Quite a head above the Gaskins and Brinkleys with whom she was talking loudly, stood Wythen, Anselo’s wife, who, happening to look my way, smiled and came towards me, holding out the empty bowl of her pipe.
“Got a bit of tuvalo (tobacco) about you, rashai (parson)? I’m dying for a smoke.”
“So bok ke-divus?” (What luck to-day?) I inquired, handing over my pouch.
“Bikin’d tshîtshî” (Sold nothing), she replied, jerking her whip towards the ponies, “but I’ll duker (tell fortunes) a bit this evening,” adjusting her black hat with its large ostrich feathers and gaudy orange bow set jauntily at the side.
On my pretending to ridicule dukerin, she said—
“Look here, now, what’s the difference between a Gypsy telling fortunes at a fair and a parson rokerin (preaching) in church of a Sunday?”
“If that’s a riddle,” said I, “it’s beyond me to answer it.”
“Well, when folks do bad things, you foretell a bad future for them, don’t you? And when they do right, you promises ’em a good time? What’s the difference then between you and me? I’m a low-class fortune-teller and you’s a high-class fortune-teller. You’s had a deal of eddication. My only school has been the fairs, race-courses, and sich-like. But I bet I can tell a fortune as well as you any day. Let me tell yours.”
And she did.