.