Still smiling, he bowed himself into his tent, and closed the flap.
“We may be slow,” Weston said grimly, “but we are sure. We will be in Pine Grove before sunrise. Hop in, little lady, and we’ll step on the gas.”
A motorist traveling that long and lonely road, mapped out by the gypsy and taken by Merry’s “Golden Circle” that night, might, had he been traveling in the opposite direction, have marveled at the motor transports he met that night.
The first was high, broad and long, a gaudily painted house on wheels. On its seat rode three men. At the back of this traveling house was a room, much like the one room apartments of a modern city. Two broad berths let down from the ceiling were occupied; the one on the right by a girl, the one on the left by a woman and child.
The girl was Petite Jeanne. With her golden hair all tossed about on her pillow, she slept the sleep of innocence.
Do you marvel at this? Had not a gypsy van been her home in France for many a happy season? Ah yes, this was truly her home.
From time to time, as the van jolted over its rough way, she half awakened and found herself wondering dimly what beautiful French village they might be near when they camped for breakfast in the morning. Happily sleep found her again ere she was sufficiently awake to realize that she was in the bleak interior of America; that she was with strange gypsies, and that she had no money.
The woman and child across from her were not so fortunate. The child, a girl of two or three years, whose eyes were dark as night and whose tangled curls were like a raven’s wing, tossed about in her bed. She was burning hot with fever. The mother slept fitfully. Often she awakened to sit up and stare with big, motherly eyes at the child; then with tender fingers she tucked it securely in. The gypsy mother loves the children God has given her.
Three hours back on this road a second truck made its lumbering way through the night. On its seat, taking turns at nodding and dozing or driving, sat three men. They were not well clothed. The night wind blew all too frankly through their threadbare coats. But their hearts were warm, so they cared little for the wind.
At the back of this truck, buried deep in a pile of ragged quilts and blankets, was blue-eyed Merry. She slept the long night through.