CHAPTER VI.
Peggy’s Home upon Wheels.
PEGGY’S caravan was a very pretty, though small, house upon wheels. It was her bed and dressing-room, her study and her boudoir all in one.
Peggy swung here in a dear little hammock at night. The little hair-mattress and the bed-clothes were folded and put away in a locker as soon as she got up, but the hammock was left out. It came in handy at the mid-day halt for dinner, to swing beneath the trees. To lie thus, with the blue of the sky above and the warm sunlight flittering through the greenery of branches, with a book in one’s hand, is indeed to enjoy dolce far niente, and as delightful an experience as any traveller can enjoy.
Old Molly was Peggy’s coachman; she slept on the floor of the same caravan with Ralph the blood-hound.
If you have never seen the inside of a caravan like Peggy’s you scarce could believe what a charming room it makes. It was all mirrors, brackets, lounges, tiny pictures, photos, and flowers, and at night the swing-lamp was lit, and the fairy lights shimmered through the foliage and petals of bright bouquets; it looked like the palace of an elfin princess, and pretty Peggy was its presiding genius.
She had always Kammie, when Kammie was awake and not stalking flies, and she had always Ralph, and to these she used to play and sing. But sometimes of an afternoon a gentle knock would be heard at the door, and lo! there was little Willie with his little violin.
“May I come in, Miss Peggy?”
“Oh, yes, Willie.”
Then out came the mandoline. Willie put on the mute, so that the notes of the violin might be softer, sweeter, and more thrilling. Perhaps Johnnie would now enter with his clarionet, and throw in a bar here and there when it would be most effective. I do believe our little people enjoyed these chance concerts, as Willie called them, better than anything else in their wandering lives.
The great saloon of the large caravan, with its after-cabin, was simply a villa upon wheels. This was the chief abode of Fitzroy and his son Johnnie, who took turn about in driving. But Johnnie also acted as courier, and as the show took up much time on the road, one of this sturdy lad’s principal duties was to ride far ahead, towards evening, to find a suitable field for the camp or settlement. The horses were all fed on good oats, and slumbered at night in an extempore stable composed of bamboo poles and canvas.