“What are you searching for?” he asked.
“I am searching for thread, that I may weave into some kind of cloth and sell,” she said. “Otherwise we shall surely starve, for I have no money left to buy it with, and nothing more left to sell.”
“I will go and get you something to weave,” said the boy, and he ran out into the road, and looked up and down it to see what would come past. Presently there came up a big cart laden with straw, and on the top of the cart lay one man, while another drove. The horses went slowly, and the gipsy boy followed them, and began to beg.
“Run off, little chap,” cried the man at the top, “I have no money to give to beggars.”
“But I don’t ask you for money,” cried the boy, “but of your charity give me a handful of straw.”
“And what do you want with a handful of straw?” asked the carter, as the boy still went on begging.
“Why, see!” cried the lad, “I am all in rags, but if my mother had a handful of straw she can weave me a coat, and I shall be quite warm,” at which the men both laughed, and declared that the idea of a coat of straw was very funny, but the driver said, “Well, give some to the little chap. I expect he comes from a lot of lying gipsies further on, and they want it for their animals, still it won’t do any harm to give him a few wisps,” and so they flung down a bundle, and the boy picked it up, and ran back with it to the potter’s wife.
“See what I have brought you,” he cried. “Now make that into a mat, and I will take it out and sell it, and bring you back the money.”
The potter’s wife was amazed by his cleverness, but she knew that the gipsies had to live by their wits, and that teaches them to be sharp, so she sat down, and tried to weave the straw into a mat, as the gipsy boy had said.
At first she found it very hard to use, for it was coarse and brittle, and she thought she could make nothing of it. The lad sat beside her, and cut it into even lengths for her, and chose out the good pieces, and at last betwixt them it was done, and it looked quite a smart little mat, and the boy took it on his back and ran away with it to the village.