“There’s a lot o’ things we ain’t talked over yet,” he rejoined, “and as my old mother used to say, when folks start talkin’ over the affairs of Egypt or about Romany jib they should start early in the morning.
“Well, a pleasant journey to you and the best o’ luck,—hope you’ll get home safe,” was Mr. Beshaley’s parting salutation, accompanied by a reminder about the second Sunday in September for the hops, “for we don’t reckon you a mumply gorgio, you ought by rights to ha’ been a traveller.”
To the echo of this compliment—one of the highest that can be paid to a gorgio in a Romany camp—I set out on my return home and at no great distance ran against the Vardomescroes on the way to their tent.
Again was I enjoined by the man to “let us see you again up in the hop country,” while the old woman chimed in with—
“You will enjoy yourself, I’m sure; just walk about and take photos; lor’, it’s an easy job if ever there was one, but there, I suppose I couldn’t do your work and you couldn’t do mine. Some gets bread one way and some gets it another, don’t ’um? When you come would you mind bringing another photo of Vena; the other day the rain come down so hard that the water run in one end of the tent and out o’ the other and I’m sorry to say it quite spoiled the one you gave us.”
“I shall be glad to let you have another,” I replied, “and will certainly bring it with me.”
After profusely thanking me the old man added, “And I’ll give you some mushrooms, you knows well I ain’t one o’ the ungrateful sort, and if the folks as say we are, had nobody to stand at back of ’em and say a good word, why they might be different from what they are.
“To say the good word for us sometimes would be little enough to do, the Almighty knows, but no, they side with money always, it don’t matter what a man does if he’s got money, he’ll always get helped. But Rye, look here, do you think such folks can be real happy with all their money? I don’t. I’ve just read about a man who shot his wife because she wasn’t true to him, and they had lots o’ money it said, but to my way o’ thinking, if two folks really love one another, nothing else matters; you can buy a house, you can buy land, but love ain’t bought with money. A man may not have a shirt to his back, but when love ‘brews’ inside him, he’s bound to be happy. My missis and me have been married now over forty years, and the older we gets the more we loves one another; God’s in heaven and He knows that’s how it should be, and my missis has always been true to me; if she hadn’t been, I love her so as I could kill her,—yes, I could, and then die like a man and meet her t’other side.
“My daughter Videy, you know, is engaged to——, and he says he loves the very shoes she wears. More than once he’s had to fight for her, and he hasn’t allus come off best, still I admires him for it, for he can’t abear for anybody to say anything agin her.